i like happy endings, two and nora was great for having those, so i want to read that. and robert caro's new book on lbj. i'm very excited about that because i've read several lbj's books and i'm fascinated with him at texas right now. so i plan on reading that, too. >> for more information on this another summer reading list, visit booktv.org. ..

we have gone up together in the library, mike's book is a tremendous best seller. if you have a chance come back and seek mike performing in memphis the weekend after next. he has -- in memphis which is -- seem like in that. he is a wonderful speaker. if you have never seen mike, larry and i have been friends forever. we are opposite each other on the radio in los angeles and elected point out that wary and and colder and i are graduates of the university of michigan law school. larry is older than i am. ann is younger.

we all graduated from the law school. not one of us has been invited back to campus to speak. go figure. three nationally syndicated talk show hosts with a lot of audience and none of this have been invited back. every five years i am invited back to harvard to see the person that they stone. whenever my class has a reunion i am always asked to debate mark deron who is a friend of mine and president clinton's chief of staff and director of the peace corps and communications director and deval patrick is the governor of massachusetts and grover norquist. it is like groundhog day. every five years the four of the sitting front of our class and we are the only conservatives to get out of harvard in 1978 and they throw things at us. it is more fun to be here at the nixon library. the meet the president ceres is

very good. come back in november when we are doing william henry harrison. a very short program. you don't want to miss that one. william henry harrison. i am such a presidential nerd, visited his tomb along the ohio river in southeastern ohio and has any eternal flame that no one noticed and the two car parking lot. you really have to go out of your way to see the tomb of william henry harrison. a great american. just didn't last long in the presidency. and to you -- it is a remarkable place. i never met anyone who came here who did not think it was an extraordinary visit regardless of their politics. may have voted against nixon five times. only one other person in the history of the united states you vote or for or against five times and that is franklin

delano roosevelt did you could vote on that ticket against richard nixon four or five times in 1969 and 1972. if you are in a national audience watching on c-span2 come to the nixon library and you will find a great deal to amaze you. there are only four colleges in the united states which have graduated. quarterbacks in the super bowl. what are those? i will give you the easiest one of wall. the united states naval academy and jimmy carter. the university of michigan which i already mentioned. gerald ford. tom brady. the starting quarterback in navy was roger straw back. if you think we are in california, pretty easy to come of with stanford from which herbert hoover graduated and from which john denver graduated both starting quarterbacks in

the super bowl but then the last one is really hard. really hard. i have given you a clue. i have already said his last name. benjamin harrison who matriculated at miami university of ohio and whose quarterback is ben roethlisberger air. the team from pittsburgh that show not otherwise be named. a little presidential trivia for you and i give a little nixon story when we come back and talk a little about the practice of law. when library was being built and sandino's this as well as i do. the real director of the library was richard nixon that he designed and oversaw its in every detail was of interest to him. probably the thing he was least interested in was a rumor that isn't even here anymore. the domestic policy room which can be redone but we slated together at the last minute and

one of those exhibits was about the endangered species act. president nixon, greatest environmental president in history. signed into law the clean air act and national environmental policy act and in danger of the act and i have been for 20 years an environmental lawyer practicing in -- the environmental species act and clean water act and even then after a couple years of practice in the area of endangered species i know was a screw up law that doesn't work or save species and costs an enormous amount of money and destroy lives and opportunities so i said to him in new jersey one day what were you thinking when you signed this law? he said seemed like a good idea at the time. that was the full extent of president nixon's consideration of the endangered species act so i say that more has justification for oversight. i mentioned as i talk about this book a brief against obama that it is informed by my three

careers. i am radio talk show host and pundits and while professor and lawyer. i am a law professor at chapman university school of law where i have been a member of the faculty teaching constitutional law as part of a truly extraordinary faculty and law school over 50 years and gone from not affiliated or existing to seconds top tier of united states was schools and led by tom campbell. extraordinary scholar and wonderful leader of the law school and enormously diverse place. the faculty goes left to right. graduates are practicing across the united states. it is a great place to teach law but i wrote the brief -- "the brief against obama" with the fact in mind that i have a lot of liberal friends among my colleagues on the faculty. law professors are quite compulsive about the level of

their scholarships so that when you write something you want to have available to your colleagues it has got to be overwhelmingly doctorate documented and foot noted. so in "the brief against obama" there are 45 pages of footnotes and 235 pages of text. when i tell you anything i make a statement about the president tonight and his record you will find in "the brief against obama" endwest documentation that takes you where you can find the facts where eyesight quotations and put forward any arguments because i have in mind when the loss will reconvene this in a few weeks i will leave a copy of the book in each of my liberal colleagues mailbox and let your head spin, we are wonderful faculty and we stand back-to-back and there are 50 of the other ones. i wanted to make sure it would stand up to the most rigorous

analysis. the second point is i became a lawyer. we have been practicing law for many years and we practiced in danger species law i am not a trial lawyer. it is administrative law. my partners are all trial lawyers and they bring trial lawyer sensibilities to arguments. how many of you are trial lawyers? they are different from you and me. they are not normal people. trial lawyers -- fact driven and argumentative. and jan at hecht's and tim cook, tremendously skilled and associates trial lawyers but i began this book by sitting down with gary because gary is among the best trial lawyers in the

united states hired by the biggest corporations in the united states to represent them when an allegation is made the products and services are injured someone so he has to persuade juries all the time of the correctness of his arguments. i was interested in writing a book "the brief against obama" that would persuade people the correctness of my argument. not merely fire up the troops but persuade an independent voter or undecided voter or wavering democrat or wavering republican, that they really should not vote for president obama. i want to read to you from page 2 of "the brief against obama," quote, if you make a promise in your opening statement gary told me you had better have kept it for the jury will hear about it in closing arguments. one of the country's most accomplished trial lawyers spencer and -- that product claims against manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles medical devices and pharmaceuticals sporting goods

and consumer products and claims against the provider of such services as large amusement parks, severely injured or killed. gary is also my law partner so i know how hard he works to win an outpatient he is in his accumulation of facts and interrogation of experts. he loves to go to trial when wes sir hearts want to sail and is forever urging clients who know they have done no wrong to press on to a jury. he loves juries and believes nowhere in the world is there a better model than the american civil justice system. he loves the jury selection process and variety of -- how many of you have served on a jury? facts matter to juries he is fond of saying. juries are by and large fair. if you promise to show the facts to exonerate your client and you do show them those facts you

