we have about a hundred radio stations across the country. local krks is one of our stations. 990 krks has been a christian station in the community for over 60 years. we're very proud of that. obviously the relationship with 710k in the u.s., we're excited to have a station like that as part of our family. other stations that i want you to be aware of, hot air.com. anybody signed up for hot air.com? all right. my mother is in the room. [ laughter ] >> also publications like town hall magazine, part of the salem communications family. we want to take a moment, if i could, i would like to just throw out a little commercial, if i might, for the fire victims. one of the things that is so tragic to have to see what's going on and as general manager of the local stations here, if

you're a business owner or business decision maker, i'd like to just throw out to you, if you'd like to donate a thousand dollars to the red cross, then i will match you with some advertising on our radio stations. [ applause ] >> my staff -- thank you. i'll have my staff meet and you we'll produce some commercials for you and put them on the air so you can get a thank you out of that. but i just want to i have a little encouragement to help the victims through this situation. >> one of the exciting parts of my job is interacting with the hosts. one of our newest programs is steve kelly, a long-time denver broadcaster who's joined us on the air. i think he'll be up a little bit later. also, as we were talking b hugh hueit is a great friend. he'll be speaking here tonight. dennis praguer, michael medved

and our great friend bill bennett who -- he's quite a guy. and i really appreciate the presence that he brings to our staff and the thoughts that he brings. he's a very conscientious man, but it's funny when you put them all in the room together, everybody gets along, but when bill comes into the room, everybody stands at attention. he is definitely the man's man. even my own staff yesterday when he came in to do his broadcast, everybody had their shirt and ties. they were all ready to serve. i think he was going to plunk them on the head like mo and larry there if they got out of line, that's for sure. but he certainly loves colorado. bill has done a number of 14ers. i'm amazed how he keeps attacking that part of the challenge. i think we all appreciate what he represents and the values that he communicates through his books and through his

commentaries. so i just want to take this time to, again, have the valued opportunity to introduce a premiere story-teller, a statesman, author, historian, a servient, mountain climber and a friend, dr. bill bennett. [ applause ] >> thank you, thank you. i was trying not to be impolite, i was moving brian along because i got to be done at 1:40 and i got some things to say. good afternoon western conservatives. good afternoon, western -- i was the secretary of in the department i tried to abolish. that's an interesting -- they asked me when i got the job,

must you exist? i said no, i need not exist. thank you, brian, very much. pleasure to be with you. love the folks at knus. treated me very well. i'm so glad brian introduced me. he's a proper sized man, and i appreciate that. andrews will be back to criticize me in a few minutes and that's fine too. i'll do it before andrews does. for those of you who don't know, there are 5413,000 foot peaks in colorado. i have climbed 33 of them. [ applause ] >> yeah, well, most of them were in earlier days. but i was at 13,000 almost on mt. colombia in boona vista. the only thing i can tell you is that when i have climbed a 14er, the mountain knows it has been climbed.

john and donna andrews have been great teachers of mine and friends. and i'm honored to be here with you again. learned a lot from you john. bill armstrong, the first people we, elaine and i looked up to and wanted to be with in washington. there are good men and women in washington. they are not in oversupply. we do not have too many of them, but they are there. and bill and ellen armstrong were people we looked up to and admired and still do. >> great to see tom here too, a brilliant friend and a patriots. john mentioned hugh hueit who will be speaking tonight. there were about a hundred commentaries after john roberts' decision on thursday. i read them all. hughes was probably the best. he's a brilliant man, a rival and a friend. friendly rival. the part there that dominates,

john, is friend. aristotle says there are three kinds of friendship, friends you have because they give you pleasure. friends they have because they are useful to you. and friends you have because they encourage excellence in you. as a friend, they encourage you to be a better human being. hugh is all those to me, but most of all the third. i want to talk to you about what happened on thursday and what it means to all of us. i'm talking about the supreme court decision. i hope you don't mind if i do this, but we have to talk about this. we have to get through this, and we have to realize what the challenge is. i put myself through a fair number of arduous activities in addition to going up 14ers. i work for cnn. so maybe brian's mother could watch that too and double the

viewership for cnn. [ laughter ] bill o'reilly was at my house for dinner the other night with a group of people. i wasn't there. he brought -- >> [ laughter ] >> no, it's fine, it's fine. there were lots of people there. i told bill once, i said, you guys on fox, i love watching fox, but any conservative can be on fox. i said, i'm on cnn. i parachute in behind enemy lines twice a week and sit there on a panel of 14 people to get four words out. and he said -- or maybe it's sean hannity who said, it's very courageous of you bill, very anonymous of you and very courageous of you. no one's watching. what happened thursday in washington was a travesty. i cannot tell you how disappointed i am in john roberts. i cannot tell you how disappointed i am.

