makes everything in measurable. as we spend a lot of time arguing whether or not barack obama was proposing that panels for old people and 24% -- 24% of republicans believe and in even higher percentage believe he might not be but he's working for the united states islamic republic. >> i'd love to know what that's like, 7% of people who think that he's a modern muslim.

>> we have a smaller percentage of people who believe that global warming is man-made. a phenomenon even though during this period the evidence for that increased because fox is so financially successful. i think fox news alone made $500 million whereas msnbc makes a little bit of profit and cnn loses money on its operations in the united states. and so, cnn, and to some degree of the larger networks hates fox news and so you get cnn was sponsoring the debate with the tea party. you have the broadcasting look

at this woman, michele bachman. she gave a speech to weeks ago where she applauded the u.s. constitution for ending slavery i'm not making this up. i'm not making this up. remember the glenn beck rally on the mall the hired helicopters to get the crowd estimate, the estimate was 87,000 people. the was the honest estimate to figure so somewhere between 80 to 100. michele bachman gets up on the stage and she says don't let anybody tell you that there's under a million people here. the tea party sentence don't let anybody tell you -- it's like clenching your years and screaming while somebody tries to say reality is over here and that is who 50 party picks to represent them and respond to

the president of the united states and that's who cnn shows the broadcast without interference, without any sense of obligation to correct the lives and the liver the misstatements that she made and that are made all the time so when you think about it from the perspective of the president of the united states, who has a very complicated agenda it's hard to pass health care in this country because you have to write a bill that is hundreds and hundreds of pages and it's easy to manipulate and miss portray and it's really hard to pass a bill that deals with the problems of global warming because there are so many economic trade-offs and so many uncertainties. and again, financial regulation is incredible. we all agree it has to be done but how you deal with it is difficult because the financial system is so complicated. and if you've got to do it through this prism of deliberate

obfuscation and extortion and manipulation, when the slightest little thing can be blown up by the operation, operating in concert the irresponsible movement and the political party that is dedicated only to undermining the president it becomes damn near impossible to pull this thing off and it's not just fox news or cnn.com it is a classic standard throughout the entire media that comes from both the declaration on the ground be arriving from the financial underpinning but also the success of fox news. i will stop because of, and plenty of time here the specifics of 2009, nothing got

new gingrich for a second. he was the leader of the failed republican party. he was having a heart attack about clinton getting a blow job and yet he was having an affair the same time. it was neither fair. his wife had to go on welfare and get money from her church because he was a deadbeat dad and then he went crazy after that. so, he said things like he endorsed the notion that barack obama is leading the country on the basis of i don't know, who is it, some leaders say and colonialist ideology. it's the craziest nonsense imaginable that anybody who says these things they should be handing out nine pieces of paper on the streets from the messages

they get. they should be on television. well, new gingrich was the single most frequently booked guest on meet the press in 2009. he had no official position of any kind. now, he used to be the speaker of the house, okay? the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, was not on meet the press in 2009. and if you add up all of the ex speakers of the house, besides newt gingrich invited on meet the press it doesn't increase the number of appearances at all. the only speaker of the house ever to be invited on meet the press is new gingrich, the single most invited guest on meet the press in 2009 and he's crazy. he says things about our

president that are -- that note leader should believe and yet it is in this atmosphere that what this president has to pass the complicated and difficult and in many respects very demanding legislation so all four of these problems are very serious and they can't be solved by the president himself even if he had a better communications job. even if he had done a few things more smartly than he did. they require your and engaged citizenry and the required when the political movement that's better organized and smarter and more disciplined than the one we had. we deserve kind of a break after we elected barack obama and start electing that man president particularly after the

horror that we've lived under bush and cheney but it turns out not to have been enough, it turns out to have been the beginning and not the end, and i take some comfort. it's a little bit hokey and overoptimistic i take some comfort in the fact that roosevelt was elected as a very conservative democrat in 1932 and then became probably the most progressive president perhaps ever by 1936 and was in part a response to the economic circumstances and response to the social movement that we are pushing roosevelt and a learning process. so i'd like to think that it's possible for the second obama administration to take on the direction of the second roosevelt at ministration but things aren't moving that way right now and they aren't going to unless everybody buys and read my book. [laughter] thank you very much. [applause]

>> if you have a question you can step up to this microphone and i would like to remind friday that his book the kabuki democracy is available at the bookstore the other end, purchase it there. bring it back to this room for the signing after the q&a period. we have about 15 minutes for q&a so i would ask you keep your comments and questions brief and to we go. >> thank you for a great talk. but roosevelt, as you know, was aided by the dominant media, most of them any way and two-thirds of the nation's newspapers landed in 1936 and the father and the popular demagogue who was against him at that point and yet he still triumphed. i wonder in some ways the media is in the problem maybe this is at least an economic issues,

issues of, quote, big government, the conservative country and perhaps you're putting too much emphasis on the media. >> i appreciate your question but you came late. [laughter] you came late to class and there was most discussion of the related points before i got to the media. but i will grant the point that the progressives have an additional problem i discuss in the book that didn't get a chance to mention which is that the american ideology is anti-government. it is -- there is a libertarian streak that runs through both of the left and the right and that some of the most inspiring statements for the libertarians are for people like thomas paine and emmerson and so forth, the government that governs that i

believe d'aspin. it's correct in the book. and so the president needs to find an alternate mythology as the successful progress of president has done, and it leaves me again to my most significant criticism of this president which is he had forgone the bully pulpit this week for those of you that what c-span or hbo have had the chance to see john kennedy inaugural address as well as a member of the press conferences i wrote a book about kennedy. there were a lot of significant problems but one of the wonderful things about john kennedy was the rhetoric he brought to the country. the inspiration he brought to people to move them through to put their lives in the dark in

the direction of the art of justice. barack obama did a wonderful job of that during the campaign and then just stomped on day one of the presidency and got involved in the legislative debates over which rule was the and to be included and which drafted which bill and that is a terrible mistake. ronald reagan did both and there is no reason obama couldn't have done both as well and beginning in tucson, in tucson he started batman returns, the one that brought tears to our eyes, and i think would be a terrible mistake for him to return to the style. >> can you talk about your thinking of the title of the book, and the second one, are you saying they shouldn't have shown michele bachman at all on cnn or they should have had

analysis or framed it in some way because i think i might be curious and i have one more. >> i don't have any problem with them reporting on michele bachman's crazy speech and say look what she said come here is the truth. that is with the irresponsible media would do or questioned her and say the constitution thing anyone ever mentioned the memorial but just to show it as if they were the equivalent of an act of state deserving of respect without context or criticism that would teach the response. the book is called kabuki democracy because -- and i might be wrong about this. a couple of people have told me i'm being unfair with this title. but to me, it implies that the theatrical and that of the

democracy, so look back from afar and people are going through the motion of having the democracy and the actual democracy has been hollowed out by the things i described in this book, primarily money, but the other factor as well. >> for my most important comment i'm interested in psychological manipulation and public mystification and the mystification and language and one of the things i will say is i went to the cleantech rally and listened to newt gingrich and if probably hired consultants in framing the way -- and the anticolonial and he hasn't said he's anti, he says what is he, like ask a question. i mean, very sophisticated in the progressives are not so good of that and the one efrain i want to throughout that i think there is a problem with using the term global warming and you

can bet after the snowstorm that tomorrow they're going to see al gore was wrong because it snowed and a better term and more accurate would be climate khios because the chaotic patterns we should use the term climate chaos. >> thank you. for talk reminds me of some of the books triumph of conservatism is one book which takes a look at the kind of iraq herbert crowley and lewis can out of struggling to create regulatory. i think that kirkland's book was a somewhat revisionist thinking of regulation as a reestablishment of the status quo. do you think that's why we have so much problem with so much antiintellectualism it's so easy

to take advantage of the symbol media -- sample media with the complexity we have here? i'm going to go back and read kirkland's book again i think after listening -- and the committee for the industrial relations. some of the interlocking directorships that is in the, enter's bouck of the documents of american history. >> that's a good point but i said one reason i wrote this book and i have to say that i'm kind of proud to only have a couple hundred pages is that it's not any one thing. we have a whole set of problems that create a system that is sporadic and any number of ways. the antiintellectualism of our discourse is a significant problem particularly when it is easily manipulated by sarah palin on twitter or mashaal bachmann or just the dumbness of cable news but it's not a

problem and if we solve the problem list of the problem of money in the system and we still have the problem of the democratic sponsored senate so we need to take a more holistic view of our systemic problems some time ago here in virginia the individual mandate of the health care bill was ruled unconstitutional in part and then in florida the rule the entire thing unconstitutional and now we that the debate has been framed and going to guess the supreme court the legal system will probably -- the week of the issue is framed will determine what is decided and i was wondering if he could speak about what to think of the legal institutions in this country have to deal with the way that laws are passed and enforced. >> i'm going to answer in such a way that i love what i'm talking about rather than answer your question where i wouldn't know when i was talking about but it's also you giving me the

opportunity to see something important i didn't get to say. i have to see what's at the root, the most important single problem we have is the power of money in our political system. and that is a legal problem because the supreme court insists on defining money of speech and corporations as people and they don't really have injury good basis particularly with regard to corporations as people. it's very murky as to why that should be the case. there is i think and i site somewhere 100 years ago where it was mentioned, and then build on. there was never any absolute decision by any court that ruled on that. and as long as the corporations have money and speech we can't really regulate our politics. they can get away with just about anything and that is a long-term battle we have to

fight. in the meantime, we need to do something to try to equalize the power versus the power of money and i would strongly urge every progressive person and every progressive group to take a look at the power of money in their particular issue and i do think it's possible to make the case that we could say taxpayers are fortunate in this country if we publicly finance our election and we wouldn't have to pay for all these giveaways for the people paying for the election. every other democracy does it. there's no other democracy that allows money to exercise the kind of power that it does in our country and we pay a fortune for it but because it is one step removed and it doesn't get covered much by the media it is ignored. the power of the issue of money and politics that they don't

cover its power. it's not covered when the decisions are being made. they are treated like it is a battle between nancy pelosi and john boehner and the insurance industry but the pharmaceutical the industry are not in the room at time and those are the ones writing the legislation so fundamentally if there's one thing that can be taken away from what i'm saying is you can't talk about any issue of progressive politics without understanding the media context but could become a c and d understanding the role of money and what needs to be addressed. >> my question has a lot to do with what you mentioned. understanding the power of money and politics goes a long way into understanding the difference or the discrepancy between obama, the campaigner who was outstanding and the president who is a bit disappointing. and i guess my question about that would be do you have any

idea why they didn't use campaign finance reform as some kind of an agenda that he would try to implement in the first term? bye understanding of what happened in 2008 is that somehow thinks to his skills as an outstanding campaigner he was able to circumvent the issue of power for the money and politics because he was able to reach out to people who would chip in ten, 20, 50 bucks. >> understandably that part is mistaken. that is what they portray themselves as doing when in fact they were relying on the big donors and the lion's share of the money came from big donors and the new edited out raise mccain two or three to one and they were unwilling to give away that advantage and the president cannot raise a challenger in a case like that so from the standpoint of obama's personal interest, he has no interest in supporting a campaign finance

reform for presidential elections because he's going to out raise with the republicans put up in the presidential race but the rest of the system continues to be a wash of money because in fact we have had campaign finance reform with the president in the past and we did have a reasonable system in place which hasn't fallen apart because obama wanted out but it was getting weaker and weaker and less and less up-to-date. sallai dewitt obama would say to the broad issue of why he didn't make good on his promise to clean up the system and drive the lobbyists from the temple is the fact that when he got they're the system was in crisis and we were losing 80,000 jobs a month and the guy was down 5,000 points and the confidence was

clashing and as we didn't have the luxury of remaking the system would be like rearranging the shares of the titanic he needs to make the system work and get it going again before he could address it, but once he did that the opportunity to reform it was lost because everyone became ensconced in their place. usually the other thing i hate about the obama administration is the way they make fun of liberals for saying we are disappointed in you. he should be saying okay i did my best i'm going to keep fighting. instead he said you whiny little twerps why don't you shut up and appreciate all was done for you, you make me sick. that is just plain stupid even if you think it's true. but in the case of the system he's got a pretty good argument he hasn't owned up and so can now i'm going to go back and fight for the things i believe

in. he won't admit. it's possible for the people in power to admit there can be better ways to do things than the way they chose to do them and so i'm afraid in that respect that opportunity has been lost in part for good reasons but in part for the fact that we just can't do everything at once. do we have time for one more? >> i want to follow on what you just said, you had a personal interaction with obama and were very impressed with his ideas and how they fit into the progressive agenda, and then those of us that believes in the progress of agenda's been the last two years been disappointed and then we also want to present these ideas he was again very much fighting in the coming up against the whole system that we know is in place that's going to

very much discouraged this agenda and the way the we want to present it and the way that many people in this country feel and believe and needs to be acknowledged. and my hope is that he understands all of the things you understand and the progressives understand in terms of how the system works and how the system is going to be dealt with and somehow he has a plan in terms of dealing with the obstruction he's going to come up with in terms of delivering what it is from his campaign when he was going to be about to deliver and whether or not there should be some hope i guess is what i'm looking for that ultimately if he gets another term he will be able to deliver on those. >> good question. well said. you can rest assured he understands the things i anderson and and more. i feel confident about that.