have a great chance of winning. the idea of a fair trial has been drilled into every juror over a lifetime of media and the judge hammers home a deeply imbedded idea of doing one's duty by the republic. last paragraph. if you have the facts you win. if plaintiff counsel has the facts he wins. if either of you overpromise the one who fails to deliver will lose provided opposing counsel makes sure the jurors know that they have been cheated. you cannot hope to achieve the jury. what you promise you have to deliver. i put that on page 2 much to my regret because when i am with gary he says he wrote the book now but one page out of the book the trial lawyer because that is the way i approach this. i wanted to write a book that would persuade people not to vote for president obama and i knew it had to the fact based

because of 5 professorial background and i knew it had to be argumentative but had to work with independent people not otherwise disposed to agree with me. therefore i consulted a trial lawyer and he said if you overpromise and don't deliver you lose. what i began is went back and made a long list of all the promises president obama made the. all of the predictions that he put forward and volvo polemics that he used and each chapter of the 25 chapters begins with a quotation or a series of quotations from president obama not earlier than 2007. not interested in what he did as a young man or his biography but what he promised to do as a candidate or president. what he predicted would happen as a result of his actions or the language he used as a candidate or president. when you stack it up he did not deliver. he is a serial failure when it

comes to delivering on his promises and therefore i don't believe he is owed your vote or anyone's vote based on what he said he would do and did not do or based on what he predicted happen and did not happen and based on what was in fact the most hyperpartisans set of rhetorical devices we have seen a modern presidency. in the brief against obama, i will talk about another book before i do that. this was the book i wrote in 2007. a more men in the white house. ten things every american should know about mitt romney. i wrote this in 2007 thinking mitt romney would be the nominee. i wrote that with the confidence that if he was he was willing to win with the bold prediction that john mccain could not win the presidency based on the fact that he was a great american but about the republican and terrible senator. i was at the correct.

senator mccain remain the great american but he was a terrible candidate. not only was he a terrible candidate in the middle of a crisis the best candidate could not have survived with an incumbent president in the wrong way at the feet of george bush and republican party when it goes back to democratic housing policies of 20 years duration but nevertheless i wrote in that book that romney would make a great presidential nominee. when i wrote "the brief against obama" i didn't know who the nominee was going to be. i assumed it would be mitt romney. there are a couple references. i already wrote a book about romney and i want to say i was proven remarkably by the 2007 book. when i got a call a month ago from the new yorker's dean of columbia school of journalism he is the new yorker national political reporter and always the go to guy for national political stories and he called me and because he profiled me in 2005 for the new yorker and it

was a very nice piece. he told his liberal democratic readers, the most influential conservative you never heard of. that is okay because i don't really speak to the manhattan crowd or the new yorker crowd. how many of you -- i rest my case. i do too. nick was saying to his audience you ought to follow -- road a very nice profile but he read that and remember the wrote a book about romney and said what do you think of romney now? have you read the book? go back and read the mormon in the white house and call me back and he did. i will be back in a week and what do you think of the book. and made predictions about the campaign which has come to be true about how bain would be his greatest vulnerability and the mormon issue would not be an

issue of great significance although it will be used by the president because he is losing and will get desperate and primarily what the book was about was the enormous capacity that mitt romney has and i want to begin by saying the only reason i thought president obama would win reelection based upon the work i completed "the brief against obama" is if we republicans -- i am a republican -- if they nominated a terrible candidate. if they nominated someone who would not win a consequence of america. we have nominated an extremely well qualified individual who is ready to the president on the first day. i think that is becoming very obvious. nick asked me to summarize this. i want to summarize with an example. i don't know if it will make it in the new yorker piece in october but i wanted to tell you why mitt romney is such a great nominee an "the brief against

obama". one example. we are now in the process of seeing the olympics unfold. they are marvelous an extraordinary and it is always fun to watch a live games whether it is winter or summer. when mitt romney was asked to take over the olympic games they were scandal-plagued and baroque. they were on the verge of cancellation and had no sponsors. not only did they have no sponsors but no one wanted to be near them because of a scandal. a nightmare and a disaster. three years later the 2002 olympics were an enormous excess. 70 countries spend 2,000 athletes to participate in 72 events and had to be built and supervised by romney. he was also the client of the federal government after 9/11 so there was a huge domestic policy and security issue. state government, many local jurisdictions throughout utah because the venue wasn't in one city and not just those

jurisdictions the international olympic committee and united states olympic committee and committee of each of the 70 nations participating and organizing committee of each of the sports that were involved. in addition to that you have all of the sponsors had to mollify and the international me and audience of 1 billion people. at the end of those games everybody saluted mitt romney for his organizing ability. everybody was happy with the 2002 olympics which came from the edge of despair and disaster to an enormous international recognized success. we need that kind of capability. that capability will be displayed increasingly throughout this campaign as it was in the veterans of foreign wars speech and demonstrated to be a plan unfolding. people have said to me he is not aggressive enough and i have said to him it is a campaign

with 100 days left. you don't pull out all stops until it is time to pull out all stops and that is after the convention. i am confident about romney. i am confident about the election. we have a terrible record as documented in a brief against obama and a very good candidate and electrodynamics which i think are very strong in favor of the republicans. let me explain that. in order to win the presidency you have to win 270 electoral votes. those 27 electoral votes two thirds are pretty much decided. we know for example that texas is going to vote for mitt romney and new york and california are going to vote for president obama. we just know that. national polls don't even help you very much. they're almost beside point that they include people from states that are in any way competitive.

what we know is there are ten key states and some not so key states. of those ten key states we know indiana and north carolina are search and wins. democrats will try to tell you -- not even close. president obama one -- won in 2008 but traditionally read state had an enormous turnout in the african-american population that won't be able to replicate and a lot is independence and southern democrats thought they would give a democratic try. i'm not worried about north carolina. no one i know is. indiana is the rest of red states. that was a temporary stroke on a national scale that hit the indiana voter but they are republican. put them in mitt romney's column. you're getting closer to this 270. mitt romney has to win 4 plus 1. these four states i am about to mention.

