than any president since richard nixon. i think that's as far back as you have to go for that. hands-on engagement. and when it came to israel, he had a theory of the case which proved to be wrong. his theory of the case was the united states needs to rebuild its relationships and reputation in the muslim world because we're engaged in two wars in the greater middle east, in the muslim world, and that's important for american interests. ..

and he always did that. you know, he thought what they cared about was security. what he didn't understand was what they really cared about was affection. they wanted to be loved. they had 16 years of unalloyed affection for bill clinton and george w. bush and now this president is turning away from them and going after the other women. and they didn't like it. they didn't like it, the left-wing didn't like it in a zero. in fact, obama is standing in israel actress paris beach plummeted down to single digits and it only started to just around 50, 65% when he gave a

speech in the united nations last year, which was diametrically opposed to the cairo speech. so he embraced the israeli narrative district, whereas he read the palestinian narrative. and so, essentially what happened was having lost the israeli public quite early on, then yahoo! -- yahoo! figured out he could get more by standing up to the present stand by agreeing to what he wanted. and indeed the famous moment when he operated the president to the white house he went up 10 points in the israeli public opinion, which is unheard of in a relationship that the israeli two american presidents because they depend on the american president for the security at

the end of the day. so essentially what happened is since he lost the israeli public either for lost his ability to exercise effective leverage on netanyahu and he thereby failed to deliver on the israeli side he lost the air public as well because they do not want the u.s. president. they want the u.s. president to deliver israel. and when he didn't do that either, they turn their backs on them, too. so he ended up at the worst of both worlds. his support in the arab world today notwithstanding everything he did on mubarak, this is also done in the double digits. >> do you want to end at 10:20? anymore questions? yes, sir. right here in the middle. >> martin, following up on the

question, how is that the president got himself in the position of promising but have a framework agreement within 12 months, knowing there is a cheops to the settlement freeze and do nothing about it, having a backup stand to extend the settlement? how tobacco about clinics do not well, it's a long story. be sure to detail in the book, but essentially, every different view about the settlement freeze and conventional wisdom. it was important in the context of the time were settlements had been particularly deleterious to the affairs to try to achieve a breakthrough for palestinian authority had been doing a credible job on their commitments in the roadmap to say terrorism in israel had an obligation on the roadmaps to freeze the settlement dignity. the problem lies in making

not -- turning at denison into a precondition and then, the president giving the middle east, george mitchell of the ability, the instructions to go negotiate something on the settlement reached with netanyahu, which took 10 months and in the end they came up with what was an important moratorium on all activity in the west bank. that was quite an achievement. but failing to adjust from the rhetoric of a full settlement freeze to the actual settlements moratorium that they ended up achieving created a situation in which one i cannot finesse, the arab sauce at what is that? that is not she promised us that the palestinians that we can't negotiate. and today again you have this highlight between the expectation generated by the rhetoric of the president and

the pragmatism involving eight gap between what he promised and what he delivered. and that i think was the highlight of the problem in terms of the way it impacted negatively on the chances of getting negotiation going. >> looking for a non-middle east peace process. so plummeted him to for a non-middle east peace process. yes commissary. the gentleman right there in the third row. >> banks. reporter at the afp news agency. this is something new but just probably more than the others. did any of the americans decline -- is this something you have seen a false and obama's first term, trying to address the perceptions are somehow china, for example that the united states is in decline? how could that change in a

second term? >> i think my point isn't bob kane's article. seriously, i think he is focused more on highlighting that america will pay a leadership role globally for the long-term future as this administration has gone along and has got his foot name. potentially i don't know this from personal contact, but personally became unappreciative of the reality that if you don't convey optimism and dynamism of the future, it weakens you in the present. the shadow of the future is large and certainly it this point he points absolutely rightly to the reality that in most dimensions and the things

he would look to project future power, america remains utterly extraordinary. what is screwed up are two things. one is our national politics, our ability to make tough decisions and within the coming decade with crushing fiscal problems if we don't take steps now to change the trajectory. and so those are the two zero charlie c. o. spirit and if we can't and the second obviously is dependent on the first. and we can't change the project. on the national politics and therefore if you build a national compact and how we're going to address their fiscal problems, frankly are enormous advantages will erode over time were rapidly than any of us would like to see. so i think he is stressing the positive, but he recognizes full well that in the wake of the selection, he's got to be able to develop a capacity to take very tough decisions on