there is a quote in my book i borrowed from david remnant's book from one of obama's mentors in chicago who taught obama when you can't get the whole hog you have to be happy with a ham sandwich and he's very much a ham sandwich man to the and these are the rather systems today. will there be a tastier sandwich with better portions of the pig in the future? i had this theory i thought it was a great theory and i wrote it three or four times obama ran this great campaign seeing he was going to unite us and we have to work together and lower the tone of things and he was going to work with the politics and people wanted that and that was great and it was a good way for a black man to become president of the united states particularly with the middle

name hussain and a last name that rhymes with osama, it was very comforting. and then he would try to do it but of course it would be impossible because republicans had no interest in cooperating. so then he could have said hey i tried to be nice, i tried to be a good guy, they won't play along. now i have to wash the floor with their face. we never got to that point. he's still saying he's calling to try harder and harder to be nice to them and the media are demanding that he speaks out further and further, give them his untie your shoulder not just the double down cut off. and he seems to not be picking up the second part of the strategy that i had planned for him that i thought was such a good idea. so i was genuinely confused. i thought what i thought he was doing made a lot of sense, and i told bicol it's all part of the plan.

maybe it is an eight year plan and not a four year plan. supposed to end these things on hopeful notes so that's my hopeful note maybe it is an eight year plan but it's going to require a lot of work on both kind of people that push like president roosevelt as well and that there were job. o.k. i guess it's not the end. we have one more question. >> has to be hopeful question or we are not taking it. >> i have a suggestion to help you really relief your confusion. as a black person who has noticed a long time now, i was an >> -- i wasn't disappointed or in any way confused who obama was because i didn't vote for him, i voted for the real black candidate in the election, and it's kind of disappointing that

from a lot of black people's perspectives that they didn't expect a whole lot from obama because of who he put in office and the bus he rode on, that kind of thing, and reverend wright and everybody under the bus, so it was kind of clear for anybody there was black and understood american policy the way he was going and what he was about command to that end, i would suggest you read or kind of book marked black agenda report and black commentator into your bookmark because everything you said was like talked about way back when and it is no surprise who obama is and how he acts, because either he's smart or he isn't smart. either he's a constitutional law professor and understands the constitution or he isn't. so either torture is torture, indefinite detention is an indefinite detention, either of these things are what they are or they are not what they are.

>> okay. i would just point out that there were two groups in the 2010 election where barack obama did roughly as well in 2008, democrats did roughly as well in 2010 as they did in 2008 where obama received over 90% of the vote and where he received over 70% of the vote. so you may say that louis farrakhan and reverend wright are not but i would disagree. i think barack obama is a plaque that blacks can be proud of and that the fact that he doesn't happen to agree with you and mckinney and reverend wright and louis farrakhan is the reason that he is seen by all kind of americans, white, black, brown,

yellow, red, has a leader and wouldn't be seen as such if he held those views. so we have to fundamentally disagree that is the problem. thank you, e dana priest.

this is an hour and a half. >> i would like to introduce to you first and again to be acknowledged sydney, our curator, and the current curator of the poke awards, john darnton. >> thank you very much, dr. steinberg. i'd like to welcome you all here to this event. as you know, the george poke seminar is a one time of year when we get to wrestle with some of the major issues about

journalism and to discuss them with some of our winners. i would like to say first of all, i'd like to acknowledge the center for communication which is the cosponsor of this event, and it's exec -- its executive director katharine williams. our theme this year is penetrating the vail of secrecy. we are troubles coming up with the right metaphor, but i think you understand the right idea, how reporters go about pursuing their subjects, how they use their considerable array of tools and skills to get information that's hard to get. in short, how they penetrate that wall of secrecy that surrounds so many of our institutions today both public and private. i think one could say that in this day, there are more and more authoritarian regimes, governments, corporations, and other entities like the military that are keeping more and more

things secret, and, yet, crying out and publicizing those secrets are more important than ever before for people in democracies and dictatorships. from water gate to wikileaks, that tug of war, that battle between secrecy and revolution, it takes different forms and different shapes at different times, but essentially, it remains the same. tonight, we're fortunate in we have a really star-studded panel here. the reporters that you see on this stage have all done major investigative work. they have covered and written about the military, intelligence agencies, the police, and the prison system. obviously, all four of those institutions have put a premium on guarding their secrets. let me introduce them.

to my immediate left is michael hastings. his article in the july issue of "rolling stone" was probably almost as explosive as the cover photo of lady gaga in the g-string yielding two assault rifles. [laughter] as you know, it led to the immediate dismissailing of -- dismissal of general stanley mcchrystal in afghanistan. for six years, mr. hastings worked for "newsweek" including a two year stint in iraq. he covered the 2008 u.s. elections for the magazine, and then left, i think he quit in to a certain amount of disillusionment. he wrote an article for "gq" stating objectivity is a faulty. he wrote a book about the death of his fiance, an aid worker killed in a bombing in iraq

called "i lost my love in baghdad, a modern love story." to his left, dana priest is one of the countries foremost invest good investigative reporters working for four years on the "washington post" on beats including the pentagon, national security, and intelligence. she's covered the invasion of panama and wars in iraq, kosovo and afghanistan and traveled widely with army special forces in asia, africa, and south america. she's won numerous awards, so many if i were to list them, we'd be here half the night just listening to them, so i'll just say they include two very special ones, two george polks and two pulitzers, one for revealing the existence of black site prisons, the cia interrogation centers overseas, and a more recent one for

disclosing the horrendous conditions at walter reed army medical center p. she is the author of a much acclaimed book, a plies diser finalist -- pulitzer finalist in keeping peace with america's military. further down the line is ac tompson. he came to journalism through a side door. in the san fransisco bay area, he was a self-proclaimed rocking the couch circuit. [laughter] he was an editor then with specific news service who happens not incidentally to be this year's winner of the george polk lifetime achievement award. he began freelancing and writing for the "san fransisco bay

guardian" specializing in abuse in authority and corruption. he now works for propublic cay and port of a book called torture taxi and won a george polk for local reporting in 2005. the front line documentary that won him this year's george polk award discloses killings of civilians by police in the aftermath of katrina in new orleans. i think we have a snipit from the introduction which we can play now. ♪ >> tonight on front line, an exclusive investigation in the chaotic days after hurricane

katrina -- >> people were killed by the new orleans police department. >> 11 civilians shot by new orleans police officers. >> this will not be tolerated. >> as rumors circulated about marshal law. >> i heard rumors that was in place and there was rumors, no, it was not. >> i never heard mar shall law. >> they could suspend their own rules. >> do they expect us to go through streets shooting looeders? >> an order was given police officers authorization to shoot looters. >> they revert back to what it's always been. >> that's the guy? tonight, the story of one of those killings. >> what happened here wound upsetting this chain of events

that turned the new orleans police department upside dop. >> questions about a coverup. >> the way it was destroyed told a story. a homicide. >> ac thompson and frontline investigate law and disorder in new orleans. [applause] >> finally, wilbur. he's a last minute addition, and if anybody knows about secrecy behind walls, it is he. if mr. tompson came in through a side door, he came in through the back door. he was interested in journalism after serving a lifetime

sentence known as an goal ego la and send there at the age of 19 after killing a bank teller during the bundled robbery. in 1976, he became editor of the prison newspaper, the angleite using it to shine a light on conditions and practices that were shocking and rarely talked about. a film he directed, "behind bars" won an academy award nomination. "life" magazine or "time" called it the most reabill at a timed prisoner in america, and yet, for years, he could not get out. finally in january, 2005 after a jury clintoned him on a lesser charge, he was released on time served. he's the author of a book, "in

the place of" which i have to recommend to you. i'm halfway through it. it's an absolute page turner, and he won a george polk award in 1979, but could not obviously pick it up, so he is here and will be at our luncheon tomorrowment i think we have footage of him in an angola. >> as we take an extraordinary look inside angola, louisiana's maximum security prison. he's spent 33 years on the inside. no one knows prison life better than wilburrideau. he was sent here for stabbing a 47-year-old woman to death. he was 19 years old. >> all the psychological and

social crachs that prop you up and enable the average person to walk a line and go about their lives, all that is removed. i mean, you have absolutely nothing. you got to build an existence in a vacuum. >> he did just that teaching himself to write. he became the editor of the prison magazine. he won national awards in journalism for his stories about the violence, depravity and dangers that are part of life in prison. so a few months ago, we asked him to take us into this world he knows so well. this is pictures of prison life from the inside out, images no one on the outside could possibly get. [applause] >> we'll have a discussion running perhaps 45 minutes or closer to an hour.

i want to leave time for questions from the audience. when you do have questions, and please make sure they are comments, not speeches, approach -- we have a microphone at the bottom of each aisle. you'll need to actually speak into the microphone to be recorded. i'd like to start with you dana. your series, top secret america, an absolutely chilling description of a kind of national security concerns in bureaucracy run amuckment i amuck. i think you said after 9/11 there's something like 1200 government organizations and 1931 private companies working on counterterrorism of related things. you and the cowriter took two years on this material. how did you get the idea for it

and go about assembling all that information? >> well, briefly, i'd covered intelligence and the military after 9/11, and when we got done trying to figure out what happened on 9/11, who al-qaeda was, we decided to say what's the government doing? what is the government doing to try to fight this war that was now called the global war on terrorism? unlike the military which is a relatively open organization compared to the intelligence world, we counted find out -- couldn't find out because it was al classified, ology of it was -- all of it was classified. that was the secrecy world we were up against, but managed to write about the cia for many years and other parts of it. there's a certain point, ben and i, who have been colleagues for a long time, talking a lot on the phone about what we see and what do you think it is and

things like that, you know, there's something going on here that's very big, and it's structural, it's probably permanent. you know, i can feel it wherever i go, the number of organizations, the number of the prorifflation -- proriff ration of code names, the units, so why don't we figure out how to map it and how to describe this huge thing which was big because the military's large and there's 18 intelligence agencies within the state government, and so we took a long time figuring out how would we do that? we decided based on in part in the experience i had doing black fights knowing that even the cia, you can put a coverup over things that you try to keep secret, but everything lives somewhere. you know, it doesn't live in the clouds. it leavings here on the earth

-- lives here on the earth. we said, well, what if we then did sort of a mapping of our own of what we came to call an alternative geography of the united states, sort of mapping the dna of the secret world, and we started at the secret level looking for units and organizations and companies that did work through the government at the secret levels, classification, and we found so many that we said we're never going to get through this, let's go to the top-secret level which is much more difficult because that actually is a huge leap. >> how do you get the names of the companies and organizations? >> well, it was then -- i'll tell you one fun story about that. i mean, some of them were a process of just taking the organizations we knew. bill is a self-described

obsessive person and routinely looks at the government in places people don't normally look at. if there was an anomaly, he would spot it. for years, you know, he'd go through and try to find these things. one example. he had a name of an organization that he was convinced was a secret organization, and so i got the address, and i went to crystal city where it was located, and we knew the street and the name and the floor it was located on because he had records of wiring contracts that would wire cables from one office to another, and so he knew there was a triangle of wires between this organization, a very secret organization in the pentagon, and another building by the same organization in another place in crystal city, so we went looking for it. we knew what floor it was on,

and went to the lobby, and we were looking for the 15th floor, and the lobby had an electronic one, you scrolled everything in the building, and it stopped on the 14th floor. i'm thinking, we need the 15th floor. [laughter] i went up and got into the elevator and saw there was a 16th floor button, so i pushed it, and i went up, and, you know, ready for who knows what, but found a janitor instead. [laughter] went around the corner, and there's the sign and the camera that looked at you and the warning signs to go away and all of that. i did the same thing to another building also in this triangle, and, again, the marquee outside, this was an air force building, had a lot of the names to different air force organizationings, but nowhere was the defense policy analysis

office. again, it didn't exist, and so clearly we learned if i went back to the crystal city place that i had gone through many times reporting about the military, i now started looking at marquees, and there's big giant buildings like 15 storiesal and had -- stories tall and had nothing on the marquee other than joe's pizza place that was downstairs. [laughter] he was doing his thing on deep web searches which is something everybody should learn how to do better, and with contracts, paperwork, with a lot of interviews that i did with people i'd either known for a long time in the intelligence world, and you have to accumulate sources over a long period of time who pointed in other directions who came up with over two years time, a map that actually pin points where it all is, and then we tried to figure out what all these things

did, not in any real gran nuclear level, but what do they work on generally, and then you'll see on our website which is washingtonpost.com/topsecret amr washingtonpost.com/topsecretamer ica, you can play around with the data base that shows you where how many things work on x, y, and z, and you'll see one of the big patterns we found was redundancy and the thing had not just grown. in fact, it doubled in size in most places prior to 9/11 and that the money was flowing so quickly that no one really paid much attention to where it was going. if you had an idea, you could get it funded, and therefore what developed is a huge redundancy in almost any place you can imagine. >> yeah. >> that's one of the -- >> in fact, we may have a chart or two that ran with this story. if we could throw that up. i think they are kind of amazing. it shows -- there you are.