florida, of ohio and virginia plus just one more of the following. pennsylvania beaverton wisconsin and colorado. those are fundamentally favorable electoral dynamics. i want to walk through specifics in each of these. in 2008 president obama won florida by $237,000 votes. ohio by a total of 250,000 votes. he won virginia by a grand total of 232,000 votes. pennsylvania was a white out. pennsylvania was carried by president obama by 600,000 votes. wisconsin, smaller state than ohio. bigger vote margin. wisconsin was carried by 410,000 votes for president obama. new hampshire went for obama by 68,000 votes. a smaller number but smaller state. iowa went for obama by 146,000

votes and colorado by 150,000 votes. i total flows up because they total of to two million votes. for mitt romney to win the presidency he has to change 1 million and take those and change a million of the lawn. is actually fairly easy to do. in the campaign will spend $2 million sunnyside. 2,000 per vote will be spent on influencing those votes. and to those campaigns in three other states matter a little bit. michigan, nevada and new mexico. if michigan comes home for its home state's son romney the election is over. nevada and new mexico are very difficult to imagine going for romney at this point. they might go in a landslide and i think they will. here is how you get to the 270. he is going to win florida.

i know you follow the polls and it shows neck-and-neck or romney ahead by a couple points. in fact sophisticated polling mitt romney is significantly ahead in florida. he is not going to put marco rubio on the ticket to win that but if he did it is lock stock and barrel. it is a state that is fundamentally a republican state and growing more so as they continue to increase the population from the northeast to florida. ohio which is my home state is easy to predict because i go there a lot because i go there for five days and stay in touch not with political elites but i like to talk to governor casey to but i like to talk to people in my home town, union town. democrat town. not an obama town and going to vote for mitt romney because they want the oil and natural gas industry which has begun to revise the state for the first time in my lifetime to continue unimpeded in its spread of

wealth and jobs. the first two says -- steel plants in the last four years that produce piping for the industry that president obama wants to shut down and ohio is not going to vote to give of its jobs by turning them over to the epa. that will solidify the ohio vote but i don't think it is necessary because ohio is a solid yes vote for the president. what is the hardest of those states? virginia is a hard state to predict. va is the home of a senate campaign by george allen against a good democrat, tim kane. george allen of former senator. there is a large military and reserve votes that is splintering against president obama because he is definitely against the military. he is cutting one not to be a 315 ship navy to 260 ships cutting 20,000 marines and 80,000 army and 20,000 sailors and airmen from the rolls and

canceled the f-22 and other numerous weapons systems. he is messing around with military pay, military benefits, military retirement and that should put mitt romney over the top in virginia but is close because of the fact that the lease recession impact in state in the union is virginia and the reason virginia is the least impact of state is because the only industry that has been a growth industry is the government and the government, there is no recession in washington d.c.. i go there quite frequently. there are cranes all over the city. the place is all washed in money and employment numbers are better than the rest because we spend the this state's money. in washington d.c. and that has an impact in the northern virginia suburbs. virginia is going to be a cat fight and a lot of people overlook above it -- governor bob macdonald as a potential vice-presidential nominee along with mitt romney. i don't but he will probably get virginia anyway.

i feel good about those three states. team needs just one more. from all the it is states combine. pennsylvania, wisconsin, nevada and mexico. he needs one more state. can he get that? yes. easily. i am optimistic about pennsylvania. if anyone is watching in philadelphia tonight or pittsburgh or any place across pennsylvania if pennsylvania when the polls close of 7:00 on election night 4:00 our time if they can't call it for barack obama immediately mitt romney has won the election not in pennsylvania but nationally. they can follow him immediately that means -- you will know and 4:00 in california whether mitt romney is going to be the president because if they can't put pennsylvania in that column is over. if they can put it in the mitt romney column is not over. it is 1980. it is a wipe out which i believe is very possible as a number of

pundits -- we believe the president is stuck at 44% in the gallup which is the granddaddy of them all and you can't get any further. nothing absent an international crisis, absent bombs falling more war breaking out somewhere. i don't know how he can recover from 44%. no president republican or democrat has done so. at this point in the campaign in 2004 george bush was at 48%. he was 1 point lower three weeks earlier at 47%. forty-seven% is the lowest george w. bush went in 2004 and he climbed steadily back up to 54% before the election. in 1996 when bill clinton was running for reelection at this point in the campaign he wasn't at 44%. he was at 54% approval. that is the 10% difference president obama has so destroyed

the confidence of his own party that he is lagging ten points behind bill clinton. he is in terrible political shape and for reasons i will review shortly he is going to get worse before it gets better. i believe 44% is a ceiling, not a floor. that is inflated. a great friend of this library and great assistant to richard nixon and ronald reagan's speechwriter has long argued that there is no such thing as a bradley effect. that is named for mayor tom bradley of los angeles who when he ran against george duke did not do as well in the final ballot as he had been doing in the polling and for years, the bradley effect when people are afraid to say they won't vote for an african-american because they don't want to be prejudiced even though they're talking anonymously to pollsters and swear that that is not what happened and all the data and i believe him but i do believe even if the bradley effect

wasn't true in 1982 it is true in 2012. there is significant number of people not for reasons related to raise the for reasons related to the nature of the democratic partisanship who are refusing to tell pollsters that they won't vote for president obama. they are quite frankly scared of the machine. if you are a fan of chick fil-a you know what i am talking about. [applause] interestingly enough there is a potential vice presidential pick. for each of these regions if you pick "bully" that would mean that mitt romney was thinking about making a huge play for pennsylvania because the new jersey media market is heavily covered in philadelphia. philadelphia suburbs are the key, he plays a national game very well. extraordinarily strong and charismatic figure not likely to

be the vice-presidential nominee but if he is they're going for broke in pennsylvania. tim pawlenty who i personally predict will be the vice-presidential nominee. minnesota is a pretty far reach for a republican candidate. 1984, wall mondale's home state but he not only has potential to put minnesota in play that has enormous appeal in wisconsin and iowa the border state to the south. incredible blue-collar roots and ability to connect with people that is rare among elected officials on television and radio. he is the best out there. course of time and of course senator portman makes ohio a walk. marco rubio makes for a law can he can play quite effortlessly in that hidden campaign. the spanish-language campaign which is ongoing even as we speak on all the other spanish