everything from impediments to security to tax reform, et cetera and put together a package that is realistic about the future or are going to in serious trouble. >> aren't going to do your thing and american strength? >> i think that's a great answer. there's a lot of strengths we talk about in the book, but there is no getting away from the urgency of this task. >> yes commissary. over here. this'll have to be the last question. >> matt and i run the service committee. to cuba, venezuela verging pursley failed state or any other issues south of the border matter at all in relation to the things you've been discussing? >> we do is just a couple of things. on friday raised those. we do relatively little in the book in those matters probably because obama has done

relatively little is president mysterious. i'm shattered and them in a place or figure out the right policy was to ignore those guys and he made one out for vis-à-vis chávez as we all recall from early in his presidency and basically otherwise has allowed policies to be tertiary priorities at best, which is exactly where they belong. there are few things he could have done to be a little more proactive to our friends in latin america. but ignoring chavez and castro is the right thing to do and basically his policy. towards mexico by contrast, both towards mexico and colombia voice had the excitement drug problems in recent years, obama's role has not been nearly as distinctive as either of his two predecessors so far. i do not have the right policy in my foodie should do in either place. colombia is at a point where disney is much american help as it once did. it is by way of noting that obama did not need to do as much as clinton or bush.

on mexico obviously he needs to figure a way to do more. but we have not yet come up with that proposal and it is an interconnected policy tied into things like immigration reform where he's had great difficulty that is tied into issues like trade agreement stories had a tough go. so i think i will simply say on this issue he has been so far distinctive for what he hasn't done. there's a lot of policies in the world for three or president can't make a big mark, but this is a bit overdue to where he has to do more for his successor will have to do more. >> with that, but me just say if you have gotten a flavor of the depth and breadth of wisdom here about this administration and about the policies in general, it is just a small taste of what is in this book, which i really commend to you. it is the only book of its kind out there right now that really does this very sober balance assessment of the obama

administration. i hope you join me in congratulating and inking our panelists here. [applause] >> the heartland institute has a booth at the conservative political action committee. jim lakely is the communication director for the institute. first of all, what is the heartland institute? >> the heart and as it is libertarian think tank based in chicago, illinois recovered domestic policy and our mission is to discover, promote and send out to the public free-market solutions to social and economic problems and we been doing that for 28 years. >> who founded you click >> we were founded by james h. patton who is a big week at the cato institute and a giant in the free-market movement.

and president of the institute has been just a pass since 1984. >> you also published book and i want to ask you about a couple. let's begin with this in my herber walberg, school choice the finest. >> one of the issues the heartland institute's push for decades now is the idea of having many faulty parents and having would not have been student achievement does rise. and so, herber walberg, whenever senior fellows is very interested in this topic and is very knowledgeable. he's also a fellow at the hoover dictation and has written two books on school choice we can get the public and politicians the fact about why and how school choice works for parents and for students. >> the other book he has written about discarded fancying student achievement. and this -- where does this one go? >> guest: this book is the title would suggest goes beyond just the school choice can do and a general sense to raise achievement and talk some more detail about how the structures

you need in place to make sure students can achieve more. it is more of a following detail of the first booklet. >> another fellow is peter ferrara, bubonic air disaster. >> yes, this is actually policy paper written for us. it was certainly long enough for both treatments. user senior fellow for budget and tight on the policy and he's very prolific. he was able to turn us around rather quickly. it explains as the title would suggest why obamacare is a disaster both economically and personal freedom and for entire health care system. >> what are the benefits of being had ordered and the midwest and what are the downsides? >> the downside is we are not in washington d.c. wherever and gets lots of attention and perhaps a reason to get on c-span. but we actually have an office here in washington d.c., the

headquarters are in chicago. a real advantage as it takes us away from, you know, kind of the hurricane of policy here in washington d.c. we were founded to concentrate on state -- state legislatures and state issues. we were the first in only i think national state-based think tank. re-examine state policy about all the issues we care about, but we also do things of national scope as the obamacare disaster would suggest. we do look at national issues, but we also look at state-by-state issues as the think tank. >> another boat at the heartland institute. the patriots toolbox. >> the patriots kovacs has been very popular. we have distributed 50,000 to 70,000 copies of this book and its popular among the tea party groups all across the country. it is a compilation of the series of the 10 principal series of booklets that talk about the 10 free-market