[laughter] look at that. goldberg -- while i describe this as chilling, there's so many agencies and redundancy and everything that no one can possibly get a handle on it. it's like drying from a fire hose instead of a glass of water. >> general clapper, he actually said, the biggest person who knows it all is god. ->> it certainly wasn't created by god though. did you at any point in time when you had to verify the information, i know you interviewed defense secretary gates, did any of them say please don't publish this or parts of it, and did you hold anything back? >> you know, i mean, you have to -- national security

reporting, your balancing is things that really need to be kept secret because lives are at stake, an operation that clearly crosses the line and is at stake and others are described on a cay-by-case basis, and it's hard to imagine unless you're getting into that realm. in all cases where i have something obviously secret and the government feels they make it secret, they classify it for a legitimate reason, that, again, that's what they are doing. they are trying to work to do it for legitimate reasons because it damages national security are what the rules are, and then i'll always tell them what it is that we have, and so that they can make an argument that if you publish this, whatever argument they want to make, and in this case, they did make an argument that many member of details that

we have would be damaging, and for us -- and actually they said don't publish this. we're going to publish it, can you be more helpful and explain what your concerns are. we didn't get very far. >> did you hold stuff out? >> we did, but we did that because when we internally discussed what it would be, we had some people who are in -- who have been in the intelligence that are no longer there and also really value what the post does, to talk through the various aspects and could we be setting people up for damaging, you know, results, but we didn't want to do that, and what we always have to do is we walked as far up to the line of giving readers information that has details to make the story authentic because if you notice, there's not very many people

quoted in it, we walk up to the line without hopefully crossing it and not damaging any national security things, but also not gray -- gray tiewty putting stories in it. >> you're comfortable with it and feel nothing in your article really ended up being all that sensitive or at least -- >> well, i'm sure there was a big hoopla over it because for one, it put all the names of the companies together, and the companies didn't like that even though this was based on unclassified information which another interesting dynamic that we can talk about with wikileaks is that the same kind of declassifying things, like ridiculous things in some cases, there's an enormous amount of queries on the there on the web and elsewhere that can lead you

along the trail we took so the government has no idea what is out there to be had. >> yeah, they don't even know. adam, in your documentary, you con accept traited on the 31 -- concentrated on the 31-year-old man hen ri, and why did you choose him to tell the larger story? >> he was a 31-year-old man father of four shortly after hurricane katrina, and we understand he was going to get goods taken from a dimestore. there were pots and pans and candles and stuff, and he was shot by a police officer near that dimestore. he sought help. his brother and a good samaritan and other person rushed him for help, and one thing that didn't go into the documentary that's worth saying now is this was on

the west bank of the mississippi after hurricane katrina. it didn't flood there, but there was no power or water and the conditions were really rough. it was within new orleans proper, and the closest hospital was across the per rich line in the next one over, and there was a barricade there and they couldn't get through because the law enforcement was set up there, so this was a group of foir black men in a car, one of had just been shot, and the driver said we have four black men in the car, we're not going to get through into the largely white neighboring parrish, and we're going to the closest place to get help, and that's to this police encampment up the street at a school. they didn't realize he was shot by a police officer, and so they sped him to this swat team outpost that took over the elementary school and showed up there that, hey, these guys know

cpr, rush him to the hospital, treat him here, they probably have medical supplies, they'll help him. they didn't. what they did is they physically attacked the abled bodied men, three abled bodied men and left henry to bleed to death in the back of the car, and then the officers took henry's body and the car that the good samaritan had been driving, drove it over to another police station, parked it on the banks of the mississippi river, set it on fire, left it there and pretended he was a piece of garbage and was not a human and didn't matter, and they covered it up for three years until i started poking into it, and yeah. >> when you poked into it you were clearly running a risk. i noticed you even interviewed the deputy police commissioner. they must have known what you

were looking into. did you have any kind of frightening moments, encounter hostility? did you get -- how did you get people to open up including his brother who i think was one of three, wasn't if? >> yeah, you know, there's two important things here, and one is first like the bigger challenge rather than the awesome action movie stuff like getting threatened by cops and stuff -- [laughter] honestly it was bureaucratic. the secret eat here and weapon here was our attorney. every single piece of documentation that we wanted to get, we had to threaten to sue to get, so the attorney who worked with me on the tv and on the stories, the print stories, she was the one who did a lot of the hard work. they didn't want to give up anything from the coroner's office. we had to sue them to get the autopsy report. >> tell them what you were told when you went to the coroner's office. >> i called the corns' office

because i wanted to see the autopsy of people who died after hurricane katrina. i said, you know, would you like me to make a formal public record's request? i know this is a public document under louisiana law, and the staffer said, well, you can do that, but we don't follow the law anyway. [laughter] so we prevailed, but that's how everything was with the police records, the coroner reports, with everything.

>> they were exonerated. they were paid $7 million by the city. so i knew that these kind of things happened and there were, in fact, times that people did incredibly damaging things and they conspired to do them and i didn't get it for two years at the time in new orleans and i would meet these -- i would meet -- i met with a source who said, you know, i don't want anyone to know i'm meeting with you because the police will -- you know, if they find out, they'll end up doing something like planting 3 pounds of cocaine in my car. i thought this person is crazy and watched too much training day, too much cerp co. and after i started interviewing a lot of cops who had actually done that, i realized, oh, i know i should have been -- yeah, i was kind of naive. this is how it actually goes down in new orleans. >> in san francisco also, you

wrote about social injustice, housing projects. what drew you to this as a kind of specialty? is there something in your background or why are you -- why did you dig deeply in this one particular area? >> you know, it's really this. and i've been thinking and partially it was -- it was early on with my mentoring with sandy close an award winner here this year -- i'm interested in the stories of people from the ground up. and the stories of people at the bottom. and the stories of people who aren't being talked to in the media. and that's the way i approached all these stories. so my point of entry for doing the investigation into what happened with henry glover was really through his family. it wasn't through people at the top of the police department saying, oh, this horrible thing happened. no one is doing -- it was from the very people at the bottom that no one had talked to. and if anyone had just gone and spent time with them and listened to them, they would

have seen this story. and that's kind of another kind of secrecy that there are people that just are not listened to. that just don't get a chance to communicate their message and that's what i tried to do a lot. >> go to places where don't -- talking to people who aren't talked to, there's a whole other world. >> exactly, exactly. >> michael, speaking of starting at the top instead of the bottom, your piece on general mcchrystal, obviously, had a huge impact but i read somewhere that you were surprised by. did you know what you had when you printed it and you told "newsweek," i'm actually surprised by the response. >> one of the reasons i was shocked by the response and still am is that i've been covering the wars in iraq and afghanistan for five years and usually no one cares about what you write.

ironically, there's jaw-dropping stuff that come out that leaves nary a dent in our public consciousness. so my thinking at the time -- i knew it was good material, but my thinking was, well, you know, maybe they'll talk about it on cable for a couple hours and then i'll go on my merry way and, you know, write a book about that time with a crazy general. so -- so i was quite surprised. i mean, i guess one of -- one of the sort of write kind of am coming from on this story was that, you know, for years doing -- working for "newsweek" and filing a lot of reports and covering the war in iraq, what i realized what would happen often is that the most interesting parts -- what i felt of my files and stories were actually being taken out of what was getting published. it wasn't that it was -- you

know, the news was always there. it was the offhand comment. what people really say, how people really act, these details i find really fascinating but they would never really make it -- >> editors would cut them out and you thought they were telling details? >> and editors -- but then i'm probably rightly so because they weren't necessarily -- didn't fit in the medium that i was kind of writing for. when i decided to leave "newsweek," one of the things i wanted to do that would capture all those details and one of the first big stories was for gq where i went out in this outpost with this group of 20 guys. and talk about people who never -- no one ever listens to the average soldier, the private and the specialist. he lives his life not being listened to, right? and all of a sudden here's this dude who comes up and you say your job is just to listen to all the complaints i have? [laughter] >> and unlike my buddies who have heard them for like two

years straight every day since basic training, it's all new to you? and i'm like yeah and you're going to put my picture in a magazine? yeah. >> i have to say, there's a lot of good military reporting coming out of both iraq and afghanistan. >> sure. >> in which reporters talk and live with directly with the people doing the fighting. it's kind of a unique picture. back to the general, do you think he should have been fired. >> what i've done was going to guard duty with them and listening to them talk for hours. and so the idea of the story of general mcchrystal, no one has hung out with these top-ranking guys and sort of told it like it was with them, you know, so that's what my sort of thing -- should he have been fired?

that was president obama's decision. >> how did you manage to achieve this fly on the wall status? how did you get access? i know you've said the most surprising things happened right in the first 24 or 48 hours when you met them in paris. >> right. >> how did you in a way get yourself in their confidence? and did you have to establish any ground rules at all? >> i didn't have establish any. i mean, in this case it was pretty straightforward. it was not that dramatic. i wanted to do a profile of general mcchrystal. and he said come next week. i showed newspaper paris and we sort of -- and i said i would like to do the story of part of you guys hanging out in paris and the other part hanging out in kabul.

yeah, come in, you know? and i followed him around with a tape-recorder and a note pad. and a lot of the stuff that ended up -- that became sort of controversial was all said within the last 24, 48 hours. i knew i kind of had my story but then, you know, the volcano went off in iceland and i kind of got -- end up getting stuck with them for longer, which was advantageous in the end because i got a sense of who they were. >> i read this in preparation for a couple -- you know, i'd say four or five times. it's interesting the quotes from mccrystal himself are not really that damning. there's three things, one about biden, one about eikenberry and one not wanting to receive emails about -- >> three of the people you tracked.

[laughter] >> i wouldn't say it was trashy, but the damaging quotes came from people who came from him close to him -- >> that's not true. if you read the story, the most damning quote that's been quoted by everyone is biden, vice president biden, bite me. >> it wasn't bite me. it was who's biden. >> it's the point is that mcchrystal in that scenario is the up with who started making fun of vice president biden and left the door open for the comment to follow. so this idea that it was just his aide saying this stuff is -- >> no, i didn't say it was just his aide. i said it was interesting that a lot of the material seemed to have come from people under him. i don't think that makes it invalid in any way. maybe even valid. but many of them weren't quoted

by name so you must have said i won't quote you -- >> we had their name -- i had their names in the original draft but my editors took them out for readability. and they did say stuff that was off the error and if i would have published that, that would have been a real story. i stuck to -- i mean, one of the sort of interesting aspects to the story and going back i have a book that's coming out about it. and i was going back and sort of listening to my first interview with them and, you know, my first interview with general mccrystal. it's a really amazing part on the tape and he said oh, michael is going to be hanging out with us for the next couple days in paris. and the general says, that's great and the president said is

there anything he should ask the staff? which is the closest moment of sort of establishing, you know, some kind of framework for what story they were expecting. >> i don't mean this to be a contentious question. i mean, obviously your pieces created some controversy among your colleagues. >> uh-huh. >> do you think it is fair to hang out with somebody over a long period of time or even a short period of time and kind of, you know, go drinking with them, listen to them -- >> i didn't drink with them. [laughter] >> go to a bar in which they're getting hammered and -- >> have you read rolling stone? [laughter] >> hang out somebody and hear their sort of off-the-cuff comments? >> i'm going to contest every inaccurate thing you say.