networks and spanish media across the united states. lots of americans of latino descent. absolutely citizen voters and going to vote in great numbers and listen to a lot of spanish television and a lot of spanish radio and whether it is spanish radio, have a candidate fluent in spanish has a considerable advantage to purchase payton that came, non spanish-speaking voters, marco rubio would have an enormous impact as would governor jeb bush who is famously fluent in spanish but at the end of the day don't hurt yourself and rule number 2 when one state and the vice-presidential debate. that adds up to senator portman and we will see. how to move a million voters in these ten states. on our knees will you i think mitt romney is qualified and is proving that in speech after speech. the speech in israel and before the veteran of foreign war was great and the convention speech

will be a home run. the question will be down to the argument that is made about president obama. it won't be so much an argument as about reminding people that when i set out to do "the brief against obama" i actually got my -- how many of you listen to the radio show? thank you. way to go. how many of you have called the show? isn't that remarkable. i always ask people -- have i did mean you? i am not rotten even to my liberal callers the interesting that that is four out of 200 people who have called the radio show so come on. pick up the phone. it is a national show. in 100 cities of people can call from all over and when i got the idea for "the brief against obama" i did a show. what is the worst thing president obama has done? could have gone for a couple days. i made a list and said people said he is no friend of israel

and left benjamin netanyahu in the basement or didn't help the iranian revolution or unemployment is at such and such a rage at such and such a time. i made a long list and have a list of more than 50 suggestions and went down to 24 and the twenty-fifth chapter is a summary chapter. let me review the table of contents. and won't go through each of these because you need to buy the book. the nightmare of obamacare. the biggest spendthrift in history. that is true. the committee organizer who collapse housing. swelling the rules of the unemployed. soaring gas prices in green energy scams. the fast and furious debacle and cover. the president's attacks on catholics, congress and the constitution. standing by iranians and demanding israel to its fate.

hauling at the american military. resetting the russian button. ignoring border security, bowling to china. ignoring the north koreans. the hyper partisans of the ship of the chicago ward heeler, the entire constitutional president. the fumbler and his teleprompter dependence and finally a number of rounds of golf he played followed by the decline and despair rhetoric. a pretty good list. it is a pretty good list. [applause] what i wanted to do is eat with people with fun facts about president obama senate won't run through the mall by will give you a couple. in january of 2009 the president's council on economic advisers put out a report the president later referenced and

endorsed that said guaranteed to if the stimulus were passed as it was that unemployment would never rise above 8%. unemployment has never been below 8% or 41 months. that is a jagged record of disappointment and incompetence that cuts at the heart not just of the unemployed but the unemployed who worry about jobs and family members of the unemployed and let me ask for a show of hands. how many of you know someone who have lost their jobs in the last four years? almost universal 100%. it didn't have to happen. it was a choice that was made. not intentionally with the effect of raising unemployment to the highest level since the great depression but an intentional choice that resulted in that, that many people told him would result in that.

$878 billion spent on the stimulus. can anyone point to anything? you could say solyndra but generally speaking no. jonathan adler is on my show frequently. he is a reuters columnist and i quote him in this. he has written some great books about president obama. he is a good historian. came on the radio with me and i said wait to go. $870 billion. it helped -- what did it by? we made improvements in new jersey. he said that. i quote him. the problem is you can't point to anything and i begin to educate him and others about the works progress administration. in 1933 when it was put into place it began to pay for things and did it in a very unusual

way. it said state and local governments will pay for 45% of anything you want to build right now so state and local governments got together and came up with a long list of building projects that were genuinely shovel ready or which they would make shuffle ready. point people in my speeches to where i had my first job out of high school. as bill with local dollars. talking about this with one of my law partners, tim cook from ramsey, new jersey and ramsey high school was constructed in 1936 after -- 1935 after a process of 14 months using wpa money. when it came on line the city fathers of ramsey, new jersey said let's build a new high school. they found land and raise the money and build the thing and it was open in 14 months and it stands to this day with a wta

marker on it and still the high school of ramsay because that is how you do public works projects if you want to get them done. you don't give $800 million to solyndra to put into the private pockets of the president's crony capitalist friends. you don't give billions of dollars to state governments to pat pensions which are going broke nevertheless. i won't use the crude word but you don't leak it away and that happens with $878 billion and that is an accountability principled people need to step forward with when it come up to the president. case after case after case. all we have to do is remind people of certain words and phrases. device a fast and furious how many of you know what i'm talking about? if i say solyndra how many of you know what i'm talking about? this is not rocket science. the campaign is going to be reminding people of all that he has done and said and

disappointed and left people disillusioned. i want to read to you my three favorite obama quotes. from september 30, 2011, in a speech in an interview he had in orlando, florida. this is a great country that has gotten a little soft. we didn't have the same competitive edge. at a fund-raiser in san francisco president obama said we lost our ambition. our imagination and willingness to do the things that built the golden gate bridge and the hoover dam. a month later in hawaii he said we have been a little bit lazy over the last couple decades. i don't believe we are lazy. i don't believe we have lost our ambition. i don't believe we are in any way on our back and that the american century is over. i don't believe the private sector is doing fine and i don't believe you didn't build that. i don't believe any of that.

[applause] the very best argument against president obama are his own statements. i went to wrap up by talking about the third book that i would mention. i wrote this book in 1998. in but not out. it just came out again released by thomas nelson in paperback because it sells year after year. for long -- young evangelicals who want to influence the world. lebron that because the evangelical and orthodox -- orthodox jewish vote and social issues are much overlooked right now but in fact i don't recall a time since the early 80s when the evangelical community and the roman catholic community and orthodox jewish community has been as motivated as it is right now. i say that because of the h h as

regulations primarily but also because -- i think this chick fil-a story will leave a mark. the h h as regulation is this. when the health and human services department came out and said every catholic college and hospital and the organization that was not itself a specifically organized church had to provide birth control sterilization and the morning after appeals to all of its employees, they stepped on a fundamental right of americans to worship as they see fit and organize as they see fit and to be left alone by the government as they identify as religious believers. on friday, july 27th, district court in denver, colorado struck down the regulation as applied to a private firm to roman catholics exclusively that provide great health benefits to their employees but they will not provide birth control sterilization and the morning

after pill because they consider it an assault on their religion as a is. when the president did not withdraw those regulations but doubled down he awoke a giant in america called the roman catholic church and he is going to rue the day that he did that and i will tell you why. there is a great myth in western storytelling that dates back to the iliad. the superhero who was asleep, you wonder where is that super hero. it is achilles in his tenth. he will not come out and fight because he is mad. there is tension. it begins with achilles raging in his tenth. the only comes out after he has been mollified and the roman catholic church basically left the field of politics in 1968 and has not been effectively energized in politics for 40 years. they are now back and led by

cardinal timothy bowlen. bishops and down this country, villages up and down this country who believe the obama administration has leveled a direct attack on their ability to be catholic. that is not going to pass unnoticed in states like ohio, michigan and pennsylvania where the catholic vote is huge and motivated and not happy with president obama. secondly the chick fil-a story. this has just begun to roll out when i give this lector but everyone knows about it. i was at the napa institute gathering public intellectuals and very strong supporters of the church in america and giving a talk on this book and how people do politics the right way so i asked -- if three seminars and a speech have you heard of you did and build that. 50% had heard that and everyone but up their hands.