principles to improve a certain policy area with tax policy or health care policy or energy policy and it really for the tea party movement, the heartland institute likes to offer ourselves intellectual support for the tea party movements across the country. they love freedom. they are against the governments , they want for markets which they may not have because they don't have all the details of why they believe what they believe in all these policy areas. that is what the toolbox became as a book that became very popular. >> a new book or the heartland institute, roosters of the apocalypse. >> one of my favorite titles in the last couple of years. boosters of the apocalypses about environmental policy in kind of the chicken little syndrome when it comes to global warming alarmists and. there's the chicken models on the people that examined the science and understand that the climate of course is changing

that is patently not catastrophic and its impact is not nearly as bad as a lot of people think. this is her first book with us. we are very happy and that is brand-new and will be coming out. >> jim blakely is the communications are of the heartland institute. your website? >> heartland.org. >> author winston groom or consulate and political rear of america's 40th president, ronald reagan. the objects were as president reagan's childhood of radio acting career and his political ascendancy from governor of california to president of the united states. this is about 40 minutes. >> i surely appreciate all you people coming to see me on this dark and stormy night. it was just horrible. but it's a full moon here.

i just saw driving and in the sunset is gorgeous and it's a wonderful town and i am glad to be here. somebody now owes me $100 for the commercial. but i tell you, you are guinea pigs because this is the first speech i've given on "ronald reagan". i've got four books that way all at the same time. i can't figure out from one date the next one i'm supposed to be doing. they did make some notes on the case for open my mouth and nothing comes out. at least i've got something here. you know, the reason i wrote this look -- i was approached to write it, but the reason i accepted the inquiry was because i've realized about two or three years ago my daughter, carolina

that she was 10 or 11 or something at the time, if they weren't teaching contemporary politics at all in any school. yet i realized that politics is all around us. i mean come aggregate these kids are getting a big dose of politics and they don't really have any tools to look a president then no one is ever written a young adult book about ronald reagan. think maybe there's a few by some of the other presidents, but i thought well, maybe i will start a trend here. did reagan because i think he was the most interesting of those contemporary presidents going back to john kennedy because of both his childhood and his wife. i like to write about movie stars. i have written about every

president since kennedy. i haven't met kennedy. since then i was a reporter in washington for 10 years and then matt johnson, nixon and ford in a new ford when he was in the house. and actually nick carter in an interesting way. i would come into new york greatest living there at the time for my place in the hamptons and i cannot send a night like i usually didn't stop.the points restaurant and had dinner. then i sat last day in a seated me at what they call the family table, for the divorcees and bachelors in wayward has been. elaine came over bad gauge this is in the back of the room of the rooms to talk to you. i at there shortly. she said no, he really wants to come back there. i'm at that they're in the room next to the table where woody allen that and the guy stood up and he had on a jimmy carter

mask. i had to look closer. it was jimmy carter. it turned out that his wife's man who was a big publisher at doubleday was doing his biography -- one of his biographies. the perfectly nice people. i knew the first george bush is to play tennis with them and made new young george back in the 60s -- early 70s when they're running for senate. but in any case, i thought right-hand, you know, this guy came out of nowhere. i mean, he came from a little poorer midwestern town and he was so poor he didn't even know he was poor until they got to college. but his father was a drunkard

and his mother took him to laundry and it got by. the first instance of his determination but i detect it and all of the things that i read about him was when he decided he was going to play high school foot of the weighed 90 pounds and he was scratched and he continued and then he was 11 days from the scribe team and then he went back at it again until finally he became the captain of the team. and that tells you some pain. all football captains to wind up being president, but it tells you something about the guy's personality and his drive. and they got to college it a little tiny college named eureka and illinois, plain folk and waiting on tables in a sorority

house and washing dishes. and he got through the school is pretty good grades. he majored in economics and he spent the time that he wasn't playing football when he was again the captain of the football team, but in student politics he was the chairman of the student governor association and in whatever spare time he had over. he graduated in 1932, just-in-time for the worst part of the late great depression. this is really serious and his father have sobered up long enough to think that they had a possibility of job for him at montgomery ward, which is that big chicago store and it would've been a salesman. i turned out he didn't get the