[laughter] >> jokes, and i'm not saying they're irrelevant jokes, just comments, things people say, you know, banter among them. but let me finish. [laughter] >> do you think -- >> i've heard this before i know where you're going. >> into a kind of larger portrait? >> sure. i think the key in this sense were not offhand comments that got directly at the idea of civil military relationship which is the key component to our counterinsurgency strategy in afghanistan. so when you had the top general of the war showing such -- and his staff and the general is responsible for the command climate. when you had the top general of the war and his staff consistently making comments that were derogatory about the civilian leadership, whether they were justified or not to make those comments, that to me was clearly -- clearly an important story to tell.

>> wilbert, can you tell us this kind of quickly how journalism attracted you when you were in angola and what it meant to you and what it did for you? >> i discovered when i got off death row, i discovered myself what was at that time the bloodiest prison in the united states. and i saw things that were just absolutely horrific. i've never, you know, been in a world like this before. and i just couldn't believe that people knew what was going on. they couldn't know. the rest of society couldn't know, because if they did know, i don't think they'd go for what was going on. and you send people to go to prison but not what took place in prison. but then i decided i wanted to

be a writer, so i decided try telling what was going on. i wrote newspapers and asked for a forum and the only one that answered me back was a chain of back weeklies for the louisiana and mississippi and say, hey, we'd like to have a column, a weekly column from you called "the jungle," that's what i saw the prison as a jungle. and i started writing a weekly column. i didn't know who was reading me. as it turned out several years later, the director -- a brand-new director of corrections came in and he had been reading me. and he liked what he read. and he felt that i wanted to tell the truth about what was going, so we -- he also felt that a big problem in prison and

a misconception that the keeper and the kept had about each other and the reason they were so ready to believe the worst of each other was because of the way they perceived each other. they felt a free press, you know -- the press plays this role out in the streets in the free world. it educates people about people, you know, both sides, everybody. and he felt that if you could transfer this -- if you could pass -- you see in the past information was passed through an information grapevine. if you could transfer that over to a legitimate forum, that's a free press, then it would, you know, maybe it could change things. and he asked if i'd do it and i told him only if it was not censored. and he surprised the hell out of

me by just saying, okay. you have to understand, censorship has been a religion that's been practiced universally in america's prisons forever. and this is the first time. and that's the way it happened. he just said okay. and we shook hands on it, but there was a condition. we were given the power to investigate, photograph anything that we could substantiate. and publish any story just so long as it's true. and if we didn't know the truth, at least make an honest effort to find out what the truth was. and his thinking was that, you know, the prison was so horrific, what are you hiding it for? you know, if the public knew the truth, perhaps they would be moved to change things. and that was the wholie giof it.

>> did you find a difference in those who were being kept to those who are keeping? >> they did. what we did we wrote about both sides. we covered it like a community, the same way "the washington post" covers washington, d.c. and everything -- that's what we did. and we tried to be a very real publication even though we were all self-taught journalists. we didn't know what we were doing. but we had an idea by, you know, you read other publications; you see what they do, okay, let's try to do the same thing. and that's the way we did it and we thought we did pretty good. >> you certainly had a number of major storms about sex slaves, about the defect of the electric chair that was burning people. >> yep. >> how --

>> well, the defective electric chair, we did that because we discovered there were some photographs. and when i discovered about the photographs, i realized that -- they were in court and none of the other news media would publish it. and -- i mean, the most effective way to do this is -- you know, if you're going to -- if you're going to do something, you ought to be able to at least look at what you do. if you can't look at it, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it. so we published them. we got the pictures. we published the pictures. >> what was the reaction of the other inmates, the other prisoners, especially, say, to the story about sex? >> on sex, most of the prisoners, as a rule, whether they engaged in it in the sexual bonds or they didn't. they did not like the story because they didn't want people,

their friends and relatives in the outside world, to think that they had anything to do with this kind of stuff that was going on because understand what we did -- at that time prison authorities nationwide used to portray sexual violence as isolated incidents, and they were done by gay inmates or, you know, weirdos. and the reality were heterosexuals were doing this. and the gay inmates quite often are victims. and it was done with the tacit approval of the administration although they would say, hey, we've got nothing to do with it. you know, we can't control this. well, they were doing it. because it divided the inmates. as long as you've got one segment of the inmate population controlling the other and they're slaves, well, you know, it makes the prison a whole lot easier to run. and we were able to get, because

of this director of corrections who ordered everybody to answer questions whenever we asked them about their job; they had to tell the truth. if i wanted to see a receipt, they had to let me see it, but no personal stuff. as long as it's business. >> did you have to run the stories by anyone, by the warden before printing them? >> we had to -- we had to get -- we had to run it through penny gresham. she was our supervisor at the time. and she was the assistant to the warden. because the warden didn't have time to deal with it and she read it. in fact, she went back to school and took a six-month -- i think studied journalism just to see what it's about, to be a more effective supervisor because she knew what the director wanted. he wanted a very real publication just like the "new york times," "the washington post" and any other. he took pride after it, especially after we started winning awards.

[laughter] >> you know, and -- but the thing was we were able in the sexual violence thing is that we were able to get officials from the warden's chief of security, everybody to admit what they were doing. they admitted what goes on. yes, they do have these accommodations. yes security forces do this. they admitted it. that's the first time the administration just admitted that happened. and, in fact, they reported that at the next american correctional convention, they were boycotted by some of the other correction administrators 'cause they couldn't understand they let that cat out of the bag. >> let me ask just quickly each one of you for -- about the impact of your stories. dana, do you think the black sites which created a huge feweror when that story was printed still exist? >> no, obama ordered the last ones -- well, actually bush

ordered the last one. he ordered all the prisoners sent to guantanamo. there were 14 of them that were still left in the black sites at the time he did this, which was about a year after the stories ran, and then closed the final one after obama came -- became president. they closed the final one which was in afghanistan so there are no black sites. and then it led to a number of investigations on capitol hill which is a little ironic because some of those people that were calling for investigations knew what was happening. but when the democrats had little power was published they said very little, but when they became the majority they started using it for a political advantage and really that's when things started happening although overseas, in europe, they immediately had many investigations. every country in europe was

inquired almost by the population to investigate and to say whether they had a secret prison. and, of course, the way that these were arranged were with the heads of intelligence agencies or the presidents who usually were no longer in power. so the governments have all denied that they had any prisons where they had them, however, there are plane records that show the planes landed in certain places and so, you know, there's a police chief where there were. >> your articles definitely changed the entire set. >> right. in this case i think it's more of a diffuse issues because we're dealing with the whole system. there have been a number of investigations launched and gates has said that he wants to review all intelligence programs to cut out redundancy. i think it is something that's moving but it's at a slower place because again there's 18

agencies. they're all separate and independent. the budgeting process is what the. the congress has a vested interest in not changing things. and who wants to have say we're not spending enough on counterterrorism. >> adam, as the new orleans police department, do you think change has happened in any significant way as a result -- >> a lot of them have gone to prison. >> just last week the man who shot -- >> i'd say that's changed. [applause] >> since i started this cycle of reporting in 2007, eight people have been indicted as a result of the reporting, so there was one person who was indicted on hate crimes charges for shooting an african-american man in the face allegedly because of his race. then there were two officers indicted for lying about their shooting of a man in a back after hurricane katrina. he died. and then there were the five officers who were indicted in

connection to killing henry glover and like you said one of them got 25 years. another got 17 years. a third is awaiting sentencing. and two of them were acquitted. but more broadly, what i thought about doing those stories over at the point years. sending people to prison for killing citizens, that helps reform them. it didn't do enough, though. it's the beginning of that process and the broader process is underway in new orleans. the federal government, the justice department, started a civil side investigation of the police department. they started to say, hey, we want to go beyond charging people in these individual cases. and they released 158-page report of their findings documenting systemic ongoing civil rights violations by the department. what is likely to happen is the

department of justice will go into court with the police department. they will get a consent decree, that will lead a judge monitoring the department over three or five or an unlimited number of years and there will probably be a 30 to 50-point checklist that will be, hey, these are the things you need to improve in the department, citizen complaints where citizens can actually complain and have their complaints heard, internal affairs, so that officers actually effectively investigate misconduct. so people aren't getting shot in the back unnecessarily and that process is likely to go on for years. but it has the possibility of dramatically transforming the department in a way that goes beyond just sending a handful of officers to prison. >> michael, you've been back to iraq since your article. do you think there's been any

shift or change in that relationship between the civilian elected leaders and the people actually running the war in which the power had gravitated or maybe was taken by the military ones and also any change -- you emphasized this very important strategic policy in which they tried to minimize civilian casualties that made soldiers feel they were more at risk. has there been a change in that with the change in command or is the military just such a large organization that it doesn't change very easily? >> well, i think there's still pretty significant problems, civil military problems. and we're going to see that play out over the next few months as the white house tries to push for a drawdown of american troops on the july 2011 deadline and general petraeus in the pentagon is really going to try to resist that. in terms of the civilian casualties issues, air strikes

are up. so that's pretty significant. these are all incidents that lead to more civilian casualties and there was an incident where a whole town was wiped out and then we're now rebuilding it. there are no casualties there, but clearly, i think, though they say -- though they say there's no difference in the rules of engagement, there actually has been one. >> in your piece you said there were 854 people who had top secret clearance. that does not even include a previously obscure private bradley manning who i think who had clearance for classification. if there are so many people who have access to classified or top secret information, if it's so widely disseminated, how can you keep it secret? and should you keep it secret?

well, there's secrets who should be kept secret, one example, nuclear codes, how you keep a nuclear weapon viable. there are. i would never argue there is not. every panel, every body that's ever looked at classification issues in a systemic way say things are overclassified. and the incentive is to classify something. that's the safe way. and why risk not doing enough. let's do too much? so, you know, that is one -- that's one issue. there's pretty draconian methods for keeping people having clearances. they do background checks. they get very personal if you're

at the top level. they have secret levels that rules on these issues. you don't have as many rights as you would in a normal court. and because there's an economic incentive to keep your clearance because you can make so much money in the private sector with a clearance, you know, people do -- people are pretty careful. however it's this other thing that's happening. there's two things happening in parallel. one thing the government is classifying as it has for years, overclassifying things and then hiding them, you know, in separate compartments that gets cut up into little different -- into layers of secrecy and that's one big problem that we found. on the other hand, because of technology and social media and what you can do with a computer, you have wikileaks and i don't think that is going to necessarily stop because there

are many ways to penetrate systems that are supposed to be secure. >> uh-huh. >> and as this episode has shown also -- people say why would private manning have access to those cables? i think it's a pretty good darn question. i support -- i have big problems with julian assange and his personality. but the information that has come out in the wikileaks cables is fascinating. it's important. it by and large shows the government doing things, i think, in the right way and the wrong way. >> and it's had tremendous international impacts. >> and tremendous international impacts. >> leading to tunisia and yemen. >> if our foreign policy rests

on falsehoods to the public and secrecy with dictators, it's going to be vulnerable. >> but how about this notion that diplomats should have a right to cable back home, what they think of a leader or point out that the leader's family is corrupt. what do you think, adam, do you think julian assange, who describes himself as a reporter is, in fact, functioning is a reporter? do you think what he did was heroic, valuable, deplorable? >> that's a lot of questions. [laughter] >> i mean, the first thing is i think, wow, to me i see the parallels between the cables that we learned about from the church commission hearings back in the '70s. they're not dramatic like those, like, hey, let's topple the government. but it's interesting, you know, 40 years later we have these same sort of revelations coming from that communications mode. do i think what he did was heroic?

i don't know that most things are heroic. i think it's had this incredible -- obviously, it's had this incredible impact on our sphere. i think for journalists in one way -- the important thing that it's done is it's made the idea of journalism, the concept of journalism interesting to people beyond our circles. and people started talking about journalism again. they started talking about important stories because of that. and i think that is weirdly an interesting -- an important impact that he's had. that that's had. is he a journalist or not? i think that he's -- i think that he's a person who's found a way to get very important -- get very useful information out of a specific target group and part of his target group are other hacker-type computer expert nerds who have access to this information. and those are not often people that we as journalists think about cultivating as sources and, you know, that's kind of a genius move, frankly.