have had heard of it. i asked if they had about mitt romney's 0 lead screw up in london. the disconcerting statement. it is not real story. doesn't matter to american voters. was played up by the british press and you don't want to talk about the olympics and romney if you're a democrat anyway. the third store was the 1.5% gdp growth and less than half%. the chick fil-a story was a day old. how many of you heard about chick fil-a? everybody had heard of chick fil-a. one of those stories that moves by social media and the mail and telephone and conversation across the church patio or with your friend and it out ranges people. it out rages even supporters of same-sex marriage. as i have on my radio show outrages gay people. they don't want people to be bullied over their religious faith.

when rahm emanuel tries to bring a tire iron and beat up the needs of chick fil-a or when the mayor of boston does that or the mayor of san francisco the the democrat friends of the president and the president didn't say stop it is the president's policy to prosecute chick fil-a and the president and his friends will persecute anyone who disagrees with them if he is reelected. the prospect of reelection they want to close with and take your question. the fact of the matter is a lot of americans wanted the president to do well. they did. in the last wednesday of his presidency president bush invited have a doesn't talk show hosts and i was honored to be among them back to the oval office for a conversation. he will be an office six more days. it was an off the record conversation. i won't quote the president but mark levin and a couple of my other bodies and the president's message was give the new guy a

chance. a very hard job. you got to let the president tried to do best by the country and most of us did and still don't want him to be an absolute disaster. he just has proven to be an absolute disaster and i believe had he moved to the center. had done anything other than govern as hard left as documented again. "the brief against obama" is not a polemic. is a fact based book. chapter and verse. if he had moved to the center and tried to reach across the aisle he would have been a two term present president that could have won 65% of the vote. by going hard left and completely hyperpartisan calling paul ryan to the white house to be up on him in public accusing doctors of wanting to grab people and cut their tonsils out, making a promise if you like your health insurance you could keep it or if you like your doctor you can keep them and that promise is broken by the millions, calling

republicans eager to have dirty air and dirty water direct quote. that stuff isn't consistent with american politics. with our values. all we have to do is remind people that we don't want four more years of a chicago style politics and what happens if he is reelected and not even restrained by the prospect of reelection? if that happens, his unilateralism, recess appointments when the senate is in recess, immigration executive order which sets aside law and create a new work permit without congressional authorization for dream act, whether or not you are for or against he is acting contrary to law refusing to the defense of marriage act passed by congress and signed into law by the president and not struck down by any district circuit court. he has acted in this wreck way. i don't know what the next four years would be. we just have to remind people. i am an optimist. i think we're going to win and

we're going to win the senate as well. whether it is connie mack in florida or george allen in virginia where senate seats in missouri, north dakota and montana and new mexico, lots of great seats. we have to defend scott brown and worked to save him in massachusetts. there are other places we might be in trouble. we will lose maine. i am a realist. here's the real challenge. republicans get one more chance. they don't get to do again what they did in 2004 which is not take their mandate and reform. and they don't get two years. i hope john boehner and majority leader mcconnell sit down with mitt romney and agree they have 100 days and the 100 days they have got to reform medicare. they have got to reform social security. they have got to get spending under control and can't do it like business as usual. they will be tempted to do that.

they hold meetings and they think about it for a long time. they can't do that. they have to come out of the gate blasting for reform. they have to rebuild the military. they have to restore these terrible cuts the president is putting in place. they have a lot to do. if they do it democrats will screen. the media will scream but the american people will apply and be rewarded with a long period of time. if not we will go home. mitt romney will have the same problem as barack obama. he made the same promises. he has got to live up to them. of reform that barack obama makes. i am hoping when we gather here a year from now the we will have a sense of promises delivered upon and maybe a new book. one last thing. [laughter] >> i think they're going to spend $2 billion in search of $1 million. the obvious thing is to buy 1

million copies of "the brief against obama" and leave them around the stage. given that i don't think the romney campaign will do that i want to encourage each of you -- to buy and give to a democrat -- read it by all means that give it to a democrat and ask them. maybe an independent. ask them to respond specifically to these arguments. not going to embarrass you. it is not crazy talk. i believe the president was born in hawaii. i am really radical in that regard. i think he is a citizen. good guy and a nice dad and wouldn't mind having a beer with the guy providing joe biden doesn't come along. [laughter] >> he is not qualified to be the president. it has been a disaster. thank you for coming and agreeing with me tonight.

[applause] >> thank you. he has generously agreed to enter a few questions before he goes to the lobby and signs a million copies of his great new book. first question is this gentleman here. >> with obamacare, how do you see the positions in the medical profession voting? the military cutbacks and military voting? his attitude toward israel and the jewish community? >> three great questions. a new super pac is forming. doctors and patients against obama and i assume it will be funded by doctors and health care providers because they realize obama is destroying their ability to provide health care and the president did not

understand what he was signing. no one read this bill. disaster for health care and doctors and patients will vote overwhelmingly against him. the military leaders and law officers 90% will vote against president obama and for mitt romney because they know what is happening. massive cuts are happening because of the president's policies. not because of the congress or the sequestration. the president is not doing anything to fix it and he already has the gate cuts which which were in the hundreds of billions of dollars. destroying the pentagon and withdrawing from iran -- iraq and running away from afghanistan. and encouraging the taliban. he is threatening the benefits package which a lot of career service men signed up for an serve 20 years. they will vote overwhelmingly against him as well and you asked about the jewish vote.