job anything thanking his lucky stars every sense because it would've taken down a different career path. but he got out of eureka and he was trying to figure out what he wants to be. he wanted to be not here, but there is no way he was going to be an actor. how do you do that? so he finds a job in a tiny little radio station as a sportscaster of all things. and with the job was to dissolve scotsman there. strassmann said okay, weekend, i watch you to give me five minutes whatever you want sports and make it interesting to me, like you are talking on the radio. three things, on right, i remember the last five minutes of the game against northwestern university and we won. so he broadcasted. put a microphone to his mouth and there he goes. the newscast that wonderful, you've got the job. they started off with college football and then he wound up being the voice of the chicago

cubs of all things. it is very, very well known and famous in the midwest as a sportscaster. in one of the great stories i have about this was that i went .2 is broadcasting the game. they were extremely cheap during the depression. they did not want to send the broadcasters have to travel with the game with the teams to all these different games. so what they would do is they had one poor guy to go to the games and he would telegraph all of the various radio stations what was going on with the game so that they had the sportscaster doing the play-by-play is as though he was actually there. that is not, is 500 miles away. this all worked very well until one day -- one afternoon they were playing the cincinnati red and the telegraph went dead.

and it's the ninth inning. dizzy dean is the pitcher. he calls a foul ball. and the ball goes in the stands and the fans start fighting over the foul pole. so he's waiting for the guy on the other side of the booth and he keeps going with the foul for seven minutes. it was in berkeley's believe it or not. finally the game comes in the guy pops up early, but that was the kind of what the man had. he seemed blessed with some sort of stars that shine bright upon

him. the guy that owned the cubs would strictly come the chewing gum ban. that owned one of those things off of los angeles. and they take the cubs team their first spring training. west hollywood. reagan was their first spring training. here ever since girlfriend yurika and she has got a job as -- i don't know, a dancer or something in the movies. he asked about it. had i get into a movie? the agent takes a look and says, well, we will send you to mgm. and there he went and they put them in the movie. now it's a sportscaster of all things. just type type in the hunt for parvati pearce at there he was. they wanted to change his name is the first thing. that's an awful name. he said look, i don't know she know about me, but i'm pretty well known in all of the midwest. why does that? everybody knows my name so they

get to keep his name. and people made fun of reagan. that was a bad time for bond of and it's probably ill advised, but i watched it. it's not a bad show. it makes a guy look like a fool. when you look at things like the hasting hard they were very, very good movies. this guy was a very good act they are and he was proud of a lot of good act or strata was willing to hold in a newly empowered and john wayne. all of these guys -- walter pigeon, edwin g robbins. and so he was doing well in the movie business until world war ii breaks out. but what he had done because he loved any stock in the money to ride horses coming in now, when he was college and all that. so they had a program.

what is now ocs, officers training school and he became a lieutenant in the united states, very forgot to write in the best horses for free. one weekend a month. olympic team toward, you know, now with? the calvary became the laws are anorexic is going overseas, but his website was so bad that the next night and said your eyesight is too bad to leave the united states and they figured out who he was and put on in the division and he sat there in san francisco and collected all of these technical guys promote the movie studios. they would go replicas of late tokyo, cities in japan or islands that they were going to bomb and bring the pilot said and these were things bigger than this room, exact replica so

they could see what they were looking at, which is better than photographs. he did well at this and he went back into the movie business in 1945 on the war was over and it had changed a lot the studio system was starting to break out. the old system of the studio ran everything. he asked what show you're going to do in this began to change. and it did not work as well for ronald reagan because a lot of the other guys had stayed and not gone to war, said they become the new movie stars. but reagan did become the head of sag, the screen actors guild, union of air where every class known to man has the union in the movie business. i mean, they've got the road

doing unions that people would put it, but that was about the time when the communists were trying to infiltrate hollywood because they thought it would be a great propaganda district. the acting classes always been a little bit to the left. but it became big time to the last in the 1920s and 30s because of really a little group and i hope i'm not getting too far down the way at the sidetrack. but the group theatre in new york sent all of these that are sober to moscow to the train because it was free. the state did all the training. and while they're training to be actors are also training to be communists. and they migrated to the group theatre in manhattan after the movie business in hollywood in