>> yeah, can i read a comment from a column bill keller wrote last week in the sunday times magazine that gives a sense of this new world that we've entered. it says the digital age has changed the dynamics of disobedience in at least one respect. it used to be that someone who wanted to cheat on his vow of secrecy had to work at it. daniel ellsberg tried for a year to make the pentagon papers public. there were a lot of time to have second thought or to get caught. it is now at least theoretically possible for a whistle blower or a trader to act almost immediately and anonymously. click on a website, load a file and go home and wait. what do you think, michael, about the whole wikileaks business. has it changed journalism forever or is it an area -- do you think, you know, getting into computers is something that journalists should know more

about and begin to cultivate? >> well, i mean, i think in terms of mr. keller's description of that, i don't actually think that's accurate in terms of what bradley manning actually did which was over a period of time. speaking of lady gaga, it was bradley manning's lady gaga's file at great risk -- >> i don't think he's described i see a world in which this kind of thing can happen. >> i mean, i think in terms of, you know, does the internet -- look, there's so much data on the internet that's so vulnerable. i mean, one of the interesting things this -- this group who are called anon misses who are hack-activists and they hacked into a computer and found incredibly amounts of material. does it change journalists, this is just another way to get more information and one of the funny

things -- and a lot of the blog posts it always say, you know, wikileaks fulfills the watchdog function that traditional media has failed to do but they'll put the function except dana priest at the "washington post" but i think it's interesting that clearly what assange has done is fulfilled a great need of this idea to sort of pierce through the secrecy in a way that no one else has been able to do. >> i think we're approaching question time, so if you do have a question, come down to either side of the aisle. line up in front of the mic. meanwhile, i'll just ask quickly, have you faced reprisals for anything you've written or threats? i know you had some problems, i think, after the black sites --

>> yeah, after the black sites stories, the house and senate leaders called of an investigation not of the black sites but of the washington most and their surrogates went on tv. remember, this was a different time and their surrogates went on television and called for the same thing and worse. and it did create a real hostility. i got bad emails. i got emails that weren't civil. i got emails that were threatening and that sort of thing. >> yeah, michael did you encounter a lot of complaints, gripes, threats? >> it's interesting. i mean, one of the sort of interesting aspects to the story -- and you touched upon it in your question. i mean, in the questioning period here, i was the only one who asked, should you ever have reported the story? that was sort of the question you sort of posed to me. and that's the response other journalists have had as well. and to me what it illuminated was this sort of extremely cozy relationship that many in my

profession have established with very powerful figures and how much they cherish that relationship and the idea that anyone could threaten that, you know, causes great concern. so the most sort of vicious kind of attacks i always get are from my colleagues. >> other journalists, yeah. >> but i think one of the reasons why i think it's somewhat ridiculous some of the -- some of the criticism is that basically the criticism is, wait, this guy wrote down what he heard and saw. wait a minute, we're not supposed to do that. literally, those are almost direct quotes from what people are saying. [applause] >> and as i said, you know, this is sort of a theme that's now been -- if general mcchrystal was not a powerful person, if he was a leader of a gang and i wrote down what he said, no one would have been on cnn, hey, wait, was that off the record? i mean, so that's -- that's what i would just say about that.

>> have you faced difficulties because of what you've written or -- >> there were a couple dicey moments in new orleans. we were doing the hate crimes story. we made contact with somebody in the neighborhood where the hate crimes had occurred and -- allegedly occurred. and this person said don't come here. we know who you are. we know who did these shootings we don't have a problem here. if you come here expect your life will be in serious jeopardy. >> and did you go over there? >> oh, yeah. [laughter] >> but like, look, reporting in america being a cab driver is much more dangerous than being a journalist. it's more dangerous -- >> they didn't exactly write

letters for the editor where i come from. [laughter] >> they might show up at your door with a baseball bat. but, no, we did. there are times you go on high alert. you know that what you're -- you get a feel for what the challenge level of people and you know that, hey, this is -- this is going to mess up some heads in security. this is going to mess up the gangster's heads. you can function it out here and tolerate it in prison. it will eat you alive. >> sir, did you have a question. >> i think michael has given a good account of himself as, in fact, following a certain number of rules like, for example, he has said that he had -- he

didn't write down off-the-cuff comments or some rule. when it comes down to the bottom line, what kind of ground rules, michael, are you stating for your hanging out with mcchrystal? and was it his fault perhaps that he didn't follow these ground rules that you have in mind? if he expected to be fired, if you'd shown what you were going to write and perhaps you warned him that you were going to put this stuff down and get it all out. >> i guess i would say that there's -- i'm not trying to be a smart ass, though it takes effort for me sometimes, i apologize for that. [laughter] >> there's four decades worth at least of what a magazine profile

looks like. and when a public figure invites a magazine journalist to tag along with them, even if it's just for an hour or it's for two days or it's for a month, i would suggest that a good rule of thumb is your expectation of privacy is much diminished. and, in fact, things you say to the journalist that he writes down might end up in print. [laughter] >> so -- and it's actually an interesting question. what did they expect of the story? and i don't know what exactly they sort of expected, but i think it was a double-edge sword because they wanted -- they were sort of -- they were performing for the audience of rolling stone in a way, too, this is what i always thought. and they knew what sort of made a good rolling stone story so this idea of them partying in paris or hanging out and being

these kind of macho super talented brilliant guys that they are, i always thought that was part of it. part of it was -- it was the light sort of shining on them. it would be interesting to see what they end up -- what will end up saying. i haven't talked to him because the general hasn't publicly commented on the story except for his initial apology. >> this issue i want to interject of profiles and what you reveal and don't reveal has been -- has been discussed for years and years. some of you may remember 1989 article by janet malcolm called "the journalist and the murder" in which he wrote about joe mcginnis who began a book on a man named geoffrey mcdonald telling mcdonald that he believed he was innocent. and thereby gaining access to some private takers and then when the book came out, it was kind of a strong case for his conviction.

if i remember the first sentence of the article, it is a shocking opening, but it says, any journalist who is not a fool or not so full of himself that he doesn't know what is going on will admit that what he does is morally indefensible. that's quite a sweeping indictment out in the field. but there are -- it created a furor because there's betrayals that go on in any profile writing. that is to say you don't always open up and tell people what you're expecting and you're looking for things. it's a natural way to do it. >> it's not up to the journalist to narrow their own field of what's permissible to write. it's up to the subject to set the ground rules if they want to limit what is on or off or on background. why would a journalist handcuff

himself. >> and if the subject, which is not the case here or probably janet malcolm's subject -- if it's somebody who doesn't know much about journalism, somebody from the streets is being interviewed -- >> that's a different subject. but if you're -- but if you're in the public eye, you have a staff of public affairs people. it is their responsibility to set and maintain in one sense -- >> and you've risen up to the highest level of command. it's kind of strange that you don't. sir? >> hi. i'm glad you mentioned that taxi driving is more dangerous than journalism because i wanted to ask a question about a journalist who was a taxi driver and a muckraking journalist at the same time and is now on death row. i want to ask something, if you feel any connection with him as a community of journalists, if

you feel any passion about his plight. it's also connected to practicedly manning for me who's a whistle blower who is now in prison and there's a lot being written about his rights being violated as well as jamal's rights. >> do you want to handle it? >> the only thing -- i don't know that much about jamal's case, unfortunately, you know, there are a lot of people who are caught up in the criminal justice system and i don't know all their case. some of them are famous and i still don't know them. there's a fellowship, a community of journalists or something and it's their feelings about -- i don't know. as i attempt to try to answer your question, i don't know how

to answer your question. i am concerned that, you know -- i don't know his case well enough to know whether or not he has been treated fairly or unfairly. i don't know much about it. >> i think there's an argument -- sorry. >> no, anyone want to add to it? >> my hope is that he would be treated fairly because i know what it's like not to be treated fairly. >> yeah. the mcclatchy newspaper just wrote a great editorial for manning the defense chip in for his defense than just wikileaks founder. to see if he's one of the great sources of journalistic history where newspapers and magazines use this stuff all the time, the stuff that he leaked all the time, i think there's something to be said to advocate on his behalf so he doesn't spend the rest of his life in jail.

>> this is probably most for michael but it's probably for the rest of the panel. what do you think the legacy of the pat tillman case is and for the rest of the country? >> i think the legacy -- speaking personally, what pat tillman's family did to uncover the truth was incredible. gut-wrenching. i don't know how they did it and kept at it for so long. so that's just sort of my personal feeling about it. clearly, there's always going to be -- the pentagon is a little going to want to spin the hero myth. >> it takes work to get sunshine

on the facts. they're by nature like that. that's why -- that's why we have protections because, you know, the founders figured that out a long time ago and set it up that way so that we could keep poking at the government. >> are you waiting, ted? >> yeah. >> i have a couple of quick questions for dana. to what extent do you think this internal security-intelligence apparatus that you uncovered is directed outward towards enemies foreign and to what extent is it directed inward? and how do you see that trending? and also to what extent do you believe these various government and corporate agencies operate through soft power, like disinformation and misinformation and using their connections? and to what extent do they operate through hard power like making people disappear and extraordinary rendition and things like that and how do you

see that trending? >> okay. well, because the defense department is the largest -- by far the largest of all the intelligence agencies, they really are directed outward. and so even -- we've looked at their presence in the united states and their -- you know, they have a bigger mission now in the united states because of the northern command but it's not really very interesting, so most of it is directed outward. however, and this was the fourth article that i did was on the domestic situation. and i looked at the fbi, the department of homeland security, and some other things, and really there is an incremental creeping trend towards putting things about you in a database because you might have done something that some local police officer, some shopkeeper, some

person walking down the street might have thought -- looked suspicious that could get you into a database that you won't have the right to know about. it's called the guardian -- the fbi's guardian database. and because of technology -- i mean, commercially available. i know this because i asked my researcher to do this. we have this commercially available technology that allows us -- i mean, i can find anybody's social security in here. i can find out probably what credit cards you have, where you've lived since you were 18. it's all -- it's all there. and the companies -- they can find out your spending habits, you know, an awful lot about you. well, all of that now is available to the police now, to the fbi. so because of commercial trends and because of this dragnet approach of how i view it is that they are -- you know, this whole report suspicious activities campaign is really a

dragnet approach to send everybody out there, cast a big net, you know, see if there's any interesting fish that come along. and the ones that they don't really know about, they'll put them in the database anyway in case they can find something down the road. instead of using what has worked out a little bit better is fbi-focused counterterrorism investigations with some help from others. so that's the first one, the second one -- what was was your -- oh, soft and hard power. i don't believe -- i believe most of these agencies operate not in any rogue manner. they operate under the rules that they are -- that are passed by lawyers in various ways. i mean, the renditions, the extraordinary renditions, the secret prisons they were signed off at the office of council at the cia so they were all approved. so i don't believe that people

in the united states disappear and that -- and i'm not a believer in conspiracy theories because the governments in general, except i hear, oh, my god -- to step up and complete a conspiracy theory. they are not very good using soft power especially when it comes to counterterrorism where you see the military again as the big player there. nstitutiont are the state department which is completely atrophied into the context agency they are under resource to and there is no hope in the future i don't think to get any better because there is no constituency in congress and of little of it with in the united states unfortunately. >> i appreciate your energy and reporting, and i wanted to ask about your position as a free

lancer. i encountered some crimes by the u.s. army and i presented it goes to producers of the major networks all of them said to me, you know, this is important, we have no doubt this is true. we are not going to run this story. one of them put it to me very bluntly. he said look, we are not michael hastings. we have a relationship with the top officials at the pentagon revealing these crimes that damage that relationship michael can, support and we can't do that. >> the question is do you believe that that's true? >> well, i think -- thanks for your kind words and i get the

nation on my kindle all the time, so whatever store you have, give me an e-mail and we will talk to the agent at new york stone. [laughter] i think in my view they've been doing great stuff with him dickinson and i can list of and one of the functions is to not have to worry about things like that, like we are able to go there because we don't have a table of the white house correspondents' dinner, but i think also one of the things is i talked to people that the pentagon all the time, and they talk to me, not sometimes because they want to, not because they like me or liked my socks. [laughter] the talk to me because they know that it's in their interest to

say that hastings got a better respond to the e-mail even if it is just to go have a nice day. so i think my experience has been you can do these stories and it's not -- its has many benefits and drawbacks. >> we have time for one or two more. >> do you believe they are responsible for the public a government or personal interest when investigating and what are the risks that journalism face, to anybody -- were the risks in taking when you are dealing stores? >> this covers the second one pretty much.

>> the first question again? >> when your report and investigate is it to the government or your personal interest? >> following -- >> when you investigate on your stories. is it chiefly you believe that it's for the public, for the government, or because you're interested in investigating the story? >> the story is that compel me but i feel like are worth working with my team and my colleagues going after four years to get. its story is that i think matter that are going to pull to have some impact in the world, and that is why i want to do them. and occasionally they end up being liked aliens in space, no one can hear you scream and no one cares about your story but it's great when they do and that's why i want to do that. it's for the broad public.