[ applause ] and i'm going to tell you why. i'm going to tell you why. because i know him. i have a lot of friends of his are friends of mine. i've had dinner with him. i've talked with him. i had some doubts, i didn't want to make them public, but i expressed them to some people who were in the business of advising the people who were vetting, because in 1990, i heard the name david suitor. i was the drug tsar at the time and i called my friend bill crystal, he had been my chief of staff at the department of education. i called bill, and i said, what do you think of this suitor appointment. he said let's go see sue nu nu. >> he was chief of staff to dan quayle. we went to see john, he said what's the problem? we said, we're worried about suitor. what are you worried about?

i said i'm worried about a guy who lives at home with his mother all his life. frankly, i'm just a little bit worried about that. it's not that he needs to live at home with his mother all his life, but the interest, the opinions, they don't seem to be those of a conserve of it. >> john said don't worry about him. warrern rudman rovouches for hi. warren rudman, that's as close to being a democrat you can be and still be a republican. we were right to be worried. i watched, i told you about cnn. i watched cnn this morning. and they had two financial people, two economics people saying, conservatives have it all wrong about obama care, it's actually going to put money into people's pockets. i don't know whose pockets it's

going to put money into -- who's going to get money out of this, but this challenge has to be taken up, along with a host of other challenges. i then watched and be ready for this. you heard it from me first, so brace yourself. i heard a panel on msnbc. i'm willing to do all sorts of things for you all. i'm willing to go there so you don't have to go. you're welcome. that's what offensive tackles are made for. i was a major problem in my job as secretary of education for reagan and drug tsar for bush. everybody thought i wasn't me. they thought i was my security. but you look like a big irish cop. >> that's a great way to look, especially in washington because people need to be arrested more than they need the humanities,

frankly. but on msnbc this morning, he is what was said solemnly. this is what happens. this is an example of how republicans and democrats can work together. okay? we've been hearing how bad gridlock is and what a terrible thing it is, and how great it would be if we could work together. we just had the working together, john roberts blessing the decision of the obama administration. there were two defenses in the first hours of this, by two of my friends, good friends and neighbors. they're going to hear from me. i've already written this down, but they'll hear from me. charles crowdhammer and george will said roberts maybe was doing something honorable. defending the institutal integrity of the court.

he's got two jobs the constitution. i don't see anything there about an institutional responsibility. all i see there -- [ applause ] read their columns. they're good men, smart men. they're wrong on this one. all i see in the federalist papers is fidelity to the constitution. the argument goes, and you're going to hear it, well, he was planting seeds for another day. being tough on the cause. being tough on the necessary and proper clause so that you can't use them to make government bigger. well, heck, if you can do it all through taxation, you don't need the necessary and proper clauses. if the man gets re-elected, he apoints another justice or two, doesn't matter what chief justice roberts believes, but here's the really galling part. the notion that some sense of institutional integrity of the court requires him to find a way

contrary to his reading of the constitution. hamilton j. madison would have been appalled. the argument here is political. well, the worry would be that if he found against the president, that it would be seen as a politically motivated decision and people would regard the decision as political. the chief justice of the supreme court and the other justices of the supreme court are to have no regard for politics whatsoever. [ applause ] but it's not good to antagonize people. sorry! that's not exactly the way you wanted to write it. you mean it's not good to antagonize liberals. because you sure as heck antagonized a lot of conservatives with that decision. if the issue -- [ applause ] >> if the issue is the credibility of the court, it took a beating yesterday. with a lot of americans.

