>> it's interesting that when you look at other countries, courts around the world, constitutional courts, all democracies and constitutional courts of emerging democracies. these countries and courts have adopted many supreme court lessons, have to some degree model themselves after the supreme court, although in interesting ways they have diverged. the one thing no other country has adopted his life tenure for its high court judges.

they have a term of years or age limit. they have other interesting features. some of the european courts, for instance, don't publish dissenting opinions. the opinion speaks for the court and we don't have big risk dissenting opinions that we see out of our supreme court. the court speaks as one. if somebody dissents, they just keep it to themselves. that would be something quite different on this supreme court. so i think with those observations, maybe i should turn it over to you, and i'd be happy to take your questions. i see there's microphones, and be happy to have any kind of conversation that you would like to join me in. [applause]

>> good evening. thank you for wonderful presentation. >> could you talk into the mic? >> thank you for wonderful presentation. current supreme court justice ginsburg on visit to egypt, in my opinion made -- suggestion, advise to write -- to new constitution to look at canadian and south african constitution. i was just wonder, comments, as supreme justice, doesn't believe in our constitution how she could be, remain a justice. and cure, you know, general

advice, not suggestion. not really discussed the media. >> i have a little trouble hearing you because as a little distorted. you're asking me about justice -- >> ginsberg spent justice ginsburg? >> right. advised to drafters of new constitution in egypt to use canadian and south african. i mean, i couldn't find it hilarious. >> what he's referring to is a talk that justice ginsburg a in egypt urges i state department mission, and her remarks have really been taken greatly out of context and distorted. she certainly was not running down the u.s. constitution. she was suggesting simply that there's always room for improvement, and she's somebody who in her own career has

brilliantly managed to expand the meaning of the equality under the constitution. and i don't know of anybody in our public life he believes more deeply in the constitution, so i'll have to take issue with the premise of your question. >> thank you so much for a wonderful and rich talk. there's so many issues that i think you have raised that i think you'd probably go on for longer. but he made an interesting comment about the justices themselves who are, they are who they are. i guess what what i'm leading up to without quoting your exact words is how much do you think there has been a politicization of the courts? particularly as we see so much

bickering, use that probably ridiculous word, in our country, about these issues of that contraception and morality, whether a person gets health care and so on and so forth. but what's your sense of the politicization? and maybe perhaps another question. do you think that justice thomas, who has rigorously or steadfastly refuse to ask questions, do you think that that is a good thing? thank you very much. >> okay, you appraise kind of a profound question and a very specific one. on politicization, so there was a bloomberg poll that came out a few days ago that asked people whether they thought the health care decision, when it comes later this spring, will be influenced by the justices politics, or whether they will

resolve the case based on the law. and three quarters of people responded to the poll said politics. and i just found that depressing. i actually don't think it's true. somebody is bound to ask what i think about the health care? conflicting the court will uphold the law regardless of whether, as legislators they would've voted for it, or as citizens whether they like it, because i think the court's precedents under the commerce clause in terms of defining the scope of congressional authority requires the court to uphold it. i don't think they have a choice and i don't and they will feel they choice. i don't actually see the supreme court as politicized instituti institution. i think there are some justices who have agendas.

i think the grants of review and the texas affronted action case, the reason i have said that was because the decision was a necessary, that i think does put the court which was loosely in a political spotlight, and has the prospect of institutional self harm, i think. i think that was just a misjudgment. but i don't think the court is politicized in the way that we think of that term when we think about our kind of political landscape right now. justice thomas, what i think it is not having asked a question for the last five and have his, not that i'm counting -- [laughter] you know, it's strange from its very strange behavior. as i mentioned i was at the court yesterday, and oral argument is a really lively, it's a great scene. people who haven't had a chance

to witness it, you know, courts open. there's no television. you can go and read the transcript every day, or you can download the audio of every argument the court puts up on the website on a weekly basis. although i should say the health care arguments, the audio will be put out every day. so, you know, for a member of the court to just decide i'm not going to play, i'm not going to participate, you know, i'm not inside his head. i think it kind of reminded me of, you know, a little boy who says i'm going to stand and hold my breath and stand in a corner and nobody calls his bluff, and he is still standing there. because after five and a half years, when you've given all kinds of reasons why you're not asking any questions and they don't quite, you're not quite consistent or not quite coherent, how you get out of the box. you can just ask a question.