just dennis is a terrible person but i trust them both. they tell me that in their entire adult life they have never seen the jewish-american vote so leaning towards voting for a republican in such strong numbers and not one word. is real written all over it. president obama as hostile to the interests of the israel. he left benjamin netanyahu in the basement and he's said call me if something changes. did not treat him like elected leader of the best ally in the least and our best ally in the world and a democratic country with freely elected leaders in the tradition of freedom that should be supported. by contrast mitt romney is a friend of israel and that will matter to any friend of israel jewish or not jewish in the united states. >> i think there is broad agreement in this room that we need to reform large entitlement

programs as you mentioned but also agreement that any effort to reform will be fought tooth and nail by the democrats. as you look at january of 2013, it is h lease between leaving entitlement programs and reforms or ending of the filibuster to get those necessary reforms through. what do you think strategically is the right course to take? >> great question. i would never end the filibuster. the filibuster has its roots in constitutional government. i would never end the filibuster but i would be aggressive in the use of reconciliation and obamacare has opened up the door. reconciliation allows you to pass 50 votes plus the vice president and 51 votes and i would be very aggressive using that reform medicare and extend the bush tax cuts and cuts spending dramatically. i don't think we have to choose between the two and i am glad

harry reid has opened that door and the supreme court opened that door. the upside of the roberts opinion is of obamacare is a tax is subject to reconciliation, revision. we don't need to have the filibuster killed. if we were pushed to it i would keep the filibuster. republican -- strong granny financial crisis but requires deliberate balance of power or division of power and the filibuster helps slow things down. on bigger issues. on issues that will come back up in 30 or 40 years. we won this battle in '79 and '80 and lost over 30 years and we need a filibuster long term. >> i agree that mitt romney is qualified to be president. my concern is how he identifies with the common person or how he can come across as appealing to them. i am curious how you see that

happening because eventually how they identify people generally vote for someone they like and identify with. remember president clinton said he felt our pain. whether you agree with hammer not he seemed to identify with the common person. how do you see mitt romney coming across? >> can mitt romney identify with the common person? i spent a lot of time with him in 2006-2007 and found him to be eminently approachable and ordinary even though he was rich and and is rich now. i do not believe people know that he started out in life -- george romney started with nothing. penniless. driving across the country. never went to college. grew up in the automobile industry and took over the automobile industry and took over american motors and made himself good money but not enormous money for those years and became governor of michigan. left his son of a good legacy of education and mitt romney turned

it into an extraordinary fortune. they lived on a budget when they were young and what most appealing about him is the five boys. i have met three and mrs. romney who i met and ordinary american family. imagine five boys running around age of 6 and that makes you very ordinary. he didn't kill any of them. that is a start and that will come across and all these efforts to bring up the money and house and all that stuff i don't think americans care if it comes across one on one how much money you have. nelson rockefeller won new york again and again and nelson rockefeller's fortune -- jay rockefeller wins in north -- his fortune is enormous. lots of rich democrats. john kerry did not lose because he married the hines fortune which is as large as the romney fortune. it was because he was not

particularly approachable. what you are concerned about, as people get to know the governor? especially in the context of his family they will believe he is in fact shares their values if not their pain of financial necessity their values. pretty confident about that. yes? >> thank you for all you do for the conservative cause. [applause] >> seven a eight candidate in the beginning. have not seen or heard from many of them since romney said with. >> rick santorum was -- he was -- rick santorum came in second and won the silver medal and a

good friend of mine and great american and has a lot to deliver and has been out there and very active. newt gingrich did the same thing two weeks ago. gave some interviews. you will see them at the convention. i haven't seen ron paul yet. .. >> hello, and thank you for what you do in our lives in so many ways. i am wanting you to elaborate on what was mentioned on your show today. i'm illiterate about this issue having to do with the, jimmy

carter-appointed judge having made some decision -- >> sure. >> i am illiterate, so start with square one -- >> sure. >> thank you. >> after the obamacare case was decided by the supreme court and the law was upheld, cases challenging other parts of obamacare began to roll out. one of those cases had been filed in colorado by the alliance defending freedom lawyer,s,, the ell -- on behalf of hercules manufacturing corporation. it's a privately-held, small business owned by four individuals, each one of whom is roman catholic. and they provide benefits to their employees, but their health insurance was expiring, and they had to renew it. and under the mandate of obamacare, they would be obliged to offer health insurance

policies that provided sterilization, birth control and the morning after pill to their employees. so they sought from the judge a ruling that that was either illegal under the religious freedom restoration act, rifra, or unconstitutional under the free exercise clause. the court ruled on friday that it would be granting a permanent injunction against the department of health and human services preventing them from imposing the requirement to provide birth control, sterilization and the morning after pill on hercules because it was, in the opinion of this judge who was a carter appointee, impossible for the government to win, that it clearly violated their rights under rifra, and i believe if you read the opinion closely, it would clearly have also violated their free exercise rights. so if you want to read the opinion itself, which is a huge win, but it's only in one court, and now any small business owner

in america can march into court and make the same claim and, hopefully, get the same result. so it's a huge loss for the obama administration and, of course, they're not talking about it much, but we will. thank you. >> hi, i'm mark, one of the -- >> hey! >> yeah. the 1992 documentary recently, the war room about the clinton campaign, and there's a sequence where a.m. gore's giving -- al gore's giving the stump speech about the economy is up and wages are down and so forth, so i was wondering, how do the metrics compare between the '92 campaign, the last time an incumbent was defeated, and this campaign, just the economic numbers based upon that. >> it's great question because, of course, george herbert walker bush lost in 1992, so one would assume if the metrics now are worse than they were then, then president obama would lose. the only comparison i know is

that george herbert walker bush had greater growth in the second quarter of 1992 and still lost than president obama had in this quarter. so the economy is worse off. i also know that unemployment is higher than it was under george herbert walker bush. i can't say for sure, but i think the next highest unemployment rate that a president's been reelected at was 7.2% under ronald reagan. i think it was under 6.5% for george herbert walker bush. i don't know what the interest rate was, but i think it's fair to say that the economy was in better shape in '92 by any objective measure than it is in 2012. so president obama's in big trouble. >> hi. i'm johanna hoff. i just want to take the opportunity to thank you because you use your gifted brain and your considerable verbal skills and your writing skills and your energy and fly all over. i'm just very grateful that you're able to do that. >> my great pleasure, thank you.