[ applause ] the only responsibility a justice of the supreme court has in rendering opinion is to render an opinion with intellectual integrity with no calculation of politics, based on the constitution, based on the reading of the constitution, that's it, period. i was looking at my iphone, lead story in the post, lead story elsewhere, we may never know the answer to this question, but a lot of people think, reading the language closely, that john roberts originally was speaking for the majority and it was a majority composed of roberts and scalia and leeto and thomas and -- who am i forgetting? kennedy. why am i forgetting kennedy? he did so well this time. that that was a five, four,

majority and he switched. if you read the opinions and language, that's the suggestion. one has to know why he switched. no one has yet to my knowledge, has mustered a good constitutional argument. the only arguments that can be mustered are political arguments, and that shouldn't be the case. that shouldn't be the case. as he himself said, roberts, the mandate is unconstitutional, so we read it as a tax. but it wasn't written as a tax. they denied it was a tax. nowhere in the language does it say that it's a tax. so the descenting opinions of the majority say of course great deference is to be given to the ledge slaltuary and the executive in applying the constitution to legislation before it. if a constitutional way can be

found to approve it, so be it. the judges and the justices may be creative, they may be sympathetic, they may tilt, they may be inclined, for the sake of judicial comedy and respect for the legislature, to regard ambiguous language in the direction of the legislation. but as they said, the court cannot re-write t-h-e -- the statute, and that's exactly what happened yesterday. it was a blow to the american republic. it was a blow to the body of politics. let me say a couple more things about it, and then i'll stop because we want to do questions. on the political basis, one of the really disappointing things here is that barack obama has been in a downward spiral. almost everything he has done

has not only been wrong, it's lately been perceived to be wrong by the american people. and roberts saved him from that on thursday. and he saved him from it by making a decision which doesn't pars, which doesn't make any sense. now, you will hear the crowing. some of it is even pretty vulgar and profane if you're following the web, about what they have achieved. now we will see another step forward for this obama care legislation. i have gotten a lot of angry e-mails from members of my listening audience who somehow found my personal e-mail -- it's fine. and they're mad as hell. okay. so am i. but it's time to channel it. it's time to channel it into action. because we now have such a clear

directive. justice roberts, chief justice roberts said the court is not here to insulate the american people from the consequences of his decisions. and the american people made a terrible mistake in electing barack obama. let's hope they have seen that and they will correct that mistake. [ applause ] but one might also say, the court isn't there to insulate the american people from bad consequences of their political decisions, the court is also not there to calculate political considerations in rendering a decision based on the constitution. it should do its solemn duty. while we're mad, let's channel it. let's channel it into positive direction for this fall. this is a bad thing that happened. there's no white-washing it, but it's not the worst moment in

american history. it's not the worst place we have ever been. i don't like it. i didn't like it friday. it's not sitting very well. i said to my audience, people were saying, this is really bad, what are we going to do? i said stew for a day. stew all day saturday. sunday get up and go to church and go to work. put your shoes back on and go to work. look, this country has survived a civil war. this country has survived a great depression. this country has survived the eve of world war ii when boy, were we not ready. military historians especially know this. this country survived 1968 -- i call it my history book, the horrible year of death and assassination, despair, a dark year for america. i'll tell you of an even worse time -- another time worse than today, the first two years of the obama administration were a worse time.

that's when this monstrosity was passed and that's when he had a majority. he had the house, had everything. had the senate, had the presidency. we are better off now than we were then. so there is work to do. there's plenty of work to do. think of the spirit of 76, which i hope you'll all do on wednesday. i'll do it on tuesday. because the boys have to be back in quantity co-on wednesday so our second lieutenant's son is bringing up the whole squad to have a barbecue at our house on tuesday. [ applause ] will mrs. bennett be ready or what? you bet she'll be ready. i said on the radio, the whole squadron, oh, man, bill, your kid's a marine. he's not in the air force. okay, sorry. it's a squad.

i'm learning, i'm learning. i'm learning. the spirit of 76 will govern next tuesday and wednesday. but let the spirit of november 2010 govern as well. remember what happened in november 2010? you were part of what happened in november 2010. let's do it again in november 2012. look, a couple of final considerations. we have a good, very smart, very decent, very optimistic, very energetic and very aggressive candidate for president of the united states on the republican ticket. a perfectly good, smart, and decent man. my wife knows mrs. romney and swears by her and those boys. if she does, i do. as i told my one-time host rick santorum, you're with him a hundred percent. he said 10-t2. we got a caller that said, how