we used to ask questions the questions were perfectly fine. so i guess that's my answer. i don't quite get it. >> i have two questions for you. first, i want to know if you think that the court will change, like, will diversify in any other way. in the future. and second, is there any other, are there any other problems that you see with the court, other than just the confirmation aspect speak with any other problems other than -- >> the confirmation. >> yes, i'm sure the court will diversify further. you know, there have been some state courts in the country that have a majority of women, for instance. i think the court needs to have, the court needs to look more like america in all kinds of

ways, and i think it will. i think all it takes will drive in that direction, and and you know, i think that something that would be good for the country. do i see any problems in the court? well, i mean, they've got areas of doctrine that had been driven in certain directions that the question now i think is whether they are going to go right over, follow what they been going to a logical conclusion, which is kind of right over a cliff. for instance, i'm sure you're all familiar with the citizens united case, so you could debate the merits of that case one way or the other, but it's an indication that this court takes a view of the first amendment

that i think has strayed rather far from certainly what the framers would have seemed as the dimensions of the first amendment. for instance, there's a case that i think is heading to the court now about whether the government has the power to order cigarette makers to put a very graphic warning labels on the packaging, and a federal district judge, i think not necessary incorrectly interpreting what the supreme court is going, said that this requirement was a violation of the first amendment rights of cigarette makers because a former speech. so that's pretty interesting. you know, we have a regulated product. congress has given the government, the food drug administration the right to regulate aspects of cigarette

marketing, and congress determined that this was an appropriate deterrence to smoking and so. and how the first amendment got into this equation is pretty interesting. when you ask me whether the court has any problems today, i think they may be needed take a deep breath and take a look at where they've been heading in some of these areas to decide whether they want to keep pushing it along. >> thank you for your speech. i would like to ask you a question about judicial ethics. the supreme court, or at least certain members of the supreme court, have a thing brought the court down to the poor people are questioning some of the legitimacy of their decisions. and i wonder how you think the

code of judicial ethics should be applied to the supreme court? and why, if you don't think so, why they shouldn't be held to a higher standard? >> thank you for asking that, because i think that's an issue that has been kind of largely misunderstood, and a little bit demagogues. i don't mean by you, but, i mean, it's true that certain of the judicial ethics rules that apply to all other federal judges don't technically apply to the supreme court. but the justices regard themselves as bound by them. so for instance, all the financials, well, the justices are bound by all the financial disclosure rules, just like all other judges. on the recusal issues, which is where this comes up, the court has explained its recusal policy, and it's the same as the policies that bind all other

federal judges. for instance, a single share of stock in a company requires a judge or a justice under the policy that they adopted to recuse, from a case involving a corporation and so on. when you get to the margins of, you know, where it's not kind of black letter and for recusal, personally to speaking as a citizen, i'm not a big fan of judicial recusal. for instance, you get into a situation like the motion to recuse judge walker a federal district court and san francisco who presided over proposition h. try because all my god, he's a gay man, he had a conflict of interest. unit, people on the left are trying hard to get justice thomas and justice scalia refused from a bunch of stuff because they have attended

meetings sponsored by folks on the right. and i think we need to be really careful about setting in motion rules that would kind of disabled the court, the justices, from being out in the world actually. i mean, i have to say, may surprise you, but i think justice klee was quite right when he declined to recuse himself in, on the basis of having gone duck hunting with dick cheney windows a case involving the office of vice president that would be before the courts but it didn't have anything to do with cheney's personal liability and justice scalia explained himself with a 20 page opinion as to why friendship with a high government official, this became

a means for recusal, many, many justices would've had to recuse themselves because you don't get to be supreme court justice unless you know people in high places. so i'm just personal against being a citizen and an expert on ethics, quite comfortable about just feeling that the members of the court are making the other goals that i wish they would make. >> i have a follow-up question and a sense of united? for much of the 20 century, progressives who argued for judicial restraint and the courts were striking the new deals law, an and in the 1950s and '60s, there was a very horrible conservative argument.

wonder we think that argument stands now. will we see it becoming liberal called again, or is it something, doesn't depend on where you stand, depends on where you sit? or is there any kind of coherence as to how people view that issued? >> there's not a lot of coherence. i think an activist judge quote activist judge, is the judge who has come out with an opinion that one doesn't like. and there's some really interesting conversations going on now i think in conservative circles about this. you might have seen the interesting op-ed in the times a few days ago of the u.s. court of appeals for the fourth circuit, and he's talking about activism of all kinds but his focus really was on judicial activism on the right. and he's a conservative. he's an old-fashioned

conservative, and he's discerning on the right in opinion of, well, for instance, he's been very critical of justice klee's opinion of the heller case, the second and many case that the second amendment gives people a national rights to own a gun. just wilkinson regard that as, you know, an example of right wing activism. so yeah, we've got it on all sides and i think the health care? , it's really a chance for the conservatives on the court to disavow the kind of activism that would have judges substitute their own policy judgments for what i think are the pretty clear commands of the constitution's text and the court's own precedents. it's really, it's interesting