>> my question is, what can little people, individual little people do the best right now to support mitt romney? i was a santorum supporter, and i'm so grateful to have seen it play out because it seemed like when everybody was played out, now it seems like we're all standing really strong and firm behind mitt romney. it answered all our questions to watch that campaign. and now what do we do as little individuals? >> i'm glad you asked that. the most effective thing you can do is go to mitt romney.com and do two things. number one is register to volunteer because they have a direct dial program into the swing states. i mean, you're californians, right? maybe someone got caught in the web driving through, but you're all californians, and it doesn't matter what you do out here. [laughter] the land of the damned, right? we're doomed. [laughter] so we're just going to slide off into the economic hell hole that is -- [laughter] the future for california until we hit bottom, and then we'll

rebuild. but you don't, you want to register for the purposes, and you want to volunteer in california to help our assemblymen and congressional candidates, and there's some great ones that need help, and we should by all means do that. but if you just want to do something from home, if you register at mitt romney.com, they will give you a virtual volunteer pack, and you'll be calling key voters in these 10, 13 states. and everybody, even if your budget is tight, you ought to be giveing $5 or $50 or whatever you can afford. it's a pin mum $10 contribution to be a citizen of the republic, in my view. $5 for romney -- >> and i made it very easy. if you hit that act right button, you can get a direct connection, 100% of your money goes to mitt romney or to george allen or josh mandel or denny'

burg in montana. there are great candidates everywhere, and get involved. >> hi, love your show, listen to your show, i'm going to buy your book. >> thank you. >> and i'm going to read it while i'm supporting my alum, usc trojans. >> oh, i'm sorry to hear that. [laughter] >> several weeks ago monica crowley said there was no love lost between president clinton and president obama. today i think it came out that the democratic convention was going to have president clinton as a prime time speaker. is president clinton, do you think, going to come to the rescue, or try? >> i do think one of the things that i would not rule out is that secretary of state clinton become vice presidential nominee clinton. i do not see how a desperate president obama doesn't do anything he can to win, and it would be a much greater improvement over haven't biden who, if i had my way, we'd give a cable channel 24/7 to -- [laughter] we'd let him talk endlessly.

but i do think bill clinton will work his heart out for president obama, will travel incessantly, as will mrs. clinton to the extent that she can because they are planning a long game, and mrs. clinton's going to run for president in 2016. and whether or not obama wins, she's going to do that. and the easiest way to garner chips right now is to be a good soldier, and the best example of that is mitt romney who upon losing the nomination to john mccain in 2008 turned on his heel and did everything he could to get john mccain elected. and that has mattered a great deal to senator mccain and his supporters, and i think you'll see the same thing from bill clinton and mrs. clinton. you will, they'll be very aggressive in supporting president obama. to no avail, but they'll be very aggressive. >> all right, we have time for two more. >> hi, darren smith. i had a question, you mentioned about a potential national emergency. do you think something's going to happen with israel attacking iran in the next, next few months?

>> i don't know that something would happen. i believe that if it does, it will redound to the benefit of president obama, and my best evidence for that is 1962, jack kennedy, of course, was president and not running for re-election, but he was getting slaughtered in the polls. the cuban missile crisis came along, and president kennedy won a very resounding victory in 1962. because when there is a threat to the united states or people are afraid, they quite naturally rally to their president. so if there is an international crisis in october of any sort whether triggered by iran or triggered by israel or triggered by us, it will help president obama significantly. i do not, i don't imagine he is ambitious enough to start a war to save his presidency, but the israelis are going to run on their own schedule not captive to american politics, and if

iran tries a breakout, they won't let that happen. iran would be well advised to try a breakout in october of this year if only to hope that the united states is paralyzed by poll -- politics. >> our final question from a 15-year-old high school stay stt from san juan hills. >> hi. i'd just like to say thank you, because i don't learn this stuff at school. you give it to us in -- yeah. is mrs. hewitt here? [laughter] [applause] >> have you taken ap history yet? when you get to ap history -- california's got some great teachers, i don't want to paint with too broad of a brush. i'm like president obama, i had great teachers, but they didn't build my business. [laughter] you'll get some great teachers, i want you to be confident. okay, question? >> that was it. [laughter]

hey, everyone, thank you so much. i'll be out in the lobby signing books. come back and hear mike gallagher. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's web site, hughhewitt.com. >> so as you can see this is a very short introduction to a very big subject, the u.s. supreme court. it's not the kind of book that an author's going to do reading from. it's not a dramatic novel, but it's a pretty dramatic story, actually, when you step back and think about the supreme court over the centuries. and i know many of you are probably here because the supreme court today, this very day or next week, three days of the health care case being argued. the court is more advise until american life than -- visible in american life than it's been for quite some time, and i'll be

happy to chat about that in answer to your questions, but i want to talk a little bit and just kind of frame the story of the supreme court. in writing this book, what i tried to do was put myself in the position of i'm assuming many of you or myself before i had the chance to attend yale law school and spend the next 30 years writing about the supreme court on a daily basis for "the new york times"es, and that is to say somebody who's interested in public affairs, interested in the civic life of the country but just doesn't happen to be an expert on this particular topic. so what would a person like that, a person as i was and maybe some of you are, need to know to really get a personally satisfying handle on the court? so with that as a kind of framework, what i probe pose to do -- propose to do is really

make a series of lab rations that i'll -- elaborations on and then turn it over for what i expect will be a fruitful and fun conversation among us. so when you step back and think about the court, one thing that jumped out at me as i was organizing the material to write this book is the extent to which the supreme court is really the author of its own story. it wasn't given very much to work with. i mean, i said i wasn't going to read, but i'll read. the first sentence of article iii of the institution which says: the judicial power of the united states shall be vested in one supreme court and in such inferior courts as the congress may from time to time ordain and establish. and that's kind of it. article iii goes on and talks a bit about the jurisdiction of the court and so on, but many, many unanswered questions including, for instance, there's no mention of the chief justice

in article iii. we only infer that there's supposed to be a chief justice because he's given in article ii, the presidential article, the right to preside over -- not the right, the duty to preside over the impeachment trial in the senate of the president of the united states. and remember william rehnquist did that in the bill clinton impeachment trial. and when he was later asked what it had amounted to, he said i did nothing in particular, and i did it very well. [laughter] the duties of the chief justice are undefined. and much about the supreme court initially was undefined. so it really had to create itself, and it's done so not in a straight-line progression, but it's done so through its cases,

the cases that in the early years it had to decide because it had very little discretion over what to hear, and the cases these days that it chooses to decide. and even that was a choice by the supreme court. you know, most appellate courts today in this country, they have to take what comes. and so they act sort of as courts of review, courts of appeal, courts of error correction. and that was the supreme court's initial fate or so it seemed. but william howard taft, the capstone after his presidency was becoming chief justice of the united states, and he sized this up, and he thought the court would greatly benefit from the ability to write its own ticket, create its own docket, not have to take every case that came along. so under his leadership, his

urging, congress passed in 1929 what's known as the judges' bill because all the judges of the country got behind this effort and gave the court for the first time discretion over its docket. and so that's the place we are today. we have, we have a supreme court that is capable of and does set its own agenda, and in doing that it really sets the legal agenda for the country. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. [applause] [cheers and applause] >> hi, everyone! can you hear me? ah good, wow!