can i bring myself to romney? rick had a great answer. he said, if i can come to romney, you can come to romney. [ applause ] do i think about the future? i know the best way to think about the future is to think of your kids and grandchildren. think about some of our other proj ni out there, marco rubio, chris kristy, think of nikki haley, my one term staff assistant who used to carry my staff and my books, paul ryan. [ applause ] it's all true, now i go around saying, i know paul ryan, i know paul ryan. [ laughter ] we hikd by the way last year in colorado, i think i was that close to getting him to run, but i ran out of steam on the peak and he went ahead and that was

it. i lost the argument. we have a great bench. i've only mentioned a third of them. we have a lot of people coming along in the conservative movement, a lot of great leadership and i am very optimistic about it. the other thing is, one of the great blessings of my life and i've been so blessed, i had an opportunity to write the three-volume history. i learned a lot about america writing that book. i wrote it because i think our major problem, our major problem, someone said if you can identify one major problem with america right now, there are a lot of them. but i would say the major problem -- and remember i'm secretary of education so i may be biassed in this direction is that people do not know what america is. our young people do not know what this country is. they do not know that in the long story of misery and inhumanity which is hum history,

the american achievement is unique and high and it is like no other. and they don't know that. so i'm not sure they know what's at stake in all this debate. the other thing i learned about the american capacity for several renewal. we sometimes have to be pushed right to the edge, but we come back. some of those periods of american history i mentioned are examples of that. but i see the antibodies kicking in. we're not going to get them to wake up by being angry is bitter. we'll get them to wake up by asking them to join us, join us in the things that we care about. link arms with us. the governor of arizona, my gosh, what a pass we have come to. when the president of the united states meets with the president of mexico three times before he meets with the governor of one

of his own sovereign states, the state of arizona. [ applause ] i said on radio and people checked it out, i said i challenge you to come poir what lincoln said about south carolina on the eve of succession with what barack obama has said about arizona. lincoln was not as hard on south carolina as barack obama was on arizona. you want to put yourself in that mold, mr. president, then act in that mold. you want to be that person -- or like that person, then imitate that person. let me close. back to america and what it is. this is, as lincoln said, the title of my book, the last best hope of earth. 1862, after the bloody battle of anteedum, still the bloodiest

day in american history. abraham lincoln said we shall nobley save or meanly lose this last best hope of earth. when i became secretary of education, my wife, elementary schoolteacher said go teach classes around the country. you're a good teacher, go teach. i said, i'm the secretary of education for the united states. i don't do retail. i do wholesale. >> she said, daughter of a successful businessman, she said do good retail and you'll do better wholesale. she said, going into the schools, you might consider home work. why don't you do your home work before you make your pronouncements? i said none of the other guys do. why should i? well, she was right. i went to 130 schools around the country, had a great time, taught classes, have some very funny stories. one story, san diego classroom with a junior, young woman, she

said you really love america, don't you? >> i said, you know, it's kind of hard for me not to. my brother and i had scholarships to college. i made it to the cabinet of the united states. where else does that happen? i'll give that barack obama. he said, nowhere else could this have happened and he's absolutely right about that. i don't know if you remember, but before his election, whatever you think of his election, there was press all over the world saying america will never do this, it will never elect a black man president. bunk and baloney. you know that's true and i know that's true. we got the wrong one, but the notion of race doesn't matter. colin powell would have been a very plausible candidate for president back when. everybody knows that. he's more liberal than i am, but would have been a very plausible candidate for president. anyway, she said you really love

this country, don't you? i said yes. she asked why. i told her about my life story. i said, i don't think that happens everywhere. i have a test called the gates test. every country has gates. when you raise the gates, which way to the people run? in or out. been to the wall in germany. we raise our gates and everybody runs in. we don't raise our gates and everybody runs in. what do they want? they're illegal, but they're not irrational. something good is going on here. that's the gates test. she promised she'd think about it. over time and as i reflected on my son's service and other things, there's another test. and i remember at the time we went into iraq hearing these stories, k.t. mcfar land tell me whether i'm right or not, but apparently a number of iranians

were putting signs on their roof saying, u.s. air force come here next. if you are in some horrible, terrible, poor, god forsaken -- well, there are no god forsaken places, but think of the rest of the adjectives, with a dictator's boot on your neck, and you see a group of men coming over the hill in uniform, and they're carrying a flag, you hope and pray it is the flag of the united states of america. [ applause ] and that's the lesson our kids need to learn. and the lesson chief justice roberts needs to learn is a simple fact. i don't think a whole lot of the u.n. these days but read the declaration of human rights