test for them. and i think the more that people like judge wilkinson or, you know, just individuals look at the court across the entire spectrum and be willing to call out undue activism when they see it i think is interesting conversation to be having right now. do you want to come up to the mic? >> i can speak quite loudly. >> i think c-span is recording. >> thank you for your exposé, very helpful. when you are talking about

kennedy versus louisiana and the fact that the justices were unaware of a law that congress had passed, i may have missed the timing of that, but would that not have come out in oral arguments or somebody calls one of them at night or a piece of paper? i'm being facetious there, but something. what, what was missing there? that they would not be aware of that kind of legislation? that's one question. and the other one is, it was interesting to see some of the founding fathers would be turning over in their graves, and certainly, perhaps many of us are saying that's just what the republicans, shouldn't say this, but more conservative people are saying about the right to bear arms, et cetera. so it's interesting because we can see that from two sides. what the intentions of the framers of the constitution, that issue, this is a second question of course, being called

into, question is being raised, yet how do we move on from that or apply it in its purest form of that getting ourselves all wrapped up into something and not recognizing change and evolution of society and i'm? >> right, right. to interesting questions. so how did the court, kennedy versus louisiana, how did the court missed the fact that congress had recently passed a law on the subject? i think it was because it was attached, you know, code of military justice, and nobody thought to look there. now, it came up as, it wasn't a federal case because a case involving a state law. the court agreed to review it, and typically what would happen then is that the solicitor general's office and the department of justice would basically survey all the different general counsel, all

the different, here's a new supreme court case, shall we filed a brief representing your agency's interest, you know, is anything in that we need to know. and i never could track down exactly what the missing link was but i think it originally, they didn't bother questioning the pentagon. because you look at, i think, in retrospect of course the military justice system, i mean we know right now from current events, there's a lot to say about military justice, but i think it just didn't occur to anybody, and i think nobody in the pentagon general counsel's office is watching the supreme court's docket for things that seem on the face had nothing do with melted. and, obviously, the state of louisiana and the states they came in as friends of the court on its behalf, they didn't think of the military. so it just fell through the

cracks. they say came to my attention, but it does make you wonder how many things fall through the cracks in other cases that just so happened to come to anybody's attention, you know? i don't, don't know the attitude that. so then he asked about the whole debate over originalism. and, of course, the second amendment case from 2008 was really interesting because both of justice scalia, for the five in the majority, and justice stevens for the 4 in dissent, they both thought that case on grounds of racial. justice stevens, kind of remarkably, i think in debord to me, justice klee who we know is a self-described originalist, on the ground, on his own ground, and try to muster evidence that some people found pretty compelling but not five justices, as to whether the framers meant the second amendment to apply to an

individual right or only a right extension of membership in a militia. so that was originalism sort of at its height when he had all nine justices kind of fighting out originalism. it came out, it's like they were shocked. we don't really know. the text isn't he just the the history is ambiguous. we could stand here all day and call in experts on the second amendment, and we wouldn't get any agreement. so what to do about that. justice breyer had an interesting separate opinion in that case. he joined the stevens dissent and he also wrote separate to say look, this is not a productive way to go about this. we need to look more pragmatically. we need to go back. if we're going to go back to the framing, we need not to get hung up on text and whether, was, you know, the strange with the second amendment is worded. we need to think what would the framers thinking, what was that

all about. and he said, colonial and media post colonial boston for instance, have a law against keeping, like ammunition data, gunpowder in private homes. and why was that? because as a safety hazard because you could have a fire and wooden buildings and you could burn up the whole city of boston. so they had a safety concern. he said what's the reason why the district of columbia enacted the strictest gun ban in the country? for public safety. the district of columbia, same gun violence on the streets, obvious not to belabor it, decided that what they need with a handgun ban. so breyer says, you know, to uphold the d.c. handgun ban is to be consistent with the original intent, understood from a pragmatic, not a grammatical,

you know, position. well, he wrote for himself, and that's his view of a kind of a workable constitution. that works for today, and he has written a couple of books that are quite interesting of the flushing that out. so it's a debate that is going on. a productive one. and i think it's interesting that justice klee and justice thomas remained the only true kind of self-identified original us on the court. of the conservative justices, chief justice roberts, justice alito, they haven't signed up for that. they will make a basis to originalism, but they are not stuck there. so, history is more important now in court arguments than it has been increasing years,