the 1920s in the 1930s and by the time reagan became president of the screen actors guild, it was just about taken over by hard-line communists. some of the well-known hot or send direct heirs. mostly -- i mean, what they did was the big time actors just paid their dues and so they neglect to this business, screen actors guild and so this is about the time not because it is the congressional line -- [inaudible] >> days ago. i needed that. the all-americans activities committee was holding this hearing, so it's a great bit low, but in any case was get rid of the communist influence. he testified. he says we don't need to outlaw

it. we are not out fine communism. we can get rid of it democratically. so it just barely didn't go. they voted the communists out. so strained a little bit on the union and that was i think the beginning of this conversion from being a democrat to being a republican because bullion had been raised as a democrat all his life. his father was an irishman who was as close as he came really to 10 and respectability working for the government in the roosevelt administration. civilian had been raised as a democrat, but he came employed a general lack. do you remember the old ge theater come to some of you might which is on sunday night.

and they got reagan to go around and make speeches to other factories because it was a huge corporation that then, as it is today. then he spoke against communism and he suddenly realized that there was a great force out there that was against him. it was not necessary for communism, but he was conservative and liberal so his attention grew and one day he was in a lecture hall delivering a speech on the woman said to him from the back of the room, mr. reagan, when are you going to become a republican? , well, i think i probably ought to. i just never got around to do it. they sat on the registrar and i'll register you right now. and there he was. his famous statement about that was that i didn't leave the

democratic party. the democratic arty left me. and so, his acting career and his speaking career can't naturally morphed into a political career and he was approached by these important people. the unimportant people don't approach. anyway, he said you're crazy. i'm an actor. they said that's why they want you to run because you're better than the diameter. old pat brown had been in there for a million years. and so, reagan delray. i'll run for governor. he ran against brown and the accused him of playing a lot of makeup. they said the only reason he's good on the tv in his debates. what he didn't wear makeup. the first day he got to hollywood they put make up on him. he had good skin to start with.

so while these comments in the newspapers about him wearing makeup and everybody, including the interview including governor brown with all this pancake makeup. i don't have any makeup on. but he talking about? this is a huge political coup. they played over and over. and here he won. he did while i think is a governor. he spent too much money. he was not of these guys. you play along to go and some business like that. you have to do that in politics if you want to do things. what he wanted to do was to ease the state's debt. he did a lot of other good things. one of the stories that is told about him, he got in the office

in 1967, which was the year i got back to vietnam and there's all these demonstrations going on at wrigley. of course he was the governor and there's a big university system out there university of california. and he went to berkeley to meet with some of these people could see that baby with that of inbound. they yelled and hollered and through things and so on. because some of them in the rooms of leakers. and finally after they had settled down enough to wear when they started to speak. he said governor, we don't think you can understand this is all because you didn't grow up. we corrupt in the age of jet planes and space travel and computers that can do things immediately annulled this instinct medication. you don't understand what were talking about. he said while that may be so bulimic tell you something. my generation is the one who invented those things.

[laughter] so, he left the governor's office and then of course the big question was popped, would he be interested in running for president. it can come thought they were insane. i'm ready to retire. he was getting a lot done. because i had had coming in now, nixon had made a disgrace for himself. and gerry ford who is an extremely nice man, extremely bright man, did not distinguish himself. and so, reagan probably due advisedly ran against in the primary manikins the city president and lasts. but jimmy carter did get elected and caught his record after one year was very visible. i'm in candidate countries in horrible shape.

the inflation was so bad. i was living in new york and then of course the piece was a big supermarket and i go to chris cds to buy groceries there was a prices on anything. the prices were going up so fast. they are going up 10 cents every hour. she could have blown it was like 19 to 20%. he could get 192% to 20% in a money market fund. is killing the country. we're in a terrible recession. at the same time the russians have a lot of trouble. the soviets are trying to expand down to south america, africa and there were some very serious are your problems that had not been resolved in jimmy carter has loved the military in a terrible state. they did not have enough money

to buy a feel for the aircraft carriers to go in deepwater. ronald reagan went against jimmy carter and he won but the famous there you go again lying on the debates. and they are politicized situation. and he was determined to try what was then called supply-side economics, which i know what it is more or less. but it would trickle down. it was an ugly word to say, but what it is as if the regulations off everybody's bag biagini was going to take a while and it did take a while. of course he got a lot of flak from the mainstream media and the democrats, liberals that i knew pretty well.