[laughter] [cheers and applause] >> this is so exciting! [cheers and applause] >> this is my very first book and my very first and probably only book signing. [cheers and applause] this is so good, this is so good. well, you know, let me just say i am so proud of this product. um, it is, the book "american grown" is everything i would have imagined. i wanted the book to be beautiful, and i think that the pictures are absolutely beautiful. i could tell because when malia and sasha picked it up, you know, it's mom, oh, your book, how nice. [laughter] they actually got pulled in by the pictures. and then they couldn't put it down, and they started looking through, and then they started actually reading it, and then eventually i got actually a thumbs up. [laughter] so that's what we hope the book will be. i mean, the book is really not just the story of the white house garden and how it came to

be and how we had our ups and downs and trials and tribulations, but it's also a story of community gardens across the country. everything from a wonderful community garden in hawaii, mao farms, to some excellent school gardens that are happening in, right smack dab in the middle of new york with some great school kids. so the stories of the work that people are doing across this country are really an important part of the book as well. but we also talk about one of my key initiatives which is let's move, and it's all about getting our kids healthy. um, so the book shares that journey and some of the interesting statistics and work that are going on all across the country to help our kids lead healthier lives. and then it's a little practical too. i mean, it gives a few tips, you know? i'm not the best gardener in the world, but i had a great team of national park service people, and i had my bancroft and tubman kids, tubman and bancroft kids.

[applause] they are my partners in crime in this respect. i mean, these two schools have been with us from the very beginning, and that was one of the things that we said when we started exploring whether or not we could plant a garden on the south lawn, it's like it would have to be a teaching garden. it would have to be a garden that kids could participate in and understand where their food comes from and to engage in that process. because that's really what i learned in my own life is that when i involve my kids in the food that they ate, and we didn't garden in chicago, but we certainly went to farmers' markets, and we got them involved in really changing their diets and owning that process, that they accepted it a lot more. and we've seen that with these kids. um, you know, these kids are working in the gardens in their own schools. i know that they're bringing back ideas and questions to their own families and helping to change the way they eat and do great things. so these kids have been amazing, um, and they have just been a

pleasure. they come to the white house, they don't get star struck, they don't look around, they get to work. they get to work. and they get our garden planted and harvested in a matter of 10, 15 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. they just get it done. so we couldn't do this without them. and i am so proud of you all. so proud, proud, proud of you all. [applause] thank you. thank you for helping me. thank you for helping me. so, um, i just want to thank you all for standing in the rain, for coming out. um, i am just thrilled, and i hope you all enjoy the book. and i hope it becomes the beginning of many conversations in your own homes, in your communities, um, and i hope that it leads to a healthier generation of kids at some point. there are also some good recipes in there, too, that are easy to follow, and they're pretty good, white house chefs, so urge you to try 'em.

thank you so much, and i look forward to seeing you all up here. all right. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> okay. all right. [inaudible conversations] all right. that's my first book. who gets the first signed copy? >> thank you very much. >> all right, kids?

you guys want to come around and get your book? come on. get your book. there you go. that's great. there you are. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> there you go. >> thanks, sweetie. thanks for all your help. there you go. all right. you can see pictures of you in there.

did you find some? you found some? hey, how are you? it is so good to see you guys. thank you very much for taking the time to come out. are you a gardener? >> [inaudible] >> oh, cool. very cool. thank you. we couldn't do this without -- [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> how are you? it's so good to see you. >> thank you so much. >> oh, my goodness, thank you. you all have been amazing. [inaudible conversations] >> oh, my goodness, you guys. it is so good to have you guys. [inaudible conversations] >> this is a good way to end the year. [inaudible conversations] >> hi, how are you?

>> thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] >> i remember. thanks so much. summertime yet? you ready to party? you're going to keep reading, right? [inaudible conversations] >> thank you for coming out. we appreciate it. [inaudible conversations] >> yeah, yeah.

thanks for taking the time. [inaudible conversations] >> hi, how are you? it's so good to see you. thanks for taking the time. so are you a gardener? >> [inaudible] >> excellent. [inaudible conversations] >> excellent. yeah, no, i've heard of you. >> thank you so much for coming. >> it's so nice to see you. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> oh, my goodness.

oh, yeah. yeah. the recipes are good. [inaudible conversations] >> how are you? >> how you doing? [inaudible conversations] >> that's what we think about, we're doing it for -- [inaudible] and they all break my heart, i love them so much, you know? >> hi, how are you?

[inaudible conversations] >> it worked out. how are you? [inaudible conversations] >> thank you. thanks for working hard. hey, how are you? you can hang out with me any time. now, are you a gardener? excellent. >> if i were doing this by

myself, i'd be insane. keep it going. >> thank you so much. >> hey, how are you? it's so good to see -- thank you so much for taking the time. >> [inaudible] >> my pleasure. [inaudible conversations] >> how are you? [inaudible conversations] >> hey, what's going on, ladies? >> hi. >> quick tell me names, ages, all the vitals. >> [inaudible] >> almost like malia. are you going into high school? >> yeah. >> oh. congratulations. what's your name? >> [inaudible] >> you're 8? excellent. what grade are you going into next year? >> [inaudible] >> and you? >> i'm 31. >> you're 11? you got that down pat, right?

you guys interested in gardening or doing healthy eating? all right, so you're going to spread the word about eating -- [inaudible] right? all right. great to meet you. thanks for coming to see me. >> [inaudible] >> you know, the girls went to their concert, and -- [inaudible] i don't know their names. [inaudible conversations] >> they're a little older -- [inaudible] [inaudible conversations]