because justice kelly is force on the matter. he's obviously a boat people want to get. but originalism alone is not going to win the supreme court argument. people have to come up with better arguments. >> hi. first question i have is about technological issues, like so, in congress would seem like a fight over sopa where people have technical know-how. people are voting on this legislation of this is a you probably end up seeing on the supreme court with, you know, liking and things like that where they might not, you, with a technological things are getting lost, and it's been couched as a different issue. so i don't know if that is something you could address, do you think that is something that could some of the address. and also you are not saying the

courts are not politicize in your opinion, but speed i'm having trouble hearing you because mic is very loud. >> so you were taught about politicizing the court, i think that one what it is politicized is that they can come back, that they're coming back so quickly to the affirmative action case. do you think we will continue to see the back and forth, now we have another liberal justice and now we'll look at citizens united? do you think that will snowball work every time the courts shift they will revisit issues? >> yeah, that's a good question. so every time the court she is, whether we open things that have been settled. possible. i mean, i think there's a real challenge now on the court do, very subtle ideas about the meaning of our civil rights statutes. not only a from of action areas, but other aspects, too. you know, the role of precedent

in a common law system that we have where one case leads to another key piece leads to another case, you've got to have some kind of fundamental concept president, or you're just kind of twisting in the wind. now obviously, you know, we're glad that brown of board of education overturned plessy v. ferguson. you've got some awfully good reasons to go back to a case that was fully thought out and argued very recently, and reopened. you know, i was pretty surprised by the court's announcement a couple weeks ago that is going to take the texas case under review, and it's worth watching the court's behavior on this pretty closely. i think your concern is well-founded.

>> i've heard it said that if you put a group of liberal people in a room, the views will spew towards the extreme liberals. and the same with a group of conservatives, that they will spew towards the edges, if you will. do you see any tendency of that in the ebb and flow of opinion with the history of the supreme court? >> could you repeat your question? >> so, you put liberals in the room and they tend to be extreme cut and put a bunch of -- is the happening in the court today? >> it's not happening on the liberal side, i'll tell you that. i think there's nobody on the court today who would like a justice thurgood marshall, think of the constitution as an engine

to be harnessed for a certain kind of social progress. i mean, that's not -- the liberals on the court, and to use that word very decisively, have been playing defense for a long time. i mean, maybe because they don't speak for a majority, but i think it relates in part to choose the personalities of the individuals, and also to the realities of the confirmation process that i talk about. somebody who has, you know, deeply progressive roots, activists of routes you might say, is not very likely these days to get nominated or confirmed. so on the more liberal side of the court we have very mainstream different approach people. on the conservative side, there's been some social science

research that has identified this court as in fact the most conservative kind of center of gravity on the court that we have seen in many decades. and using certain metrics, and you know, we have a couple of these balls in the air, and we will see where they land. it's not that they all agree on everything. a minute ago, originalism only carries in so far. but they may be united in certain policy points of view that reinforce one another as they continue to serve together. it is still a pretty young court. we will see where they are going to take us. >> having said that, are they any reproductive right cases coming up before the justices?

given the composition of the court, the tenor of the whole contraception debate that's going on in america, what do we think is the future of roe v. wade? >> well, first i think the future of roe v. wade is kind of hanging in the balance. there are not currently five votes to overturn it. are five votes to uphold it, or when i say it, what has become in recent years, but obviously the whole notion of reproductive rights as they were once understood is under a great deal of stress. there's some lower courts have upheld most recently, texas older sound law. i don't know -- ultrasound law. i don't know if reproduction right centers of that law will take an appeal of that case to the supreme court, and if they get i don't know whether that would be advisable.

so i think it's an area where things are really hanging in the balance. i mean, as you know, because the way you frame the question,. [inaudible] we have seen dozens and dozens of anti-choice measures being published, some of them put into effect, some of them rushed back by orders or by legislators. so this is very contested territory, and i think the court is really finally balanced right now. so i wouldn't, i wouldn't assume anything about the future. >> i would like to thank you very much for coming. i think we need to let you relax now. thank you very much were a wonderful talk.

[applause] >> every weekend, booktv it offers 48 hours of programming focus on nonfiction authors and books. watch it here on c-span2. >> can routinely and systematically by the way out of public services, and public provided goods, don't they lose a stake in the public sphere and in the corner of us could? >> mercenaries can be paid to fight wars. students can be paid to get good grades. you can pay to jump to the front of the line. sunday night at nine on afterwards, harvard professor on what money can buy, the moral limits of markets. part of booktv this weekend on c-span2.