claude was the democratic establishment way back in world war ii. he called me again and enabled guns. i worked with jimmy breslin that the newspaper. he called and said he was senile and his monumentally or something like that. it was kind of the field day. everything he did, they would criticize. chelate to eat jelly beans. they've got it some psychologists to see the colored jellybeans he was eating. but the thing about reagan was he didn't care. i mean, remember sam donaldson. he's always shouting at him. it was like he couldn't hear, even after was right in his ear.

so he couldn't get his goat. he was a man of good cheer. but he was determined when he got out of office to do some things that he thought were both important and necessary. the debt took care of itself. when he left office the interest rates went back and the unemployment had gone back to normal, whatever it is. but i think his biggest success was in his foreign policy. i'm not going to get to the caribbean stud, dealing with the soviets, he faced them down and these were some serious situations. they had 3600 creep take warhead

missiles pointing at this country. that would've been destroyed. after the cold war de son, right after world war ii there was a policy with probably decade of what they're called containment. i was part of that or we were trying to contain the soviets extension, the communist expansion. korea was part of that. vietnam is part of that. and various other places. i'm the sort of morphed with henry kissinger to a policy of peaceful coexistence when nixon got in. we're going to try and be friends with the communists. and reagan, i want to kill them. the other people or creed of slaves. they treat the people at trying again to malls and people who live in communism live like

slaves. he made a moral value judgment that u.s. was to make. but he made it. and so, here was his initial problem and all these old guys, they all died. everyone, the soviet cat taking these guys who are 80 years old all day long. and finally he got gorbachev and gorbachev was a lawyer. he was well educated. a lot of these other guys were communists. the gorbachev was an educated man and he's reasonable. they thought he could reason with them, but it didn't start off well and reagan got a lot of flack said he came back from iceland but they were supposed to have a big arm tzatziki bit of some of these missiles. and gorbachev said i wouldn't do

it. but reagan had from the very beginning of his presidency, he would not admit of this is probably the first year to someplace, so not so not an ad in nevada or idaho for the big central control for all the buttons are pushed and he asked this guy, the colonel jen drove, what are my defenses against this? we don't have any. but? no, we can't do it. what do you mean? he said furthermore, the soviets decide on a first-rate, they would not get everyone missiles before they love so we're going. the first-rate was going to kill everybody. and reagan got back out to berkeley, where he had good connections with being governor and he said, we've got to get something going here. they have been made, all wars

they called it. and it could've worked. if they kept on doing it yet but it terrified the russians, the soviets because they did not have the money to do that. this is enormously expensive proposition to set up of these huge space stations and satellite and to compute their missiles that they had to space. and so, this was an enormous bargaining tool that reagan had. gorbachev, every time they had a meeting committee with a well, we are willing to do away with this number of missiles that this number or that, but you've got to do away with the "star wars" thing. we can't have that. i'll tell you, i'll give it to you. once we get it finished, i give it to you so no one can shoot missiles at anybody else. how about that? fair enough? no, they don't want that. and as a result, they grieved in

a crumpled and in reagan went out for a 1985 to berlin, where was the berlin wall and he made a great speech. and he'd made friends with gorbachev, he thought. they talk to jeff ayers curtains, but he still was determined he wasn't going to get back down. he said it is speech that his own state department was horrified you would say such a thing could he got up that point it is that mr. gorbachev, if your piece in the world, tear down this wall and the germans are thinking well, mr. gorbachev is on the other side of the wall. mr. reagan is going to be gone tomorrow. everybody was stunned. but suddenly this became a mantra of some kind. in the german people are thinking on both sides of the

law. and gorbachev knew he was having problems. first of all, he started easing control and the people to power and suddenly you saw the hole at eastern bloc of the soviet union began to crumble. reagan is out of office at this point by about a year. that was his doing your duty started safety. if you could make a case for one single individual who buys soviet communism and it used, then it would be a way. and he actually after the satellite countries such as czechoslovakia and poland and hungary, east germany had gotten their freedom, he went to visit moscow and seek gorbachev over there. arbatov was kind of happy about it. he made us each to the great law

school in moscow. and talk to these guys. they've never heard anyone talk about democracy and freedom. it was against the low, but he did it. and he was cheered. so he loved. his legacy, i think, i think he was a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for. one of the things i found the daily stuff up, presidential speechwriters. they do to some extent. but reagan wrote his own speeches. and i've got the book with his own handwriting. he kept a diary. i don't know if any president since james polk. but reagan kept a diary, which is extremely articulate and he wrote orders than they are collected in places. and i was just fascinated by the