>> when you were doing all these -- it was all about trying to make a difference. it's not that that many people get out but to like to have the power to really make a difference for good. and, you know, and present being editor i can pick out whatever. i know where the problem is quite often i know the story before you even start investigating it, and i know what the outcome is going to be. and you just pick one and for the same reason, the one that excites you the most and the one you will have the greatest impact and will make the biggest difference, and the other thing

you have to always after you do all that you figured out okay, would bring you down, it's never brought us down. it's just a great feeling. you know, when you can do something and, you know, the thing i always love is when i finished the story, the greatest conflict you could tell me if i didn't agree with you but you know, i didn't know that. >> last question. [applause] >> i apologize. this is also for mr. hastings. you mentioned earlier that this story exposes the contempt for civilians in of the military.

well, isn't that a bit redundant in the sense that the new wage a war it already has contempt for the civilians? >> that's rhetorical, but the second part of the question is do you get the sense covering the war in afghanistan and the war in iraq and how these guys are dragging their feet when people call for a deadline to end this and you mentioned they are still continuing the raid and the strikes do you think there is a sense they want the public and america and the public and these occupied countries to get used to the idea? >> in terms of the sort of -- the question is what is it me to kind of be at work for the decade and then reasoned, the recent exclusion and libya as well, and i think whether it is

intentional or not i think it's clear that the -- we as the public and me as a human being and journalist we get immune to what happens to the civilians especially when it happens in other countries, so i don't know if that is the intent but it's certainly the consequence. one of the sort of weird ironies is -- rolling stone did a story last week which had a really terrific photos about this unit of american soldiers that had gone out and killed civilians and set them up and it's really terrific stuff. and it's about 48 hours. but it's really one of the issues i agree with the security fence along the rumsfeld who said just yesterday the sticker to the two-story shouldn't be much bigger than that would be

great and why wasn't it? and you know, smething is >> we leave this event at this point. we are going live now to the national press club here in washington for remarks this morning from virginia's republican governor bob mcdonnell. he is expected to discuss the fiscal condition of his day, budgetary challenge is facing the country and the national harris -- national health care law. >> this morning we are delighted to be hosting our latest in a series of conversations for some of america's most influential lawmakers. this conversation with virginia governor bob mcdonnell. bob mcdonnell was sworn in as the 71st governor of the commonwealth of virginia on genuine 16th, 2010. in that campaign for office he received almost 60% of the come and the most votes than any candidate for governor in virginia's history. and since taking the oath of office, governor mcdonnell has reduced state spending to the

2006 levels. is cut $6 billion out of two budgets, and he has defeated attempt to raise taxes by $2 billion. as february of 2010, the state unemployment rate has fallen from 7.2%, 6.5%, at the ninth lowest unemployment rate in the nation. the latest poll in virginia has his approval rating at 66%, even and maybe because of cutting spending to the 2006 levels. he has fought for pension reforms and many other things that we'll get into. bob mcdonnell is one of the country's most successful and for minded governors. we wanted to hear from him in the venue we chose to have a conversation with one of america's finest political reporters, byron york, the chief political correspondent and a twice weekly columnist with the "washington examiner." we will be having a conversation for about 45 minutes. we will open it up to q&a from

all of you, so without further ado i will turn over to you, by the. >> thank you very much, and thank you, governor, for being here. the election of bob mcdonnell in november 2009 was really the first ray of hope for republicans after the electoral disasters of 2006 and 2010, along with the election of governor chris christie in new jersey. your election in a state that barack obama had won in 2008 sent a signal that republicans might be recovering more quickly than thought, and that the for your democratic rain predicted i changed carver might not last that long. it was followed by the election of senator scott brown in massachusetts and then really smashing republican victory in the 2010 elections. now we are in a fight about the

budget in washington where we have a situation where last year the leaders of the house and the senate chose not to pass a budget at all. this year we had a government shutdown fight that was resolved literally at the 11th hour. and now we have to budget proposal that both almost come from different universes. you on the other hand in virginia close budget shortfalls by 1.8 going to invent 4.2 billion. you did without raising taxes and not blowing up the state. so what are the lessons of your experience for what we see now in the federal budget fight? >> that's a great place to start. first, pete, thanks for your work at e21 and happy to be here today at the manhattan institute, also sponsoring this.

i do appreciate it. i think not just what's happening in virginia but governors have been doing recently in many states, a pretty good example of how you can take the tough stance, govern like a campaign to govern on conservative principles, resist spending and actually have fiscal responsibility and prosperity in your state that the federal government can learn from. governors have a balanced budget amendment. we can do what happens in washington. we got to make sure revenues and expenses are equal every year. we don't have a big debt limit. in virginia, 5% self-imposed but we have on that for decades and decades. we can't pass continued resolution. the bottom line is we've got to make sure that balances are

equal every year. so to answer your question, what we did is said look, we've got to make the tough call. we cannot raise taxes. governor kaine left me with a 2 billion-dollar tax increase and expense cut to balance the $4.2 billion deficit we had in the 11 and 12 budget. the outgoing governor gets to introduce the budget and the new guy coming in in 2010 gets to inherited to see what we can do with it. we have a set that as a democrat majority in the house with republican majority whatever we did have to have a bipartisan agreement to get a budget. but i was very clear, we were not raising taxes so let's sit down and discuss where there is we can cut in a way that limits and sets priorities, and that's what we did. the lessons of the federal government, we made tough decisions. governor kaine accepted 4 billion before i got elected,

so we cut dramatically in k-12 education. in health care, many health care programs are we're trying hundreds of of dollars on a $40 billion annual budget, and then we did some one time reallocation, like most? there was an federal stainless money. we're able to do that without raising taxes. we'll back to the 2006 levels with the budget, and the good news, tried to come as you start to point out, unemployment is down five much act we do this cuts we ended up fiscal year with a 400, and $309 surplus. but i guess i'm here today that those things work. yes, there were a lot of short-term pain. yes, we got letters from teachers and from health care providers saying this is a disaster, this is tough, we can do this. but the reason it worked his when you reduce spending and you ask your officials in your administration to set priorities

and use the money of allocated the best way they can, they will manage will. it will rise up to the call, it will make a smart decision, and the priorities will be funded and those are not that are not parties will not be. i think that's what happened in virginia and i think that's what we've been fortunate to turn the corner faster than most states. we'll be looking at our second surplus at the end of june for the fiscal year. we are running well ahead of forecast, nine to 60% revenue growth over the last few years. as we cut spending we also invested in job creating measures, tax cuts to other things. and it's working. >> is the fundamental driver of balancing the budget simply the fact that you can't print money, you have to do in? >> absolutely. that's why i strongly support a balanced budget amendment, i introduced a resolution this session of the general assembly after talking to congressman goodlatte and senator cornyn, both would support that it's the

only way i can see after honestly decades of irresponsibility at the federal level with republicans and democrats overspending, overpromising and over borrowing. and the balanced budget amendment, 49 i think and 49 of the 52 governors, i'm counting the territories, is the only way i think put the lid on spending where federal officials will not continue what they have been doing. so it's clearly a motivation for both parties, to make sure that you don't do with the federal government did. >> even if obama's budget and it were to pass, the whole process takes you to happen. and we are facing i think our third year, trillion dollars deficit. no prospect of a real agreement on cutting that anytime soon. what do you see in the short run in the next four years in terms

of the federal budget and the deficit problem? >> i think what i see is, unfortunately, is the greatest country in the world about to pass on to the next generation, the children of the baby boomers, a country that's potentially less secure and more in debt and more financially unstable than at any time in american history. and that is tough medicine. and it should be embarrassing really by all of us. i've got five children and they're going to be inheriting the decisions that all of us make. and i'm hearing some of these young people say that for the first time, great generation passed onto you baby boomers, a great country, and while yet made great advances in technology and energy and other things like that, but what you all collectively are doing at the federal level in particular usually unsustainable and really

immoral. 7 trillion going to 14 trillion under the presidents introduced budget, even with looking more than $20 trillion, which is tens of thousands of dollars of debt for every american. it's just not, it's not responsible. so i think we need a real wakeup call that is debt is just not something out there that some future government can deal with, but this is a clear and present danger to american security. internally and externally, and until we really are serious about this, we are on a very bad path. and it means cuts and virtually -- no area of the federal government ought to be off limits. into erasers discussion about entitlements, medicaid and medicare, we are really not serious about balancing the budget. this last discussion about 38 billion versus 61 billion,

everyone knows you're talking weeks on the interest. not talking about anything serious about balancing the budget. so of course as you well know, a big battle about the debt ceiling and now the ryan budget. >> you mentioned the ryan budget, and one of the key parts to the ryan budget, bringing in medicaid costs under control, is a block grant to states. doesn't that just throw the tough decisions on you at that point, is that something you want? >> yes, because i think governors can manage it much better than the federal government without the bureaucracy and not have worried baking for worries and all the other things that are locked into the medicaid law. mr. jefferson, the second governor of virginia, said that government passion he's absolutely right. 535 people in washington

probably are going to be over all less than touched with their citizens than the governor and his cabinet or her cabinet at the state level fading out what the citizens me. i really think that most governors would prefer the. i was one of 21 republican governors who sent a letter to the congress about a month ago to ask for block granting of medicaid. here's will happen. a couple of things. one, first of all, i find any authority for some of the programs the federal government is doing in article 1, section 8 of the constitution, there in lies is the real problem with where we are today. that's supposed to be the parameters or the fence around federal power. tenth amendment says everything is basically goes to the state and the people. well, we have dramatically undermined that compact of federalism that our framers thought were key to american prosperity. we really haven't done the.

i think part of the discussion about medicaid, how do we didn't get that deal back, the power back to the states in those areas where the founders thought that it should be but i think particularly these areas are exactly it. at least give you an idea of why i think it's important medicaid spending in virginia over the last 27 years has grown 1600%. if you get your hands around the, 1600% from about $220 million, 3.4 billion. far and away the fastest growing expense item of any government program in virginia. it's gone from 5% of our budget, to 21% of our budget. that's before obamacare. you lay on obamacare, we've estimate is going to be another $2 billion by 2022 which will drive us up to 27, 20% of the state budget. this is unsustainable. we don't have that kind of money in our general fund to continue to put that much over a quarter

of our entire budget into medicaid. many states are over that 21%. they are at 26, 27, 28%. every governor in the country knows medicaid expenses are a huge challenge. and so what we all believe are what most governors, if you all will give us the ability and take off the shackles about so many of the rules and regulations, give us the ability to innovate on what kind of program or incentive for self health care, and responsible for their own care, a series of incentives and disincentives and co-pays and some other things like that that we can put in place for medicaid, managed care and some of the other things we would like to do, we can save money. the federal government can block grant it and just have made a small cost of living increase that they provide every year which will save them dramatically more than what they are paying now.

and it will be a win-win. so that's the goal. i know that was a long answer to this is a very important issue and it's one of the government can start to get entitlement under control. >> is it a win-win to the recipients? doesn't mean diminished availability, quantity of care for the recipients? can you save all this money simply by cutting through bureaucracy or does it really mean less care for people who receive medicaid? >> i think that's up to how well each government does with that money that they get. there are innovative programs like indiana and louisiana, governors that agenda good job with that. states that have gotten a fair number of waivers am the token in the medicaid program have had the ability to do some creative things. there are companies like and their group that are doing managed care for some states that are dramatically dropping the cost of medicaid within

those states. so there are any number of ways, try to, to have a reasonable level of care. but again, medicaid is supposed to be a safety net. yes, it's an indictment now. people have to fight it but it is supposed to be a safety net that we as a compassionate society put in place so that those who don't have the ability, reportedly, to provide for the own health care that are either poor or aged or infirm in some way to get these things through the federal government. but that doesn't mean that we have to have a system were essentially everything is free and there's no accountability for the recipient. you all know what that means for a government program. if you get it free and it's the best that can be and some else is paying for it, you know what human nature is, you want the best and you don't care who pays for it.