>> "john f. kennedy: the new frontier president" is in the book the book. it's published by nova publishers, and professor -- professor david snead is the author. let's start by talk but, what is this series of books because this is a series that nova publishing certitude about six years ago. the idea was to get a series on a president that the general reader, advanced high school students could turn to to get basic information. >> why are you writing about john candy? >> well, started with my dissertation which became a book. i focus on the eisenhower presidency but cross over into the kennedy years, and so i got a taste of kennedy, and the late 1990s. and so that concept interested

by all a bit more it more about him. industries came out, it offers don't ask me if i wanted to begin the book and i said sure. i do know a whole lot about him at this stage other than what i've read, but be a good challenge and a good follow-up to general eisenhower. it proved more challenging than i thought it would be. >> wide? >> he's very different from eisenhower. eisenhower was much older, different generation. eisenhower had been a five star general in world war ii, born in the 19th century. kennedy much younger by about three decades. and ivy league different perspective, different level of inches, different political views. and so that pose a challenge. and kennedy was different from eisenhower in some of his actions. eisenhower was generally faithful to his wife.

i think of a challenge and try to address it in the book spent how did you address a? >> i want the students and the general public to understand he was flawed like everybody else. he unfortunately did engage in the affairs throughout his presidency. and those did undermine some of his policies to a degree. but i don't want to give too much attention to it because that was his private life. but it's also something that shouldn't be an award, but i did want to focus most of the book on what were his decisions, why did he make decisions he made. >> what was one decision he made that you think is consequential to his presidency? >> one of my criticisms of him lead to a new policy, he spoke about civil rights, the 1960 campaign, as if he would be the representative for black

america. and he won the overwhelming majority of black votes in that election. but he didn't do much once he was president to he really was him as one historian called in, a bystander. he made a commitment but then did not. that does change though and 1963, when he witnessed through the newspapers and new television at the time the birmingham riots and protests and police chief connor and the fire hoses disrupting the protesters. he was really horrified by the. i really think that's when he truly understood or begin to understand that civil rights is something we need to do, something about. and soon after that in june of 1963, he spoke out very eloquently against the segregation in the south, and

the need for additional civil rights legislation. that ultimately led to the civil rights act of 1964, and to a lesser extent to the voting rights act of 65. >> his three years in the presidency, were they successful? >> i would say over all. he did not achieve everything he set out to do. i think at times he was more interested in getting reelected in 64 then he was been pushing for issues. i think he learned as a president, which i give him credit for. his first year in office he really struggled as a foreign policy issues, particularly invite the berlin crisis that summer but his summit meeting in vienna which did not go well, which he admitted to. but he grew. he learned he learned to be more calculating, too, i would say think more before he spoke. he had a tendency to use rhetoric that was almost

inflammatory. to go back to early in his present in 1961 when the berlin crisis was going on when he talked about the need to build fallout shelters, well, that caused a real stir. not a panic in the country but raise levels of fear both in the united states and the soviet union that maybe this nuclear war might occur. whereas when we get to the cuban missile crisis, he's much more restrained in how he handled the crisis. a lot of it was done behind the scenes, but he tried to keep the rhetoric cooler and tried to work through it with a diplomatic solution behind the scenes. >> what is the new frontier part of the? >> the new frontier, the want of a new frontier, that was his campaign promise. basically a new direction for the country. he believed the eisenhower administration, republican policies of the '50s had grown stale, and that the country was

doing enough to show its greatness. he wanted to see growth, economically, that the country had not experienced for a while. the '50s have been pretty steady economic growth but not to the levels he thought that he thought the u.s. should be doing more at times. i would probably say the things that this country is connected to the most is the space program and the desire for the united states to take a leap there. he had it as his goal and stated up front that he wanted to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. and put a lot of resources into that. but it's basically being different and new, and having hope for the future. and tried to challenge the country, had hoped for the future and about the world. >> what do you teach your? >> i teach a variety of courses, but primarily u.s. military and diplomatic history, which my specialty is 20 century primary. i do a cold war?

no, and i've done a course on kennedy, which would be expected. modern u.s. principally. so those are the courses i teach. i still often to view the survey which i enjoyed immensely because you get to introduce history to students who have varying backgrounds in history spent how long have you been at liberty? where else have you taught? >> might a few here, and before the ipo five years at texas tech university. and came here in part to help them start a graduate program, and since then that's now started and i am chair of the department. >> we have been talking with david see, chair of the history department and the author of this book, "john f. kennedy: the new frontier president." know the publishers.com is the website. in case you're interested. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this

week.

>> coming up next on book tv, ben carson presents his thoughts on america's current social and political landscape. dr. carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at johns hopkins medical institutions, examines the summit between