turn of this guy's mind. it was so clear and so smart. he was basically a meat and potatoes guy. had a big ranch in california. he got to go way up in the mountains on this site is tantamount to cut. not santa monica, santa barbara. and this guy -- i mean, one of the things he did -- the press would always go to bid, you know, telescopic campus, $10,000 for the lens because they would sit on mountains five miles away twain on his little ranch there all day long, just to see what would happen if they could report something. so one day he goes out and he falls down. [laughter] so suddenly they go crazy. the president is having a heart

attack. so he gets up, waves and smiles. [laughter] so what i thought i would do here. i hate reading things. iowa side of the sheep you come into a reading. you read it. i don't need to read it. i'm not even a good reader. but the last couple pages of this book that i wrote sort of sums up i think what reagan was and what he did. it's an outlook like a lot pages because i can't make that type are a bit, but it's really only page and a half in the book. but you all know he passed away of alzheimer's disease. his mother had it and he made a lovely -- a lovely note to the american public. i didn't include it here, but i'm explaining what was going to happen to him and he knew and he basically had a good time to

thank everybody for their kindness. even think sam donaldson. but he did on june 3rd, 2005, ronald reagan passed away in bel air california. he was 93 years old. on june 9th on his body was flown to washington d.c. to ice age in the rotunda of the u.s. capitol, where one passing -- 104,684 mourners viewed it on june 11. a funeral service was held at the national cathedral, attended by many of the world's greatest leaders, including his old adversary, because gorbachev. he was buried in california at the ronald reagan presidential library. on his gravestone for its graduates from the speech he

delivered at the dedication of the library. i know what my heart that man is good. but what is right will always eventually triumph and that there's purpose and worth in each and every life. during his political career, reagan was disliked and even reviled by most as the intelligence, the mainstream media as they've come to be known. but today there are so those who belittle his will in russia's decision to missiles that the united states and the ultimate failures of soviet communism. but there are many of us remember reagan from his record of 34 television network addresses to the american people. what these americans would call, no matter what the politics was

a man of great bearing, straight talk, full of good humor and good will. this feature for president a matter what came his way. there were times he could be angry as he showed in the speeches about gorbachev's behavior and the arms conference on the russian merger of the innocent civilians bore the korean airliner, which i haven't gotten into an ipo. reagan had a clear sense of right and wrong, which in theory he did many the dean academics and intellectuals and established. most of them still remain convinced that applying such convictions to political problems is to be judgmental and simplistic and even deemed serious. in contrast to the reagan truly believed he understood what was right and what was wrong as he saw it. above all else, reagan was an

american original who had his heart breaks and its triumphs in the default and rich and important life and died in his own bed. he had come a long way. a poor boy from tampico, illinois. the forecaster, movie star, president of the screen actors skilled, california governor and president of the united states. it was all because he did not get the job at montgomery ward back in 1832. that was the way he saw it. if you ever visit the reagan library in simi valley, california you'll notice a nine-foot concrete tab monoliths i've got stuck papers.

on the side that faces west, it is painted colorful graffiti of butterflies and flowers. the eastside remains a draft start gray. that is an actual 6338-pound chunk of the berlin wall by the assistance of grateful journey as a symbol of reagan's speech or as a ring around the road and a freedom for east germany and the rest of the communist world. but that, reagan said that our children, grandchildren come here and see this wall and reflect on what it meant to history. let them understand only vigilance and strength will deter tyranny. any trip a com by the tens of thousands. the schoolchildren and they read the words and look out over the valley with the great lives close by.

just a little to the right also facing west. so that you know the end of the book in the story. it don't have to buy the book. [laughter] you have been a great group of guinea pigs and i hope i have not taken up too much of your time on this lovely night. thank you all for coming too but can sign some books to be like. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> that was hosted by page and palette in fairhope, alabama. for more information visit page and palette.com. >> think of the fdr memorial. it wasn't just redesigned. it is three plus designs before they got to a final plan.

and so i think that we shouldn't be afraid of looking at this issue because we are building something for the centuries and we went to get it right. >> here is the list of books being released this week could pennsylvania derby at political debate that led to the search of political parties in life among the cannibals, a political career committee party of president and is governing as we know it.