that is a real disincentive that goes against the very ingrained human behavior. putting together some type of incentives into the system that maintain a good level of care but controls cost i think governors can do that. >> what do you think about medicare component of the ryan plan? >> i have had a chance honestly to look at that in a great deal of detail because that's only federal. medicaid is a 50/50 state federal match and so that's where governors have looked at. i've called the ryan budget a good start, but even with the ryan budget we're talking about decade before you balance the budget. >> the late 2030s. >> again, for a governor, it's still a four way of thinking. i've got to do that every year on time, no c.r., no excuses, no federal money. so even with that budget, it's really not come is a good start. it's better than the deficit we've been running up with the

obama budgets. but it's a small start. i think medicare, doing everything from looking at reducing certain benefits, changing eligibility and agents -- ages and things like that, i understand are contained in components of the ryan budget, are a start but i really think, if this goes to the heart of your first question, i think americans at this point in time already for straight talk and and ask conversation about what we are doing. for two reasons. one is most americans the last couple of years are doing it with their families and their business. they realize they can't keep spending the way they have been spending, whether it is with her credit card debt or somebody has lost a job in the family, whether it's because of business contracts and such so they've had to make tough decisions

about business. people have been doing it so that expect the government to do it too. and then secondly, because i think, i've been in office now, this is my 20th year. i think this is about the first time i have seen a newer and enlightened understanding by the citizenry about what deficits and debt mean to them. not an abstract sense for some future government to deal with, but what it means for them and their family at the front door. in other words, what they're going to have to pay, what they are living on their kids and their grandkids. what increase barred by the federal government means to them in terms of reduced access to capital and driving up inflation in the future. when voters understand what it means to them at the front door, they then start to react. i really do think now that there's a much more educated citizenry about debt and deficit that is what people are talking up in washington which i think frankly is good for

conservatives. we are not talking about health care or some other thing. we're talking about what is the fiscal plight of america. and that's good. we are talking about issues on our turf and that gives me some hope that we will solve it. >> this idea that given the deficits in the last years that we are kind of a different public mindset, paul ryan and republicans i think that you are right on that, and president obama and the democrats are betting you are wrong. and there are a number of polls that show people so they want to see the deficit come down. they would love to see the budget balanced, but they do not want cuts in medicare. they do not want cuts in social security. and those who receive medicaid do not want cuts in that either. there are a majority opposing cuts in all of those things. so, why do you think you're right on the? >> because it's a math problem. it just doesn't add up. you can't have both. you can't say on the one hand you want to fiscal responsibility in america, at the same time not being willing

to have reductions in entitlement spending. i just go back to my own experience, when we say we're going to have to make major cuts in k-12 education, i don't know if you remember that the teachers union said if we make these cuts we will lay off 30,000 teachers. there will be little kids that are not going to be able to be learning in a good public school building. and we heard all the -- guess what, it didn't happen. a year later those things, i think there were less than 1000 teachers that actually got laid off. that we have reassessed that most of them are back, and why? because we instructed people throughout the education system, our administrators, school board and others, make good decisions, set the priorities, teachers in the classroom. the priorities one. more bureaucracy and more overhead and more middle level

managers at the public administration building. they made the right decision with the limited resources. i've got some faith in people, that if you give them clear direction, and you give them more limited resources, they will rise to the highest and the welfare that's, i cannot say that's the virginia experience. say that with chris christie in which donald, scott walker and others that are doing a lot of the same thing. and yes, there some short-term pain, and yes, your poll numbers may go down a little bit. but do you know what? people i think willis, one, we've got to do it, so we are willing to see the government to do. i think tom coburn said it best to he said for us to get our country back on track we've got to have a generation of lawmakers that are not worried about getting reelected. i can say from what we're doing with redistricting now, and what i know from 14 years and the legislature, every lawmaker is

worried about getting reelected because they deeply their ideas important for the future and that's great about our system. but we are in a critical tipping point where after probably four years of overspending by republicans and democrats in congress that there is no more room to do that. president obama's own commissi commission, simpson-bowles commission, i think is alan simpson that said this as their issued their report, he said there's no more they can to bring home. the biggest day. i think is exactly right. -- the page is dead. when they see these numbers they see the stickers on fox and cnn about the interest payments, and just rolling by thousands of dollars a second, type of thing. we got to make some change. >> you mentioned scott walker. what is the situation in wisconsin mean to you? wisconsin, virginia, very different states, but what does the experience we've been watching in wisconsin mean to

you? >> it means that there really are big battles in the country between the left and the right. and for there to be significant results gained and restoring fiscal responsibility at both the state and federal level don't have to be some very tough battles. and there were two issues really in wisconsin. one was the walker budget to address the $3.7 billion deficit similar to what had in virginia, and i think largely the citizens were with him. they got it he was very clear. i'm reducing the budget without raising taxes. we'll find a way to get this done. the bigger battle obviously was the public sector collective bargaining. and all of you are well versed in what happened there. we did that 18 years ago in virginia before i got there.

actually governor wilder, democrat governor, signed that bill in virginia. so we have long had a prohibition against public sector collective bargaining in our state. we are one of the best managed state in the country. and in that i think is art of the. i think what you learn is that, number one, governors and leaders at every level are going to have to aggressively take on a fiscal plight of their state, address pension, unfunded pension liabilities you can't talk about it but i do $18 billion of unfunded liabilities in virginia. we did a little bit in virginia this year. not nearly enough to fix the problem. and number two, that governors starting with people like walker, are going to look for ways to be more competitive. and that means removing the obstacles to auburn osha and capitalism and free enterprise.

it means whether its unions or taxes or regulation or these other things that hurt the ability, the entrepreneur to start a business or grow a business. those things will have to be addressed because we are in a very tough global economic. i don't just worry about tennessee and west virginia and maryland and north carolina and florida and texas anymore. i'm concerned about china and india and singapore, taiwan and thailand and other countries that have really figured it out, either perfecting some of the things that have been good about western civilization, or flirting with capless and. i'm going to china next week. china, japan and korea and tell them the virginia store and try to get people to come and invest in virginia. ..

>> what he was trying to do was really big, you make the case over and over and over again. we've seen chris christie doing that in new jersey. and in this case he made this proposal, and it was kind of abrupt. when you're going to make a big change, you have to prepare the public for this in some way. >> yes. >> how do you do that? >> i think that's a good question. that's what we did as well with cutting the budget six billion in realignments. i talked a lot about that during the campaign, so i don't think anybody was surprised when we came in and killed that tax increase and were able to reduce spending. people were, i guess, ready for us to be able to do that.

and, brian, you really said it in your question itself. you've got to tell people what the problem is, tell 'em what the various courses of action are and then tell 'em why your preferred course of action in this case outlawing public sector bargaining, why that helps you to be more competitive and would create more jobs for wisconsin. i can only tell you that the flipside, though, is political capital is fleeting. as we probably, everybody that's been in and around elected office knows. and it, arguably, is as high as it's ever going to be when you first get elected. scott got elected by a pretty good margin. and so when you're taking on the budget, you might as well take on some other things that were budget related. at the end of the day, not only was it about competitiveness with the collective bargaining issue, but also about the

predictability of future increases for the employees. that's a huge part of the budget. virginia we have a huge part of our $40 billion budget. if i could predict better what mill benefit costs are going to be, it's a lot easier to budget in the future. so they really were wrapped in the budget. and he happens to be in a state that's the end -- epicenter of of the battle. you do have to explain the problem, tell 'em why your solution's best and then repeat it over and over and over. the old saying is, you know, when you get tired of saying it, that's when people are starting to listen. we're so close to it in public life that you do have to make your case repeatedly. eventually i think people will at least understand why you're doing something even if they don't agree with it. >> let me ask you about obamacare or the affordable care act. >> yes. >> the state of virginia wanted a fast track supreme court

review of this to get this settled, and the supreme court has now said, no, they're not going to do it. it's going to have to go through the normal appeals process up to the supreme court. what does that mean? >> very disappointed. that was a decision handed down yesterday by the supreme court, and it was done in part because the justice department objected to our petition for a fast track. it's extremely disappointing. and every american ought to be disappointed because whether you're for obamacare or against it, what you should want is certainty and finality. and that is knowing now in your business, in your personal life if you're a health care provider or an insurer, you should want to know is it constitutional or not? because then you can start putting the things in place at the state or local level or in your business to know what you're going to have to do with your benefit plan as opposed to now maybe waiting a year or a year and a half or two years or whenever the federal circuits finish their work.

then they may wait in the supreme court to have them combined, the florida case, virginia case, other cases. and then the u.s. supreme court on a regular track makes a decision. i'm very disappointed with it because the sooner we got the answer, the sooner we'd know what we need to do. most governors now are tasked with a number of things they have to do by january of 2014 under the affordable care act. you've got to build health care exchanges, change insurance law, you've got to do a number of other things. and in good faith as a governor i've set things in place to try to be ready for 2014 because i don't know if it's going to have to be enforced or not. i hope it doesn't. but i've got to be prepared because if i'm not, then i've got other sanctions that are going to be visited upon virginia like other governors do. if we knew in a year from now, let's say, or six months because of the fast track from the supreme court, and they ruled it was unconstitutional. we would save the taxpayers in virginia a lot of money by not

having to do some of these things. so it's a disappointing result, and i think it is linked in part to the obama justice department being opposed to it. now, i don't know if they just didn't want an answer from are the u.s. supreme court before the election. that's not what they said. what they said is we need the circuits to rule on it and develop a body of law for the supreme court. i think that's nonsense. the supreme court is going to decide this matter. everyone knows that. and they could have done it without any advice from the circuits. they do that on other cases they think are important. in fact, they've taken other cases over the last 25 years that were arguably less important to the public than the constitutionality of the health care bill. so it's disappointing. we just got the ruling yesterday, but it is what it is. they've made their decision, so now the good news is we'll have a hearing within the next couple months, i think, within the fourth circuit. the fourth circuit has agreed to an expedited hearing, so at

least the virginia case will be advanced, hopefully the florida case, and at least we'll get it to the u.s. supreme court a little faster and create the certainty americans want. >> but you mentioned things that you're doing now to prepare for a 2014 rollout of obamacare. specifically, what kind of stuff are you doing? what does it cost, what's being done right now in. >> well, we've had to gear up staff in various areas to do the things that the obamacare law requires. as you know, many of the, many of the parts of the law have already gone into effect dealing with pre-existing conditions, kids on your dad's or mom's policy until '24 and some of -- 26 and some of those other things. so we've already had to make changes in the law. we've had to change insurance regulations already as well dealing with pre-existing conditions, some other things which means some additional staff at the bureau of insurance to be able to deal with those laws.

the big thing right now is setting up the health care exchanges. most of the experts believe it is about a three-year process to adequately set up these health care exchanges. we got a bill passed this year in the general assembly that forms the framework for health care exchanges, and other governors are doing the same thing. my secretary of health has been meeting with some of these other experts to talk about what is a good plan for setting up these exchanges in a way, frankly, that's least bureaucratic and least expensive to virginia and to, and to the state. it costs some money to do that in planning and in staff and some other things like that. so that's what we're doing right now because we've got the way the law reads is we've got to be ready by january 2014 to have exchanges in place, and if we don't, then the federal government will take over the exchanges and, frankly, that's the last thing i'd want. i'd rather have a state-managed exchange that we can control and monitor ask and run the best -- and run the best way possible.

so those are the major components. i think what they did is they front loaded the goodies, if you will, the popular parts of the obamacare plan like the issues with pre-existing conditions and having children on a plan extended from age 24 to 26, but the tougher stuff, the individual mandate's not effective until 2014 and, you know, we'll have to deal with that down the road. >> so you could see a situation in which you continue, a year from now you will be one year further into building this infrastructure. >> yes. >> at some point after that a supreme court decision comes down, you win -- >> right. >> -- and then it's stand down, you just don't do all that stuff, never mind? >> it depends on the ruling. now, the justice department in our suit has conceded that if individual mandate falls, then most of the insurance-related regulations also fallment -- fall. because they are so intertwined. pieces can't exist independently.

and, byron, if i might, the reason this whole case is so important is, yes, it's about health care, and it's about federalism. those are critically important. but it's also a fundamental decision about the united states constitution and the reach of federal power. because if federal government can make each of you buy a good or a service and if you don't to fine you, there are very few limits left on federal power, in my view. and this is a big deal. it's also a big deal in the jurisprudence on the tax and spend clause and the commerce clause as how far do those powers extend since virginians had a lot to do with those early documents, the constitution and the declaration. [laughter] we really take these issues very seriously. and, you know, i don't think that the founders would have condoned that extent of federal

power to mandate that you engage in commerce. and if you don't, we're going to take your property, your money. and so i think this is vitally important that the u.s. supreme court get this right. i certainly hope that they will, and they will invalidate it. and it's not about the underlying policies per se. there is broad agreement, i think, in the body politic that people do want, have a decent safety net. we are a compassionate people. we do want to have expanded access to health care. we do want to see costs driven down. but we don't want to do it in such a punitive way that we violate the spirit of the constitution and do it in a way that i think, ultimately, is going to drive up the costs of health care and not down. >> so you are operating on two tracks now. one, which is trying to stop obamacare in the courts and, two, implementing obamacare in the government. >> yeah. >> let me ask you, it seems like spending fights are endless. you are on the cover of "the

washington examiner" today. >> very good picture. >> inside, inside. virginia governor says no to dulles tunnel. so this is another one of these massive public works projects that the details of it are the washington metro is going to be extended to dulles airport, and the question is, does it go in an underground tunnel, or does it come in an aboveground station. and here again you're trying to say no to spending. >> yeah. the difference is it's going to cost anywhere from 250-330 million dollars of additional money. for virtually no material increase in the benefit. >> the underground is more expensive than the aboveground. >> absolutely. by that amount. i mean, the cost of the project already is 2.5 billion. with, that's the entire project. phase one is about on budget, phase two is threatened to be vastly overbudget.

perhaps the $2.5 billion project cost may now rise to as much as $3.5 billion. and that's just unacceptable. the other problem with it is the expense, the increase in expense is going to be borne by prince william county -- excuse me, louden county and fairfax county. and they have overwhelmingly just voted no to paying for that. the board that makes this decision is the metropolitan washington airports authority board made up of not just people from virginia, i've got five appointees. but also made up of people from district of columbia and maryland. they're on the authority. they're the mayor and the governor of maryland also have appointments. but they have no fiscal stake in this game which is sort of a structural issue. and i've made my thoughts known to mayor gray and also governor o'malley to join me in this. this is not a responsible

decision to spend $330 million to save maybe a two and a half minute walk. and you can, there's already a moving sidewalk, you can take a cab, we can build a shelter to keep people out of the rain, but we're talking about a tremendous amount of money that'll be borne solely by the residents and a handful of counties in virginia for very limited additional benefit. so i've asked them to reconsider this decision and, frankly, to reverse this previous decision. it's just not a good use of taxpayer money. we don't have an endless supply of dollars, and in the age of cutting and fiscal responsibility it's not the right decision. >> now we're going to go to questions in a few minutes, but i'm going to change subjects a little bit, ask you about the 2012 republican field. as far as the governors' updates is concerned, we just saw haley barber say yesterday he's not going to run. the governor of indiana, mitch daniels, is still a question mark.

a number of republicans would love to see chris christie run although he has said flatly i am not ready. there's been talk of you as a possible vice presidential choice on a ticket. run down the 2012 field. what do you think about it? >> well, they're all my friends. and it's unusual. of course, we know who the democratic candidate's going to be, but we're nine, ten months out from the beginning of the primary season, and there's not only maybe not a clear front runner, but we don't know who the candidates are. this is not really a great decision. i think, to be in. i'll say a couple things, and i was surprised at the haley barbour decision. i really thought haley would be in. i'm a little bit biased, but i do think the best candidates for the republican will be a current or former governor because governors have to make tough decisions with no excuses. the buck stops at your desk. you've had to deal with balanced

budget amendments in your states, and you understand the need to have fiscal responsibility. the most critical thing we need for our country right now. so i think mitt romney, tim pawlenty, people like that are probably going to make the strongest candidates. now, obviously, there are others out there who are interesting and who are bright and, frankly, who are now focusing like a laser on jobs and the economy and taxes and spending. clearly, the republicans' playing field and clearly the issues we should talk about. clearly, what's on the very top of most voters' minds. what i talked about after my election, i think, clearly responsible for me winning. it's hard to handicap, i think, obviously, if you look at the polls, and it appears as though governor romney is the front runner, but he's the known quantity because he was there last time. i thought he acquitted himself well, especially on the issues of jobs and innovation. and he's very tall lent inside

that area. talented in that area. i think governor pawlenty is going to continue to gain traction. i spoke with him for a few minutes yesterday. he's a very talented and capable guy, did very well in a blue state for eight years. but there are people, other people that could get in the race that will, certainly, you know, make it very, very interesting. i don't know whether newt's definitely in or michele bachmann who's clearly so got se support from the tea party. donald trump has been a very entertaining candidate, obviously, so far. and there may be others. i do think at the end it's going to come down to a current or former governor who will gain the nomination. >> you called trump entertaining. do you think he's a serious factor in this race now? >> well, he's serious because he's doing something americans want, and that is he's straight talk. he is, whether you agree with what his solutions are, he's very direct about where we are

and what the problems are particularly on debts and deficit. now, he's had sort of an up and down business career, but he's certainly up now. plus he's a new virginia business owner. he just bought a winery and a golf course in virginia over the last year, so we like to see virginia business people in the fray, but he's been very direct on some of these things. i think americans are ready for that. it is refreshing to have that kind of -- whether people would elect donald trump, it's hard to say at this point. but he is at least getting some initial appeal with people that like that direct style. what people like about chris christie and others of us who say here's the problem, i'm not going to sugar coat it. if we don't make these cuts, we're going to be in bad shape down the road. that's the kind of leadership people are looking for. >> but the other side of the trump phenomenal illustrates what people view as real traps

which is talking about president obama's birth certificate and talking about him personally. what about that? >> i think that's a nonissue really. as far as i'm concerned, he's president, he's an american, a citizen. the problem with president obama is not where he was born, it's what his policies are now which are devastating for american business and for our future recovery. and really an inendty tuesday in foreign -- inendty tuesday in foreign policy. that's what we ought to focus on. i think these other things are really distractions that just aren't going to get us anywhere, and there's so much for us conservatives to be going after with the obama record. we now know what hope and change means, and it ain't good, for american recovery. and that's what we ought to be able to focus on. and i just think these other things just don't get us anywhere. they're not serious discussions about what ails the greatest country in the world, and if we're going to remain this shining city on the hill, we ought to say this is what's

wrong about the president's agenda, this is what a conservative solution is on taxes and foreign policy and spending and entrepreneurship, and if you vote for us, this is what we're going to do. we had that straight talk in '94 with the contract for america. look what happened. people trusted republicans to win, and we delivered. that's the next part. if you deliver, they'll reward you going forward. and i just think that's the formula for success. >> all right. i think we're going to go to some questions now. we have microphones, we have people with microphones around, so if you'll, please, wait until you get the microphone before you actually ask your question. and right here. >> charlie with d.c. international advisory. governor, thanks for your comments today. two quick questions. on the dulles tunnel issue, do you think virginia should get additional appointments on the metro washington airport authority? should there be additional transparency on that board as decision making, things like that? second question on international

investment, fdi to virginia. you mentioned you're going to china, japan and korea. >> yes. >> if you could give an overview of, you know, what you see as the international role in virginia, other countries you're looking at behind china and korea, sectors in those countries. >> yes. >> kind of an overview, thanks. >> yeah. thank you, charlie. i'm going to look a little bit at that structure. my predecessor transferred the control of that whole dulles core door and this -- corps do have from our direct control that's got multijurisdiction control, so virginia actually is the primary funder but the minority shareholder, if you will. [laughter] i mean, that's not a great deal for us. so i've got to look at that structure. i have good relationships with mayor gray and governor o'malley. we've worked together on a number of things, for instance,

metro funding and safety. we're all joined at the hip on that. we've all endorsed a new governance structure for metro through that board, and we're working together. this one i've let my views be known to both of them, i sent a letter on this exact same issue yesterday as well asking them to support our position, and i certainly hope that they, they will because this is a big project. $2.5 billion, and almost a billion of it's from the federal government, the rest from a variety of sources. to get rail to dulles from d.c. and really make significant more use of that airport and just getting people out to that area so they don't have to use 66 or the tollway and then they can go wherever from there, it's a very important transportation project. but i do feel like i don't -- i have a project sole ri in my state -- solely in my state, but i can't fully control it. so we're going to look at what

can we do to improve that. on the foreign investment area, i think everybody's thinking more globally. it really is a much more interconnected world because of the internet, because of the emergence of the pacific rim countries, any number of reasons. and so one of the things that i asked for last year in our economic development package was we were cutting the equivalent of about $4 billion out of the budget. we actually asked the general assembly to invest in job creation and economic development because long term we're not going to tax our way to prosperity, we're going to get people to invest and innovate and grow our way to prosperity. again, appreciate all your colleagues being here, but they give us about $16 million in new incentives to be able to use, tax cuts, credits, other things. i asked for the money to open up trade offices in england, china and india. we're doing china next week, and i'll go to india in november.

i mean, if i can get on the playing field, that's a third of the world's population right there. and looking these folks in the eye and saying you need to come to virginia. here's why. we're the most business-friendly state in america, we've got great tax policies, i want you in virginia. that's what we're going to do, and that'sbe the way ceos do deals around the country. i do think that foreign investment is very, is very helpful to us. if people are manufacturing goods, i'd just as soon having those chinese companies manufacturing in virginia. if they're going to sell to virginia customers anyway because we believe in free and fair trade, i'd rather have them make the products in this virginia with virginia jobs and virginia transportation companies shipping those goods. so that's why we're doing it. i think we've had a little bit of success in england, and hopefully we'll do the same in china and india. >> okay. another question here. right here. if you'll just wait for the

microphone for just a moment. >> wayne abernathy, american bankers' association. >> hi, wayne. >> appreciate you being here. a lot of people discount the ability of solving the budget problem because you have a president of one party, congress divided between two parties, a population that tends to like budget -- [inaudible] in theory but not in practice. house leadership -- [inaudible] >> well, that really is the big question. and it really is back to byron's question that there is greater understanding of the debts and deficits, greater concern about where we're headed, but asking people to front door and how do you feel about medicaid, medicare, social security cuts, they don't warm up to. [laughter] so there's a gap in the american mindset, and the only way to solve that is leadership. telling people why this shared sacrifice is in the best interests of our country.

the great wartime presidents have done it and others in peacetime in getting people to move towards a goal have been able to do it. and, again, that's what we tried to do in virginia last year with the help of the general assembly, and we did it. you know, back to 2006 levels at a $400 million surplus, greater jobs and dropped the unemployment rate to 6.3%. now people feel better about the tough decisions we made now because they see the fruit of it, and people are getting back to work, and they feel better about it. i have to say, there were some tough, tough times in the short run in education, health care going through. so i think you just have to be persistent to answer your question about scott walker, you lay out the vision, lay out the alternatives and then repeatedly say why this is the best course of action and what it means for you and your families in increased prosperity for the united states of america down the road. so it is going to take john boehner, eric cantor, paul ryan,

governors who are doing these things at the states because they have to with the balanced budget amendment to put pressure on the the congress, to pat the back of ryan and his colleagues to say we're behind ya in doing this because we know it's necessary for our country. and if you do it, you will create a better, a better and more safe and more secure america. look what we've done in the states. we made the tough calls. now we've got less unemployment and greater solvency, and if you do it, we'll have your back politically, and you'll get the good results too. i really do think that while people say they don't want to see these cuts, they know in their heart you've got to make 'em. there's no free lunch. there's no way to get anywhere near a balanced budget unless you make these tough calls. and it's the first time people have really gotten that in their mind and understand what it means, what it means to them.

so i think people are ready for that kind of leadership, and i hope that they'll get it out of the congress. >> okay. we've got one more. we have one all the way in the back here. >> governor, scott thomas from the progressive policy institute. >> hey, scott. >> i had a question about creating jobs and encouraging investment at a time of fiscal responsibility. one thing in the transportation bill you just signed created a state infrastructure bank. >> yes. >> which is an idea that's being talked about here in washington a little bit including a bipartisan bill from senator warner and kay bailey hutchison from texas. wondered if you could talk about how that idea really helps stretch public dollars, create investment, jobs at a time of fiscal responsibility and how that helps virginia make the right -- [inaudible] and at the same time keep budgets under control. >> yeah, good question, scott. i can't say it was an original idea. we listened to other states who were doing that. my secretary of transportation -- [inaudible]

came out and developed that idea, and i think it is novel. we've set the framework for $4 billion of new investment in transportation, those of you that live in northern virginia, you'll be complaining about construction, not congestion. so that's the good news for you. and we did it through a combination of advancing debt which is a great time to borrow. we've got aaa bond rating, great contracts, interest rates are tremendously low, so that was a big piece of it. but the infrastructure bank was the way to take, we took money from our surplus and from an audit that found about a billion four lying around we thought should be put to work building roads and put that in the infrastructure bank, initial capitalization of about 300 million, ultimately a billion, and it's a way to leverage the money better with loans, loan guarantees and grants. so with some of our money and maybe some matches from the local governments or because the loan guarantees we drive down the interest rates at which local governments can borrow.

that sometimes is the deal maker in order to get some of these projects done. and so what we're targeting is the local and regional projects that are either currently unfunded or underfunded and make them, make them go. and the local governments know what those are better than we do in washington. we really do believe local governments, the government closest to people does work best, especially when it comes to these kind of congestion relief and transportation projects. and because it's a revolving loan fund, it'll be the gift that keeps on giving. as they pay it back with interest, the corpus of the fund will get bigger, and we intend to put more surplus monies in the future, so it'll be a powerful engine if we can get it to that billion over the next three years. i've spoken with a couple members of congress about that, and i'm really glad to see that they're looking at that as a way to, as a way to create some creativity in funding. the other thing we're doing is a lot of public/private partnerships as well. it's a great way to