about the death of the republican party -- the huge landslide with lbj and people were writing about the death of the republican party. when i saw things happening in 1965 is a summer intern, it was a very active group of young republicans having defeated their minority leader in the house. had we rebuild, what we do, how we tested positive alternative rather than opposing just lbj? i think eventually will see some new emerging faces, leaders, ideas. that will not happen overnight. the process is over way we do not see much of it yet. .

i think the search for an individual is not yielding anything so far. the ideas are i am sure percolating at lower levels. the 2010 landscape does not look that great right now. senate seats are not really favorable for republicans. as we have all seen, and as we

saw all through last year, i was constantly referring back to the term elections, which i covered. i went to just about every swede district or state that cycle -- a swing district or state. it turned out to be a great investment. we saw the country turn on the war. we saw the country turned to the government more and more for answers. when obama came on the scene, it wasn't that surprising at all. that cycle has already said started. we have lost sight of that in washington over the last few months, how enormously stressed some regions of the country are

right now. the industrial midwest, these are economic waste lands that are just crying out for local, political leadership, and some fresh new ideas that help people get through it. i think that is where the republican future is. >> we need a leader. that just allows the democrats to say, ok, it is dick cheney or new to gingrich. it is about ideas about getting organized at the local and state level. one thing about covering politics is that you just never know. obama could be a one-term president, or a two-term president that handle -- hands the white house over to michele.

you just don't know. >> look at the house democrats that fought against the budget. those of the districts that they are worried about. in virginia, that is where the fault line is. if republicans can figure out how to communicate with those voters and take back the districts, that is a powerful signal. rahm emanuel will notice it. that is where the battle is right now. it is about that center ground of the population, that is enormously supportive of the president right now. >> i would add to that, i agree

that probably 2010 and 2012 look like quite a pill for the republican party. they will have to develop their proposals and ideas out of areas that have become weaknesses for the president and the democratic party. one of those could end up being a foreign policy/national security. what about the war in afghanistan? you already have democrats on the hill worrying about this. worried about the amount of money that might be up there. it might be that they do feel politically some vulnerability there already.

the republican party will have to look at the condition of the economy, and the proposals that have been enacted into law. they are barely getting that money out right now, so it is hard to judge those things. there is one bush -- won the busch-obama legacy that our -- republicans are interested in, and that is legislation like tarp, which was passed late in the bush second term. when the congress delegates all of this money to the executives to spend, it will be on banks first, then the administration and obama takes it over. then they start spending it for other failures.

when you have this kind of power, authority, and money given to the executive branch with almost no guidelines, we are talking about excess of a power perhaps, there is a lawsuit on charging a violation of what is called the non delegation doctrine. it is a lawsuit that says that congress cannot delegate in this fashion without more specific legislations to what the executive should be doing with it. the reason i say that is a republican party problem is that, with bush's -- as president -- with bush as president, it is hard to complain when it was on the

republican watch. we will see how that plays out. >> my question is, given that congress often grants authority to the white house, they are reluctant to pull it back. the imbalance of not only tarp, but the end to it -- antiquities act, where the authorities granted power, they tend to say they will wait until our guy is back in power. >> that is an excellent point. i don't want to say is laziness on the part of congress, it is cultural convenience. some members spend more and more time in their district, running

for office and mending fences. what suffers is committee worke. what is being slighted is oversight, congress taking policy initiatives to correct things within the executives. you have seen a decline by default. they like their -- their three- day work week and four days in their home district. they have suffered with policymaking as a result. the president's powers have been enhanced. they have delegated a lot of things to the president. >> you are referring to the first six years of the bush white house, congressional republicans are accused of abdicating oversight.

-- do you think the congressional democrats will find themselves accused of the same thing with president obama? >> they have made this correct sound so far. they have done additional directives relating to specific references to the stimulus money as well as the tarp money. they aren't making the right balance. whether the committee challenge is another question. i think they are making an effort of moving in the direction of better oversight. i just have not seen it yet. >> gentleman in the back. >> in the post-newspaper world,

from what i have heard today and what i have read. i am an english teacher, by the way. will the media be able to keep our government accountable to the people? what will it look like without newspaper reporters doing investigations? >> i say as a tv reporter, i worry about it. there are good investigative units out there. cbs has a good one. tv takes so much manpower just to do the logistics. you will not go to darfur and do

a big investigative piece. you rely on newspapers for that. those budgets have been getting cut. even as a tv guy, the vast majority of investigative stuff is being done by newspapers. >> i will make a bold prediction that newspapers will not disappear. certainly, the economic model that we have all come to identify with, the newspaper itself is changing. we have not figured out what the result will look like. i think that' there is an enormous appetite for what we

provide, and what nobody else provides frankly. we were talking about this at lunch, the internet, there is a lot on the internet. there are a lot of opinions. there are not a lot of facts easily presented. i think about when my kids do their science projects. they go onto the internet to find information about gravity. they don't know the difference between the national academy of sciences, and some joe schmoe's 8 graders internet project. they aren't able to distinguish between real information and integrity. the scariest thing to me is come

i can't remember where i read it, but. that is exactly what our business has done wrong over the last 10 years. we have not walled off our product, protected our franchise the way it deserves to be elevated above this other noise. it is not to say that -- there is an enormous contribution to be made to information flow. i think the newspapers and what we produce is the product that people want. we just have to figure out -- as our executive editor says, it is not the news that is in trouble, it is the advertising business that is in trouble. the reason we are struggling is apertures of -- advertising is not assist -- substantial enough to sustain the size of the

boston globe newsroom. the answer is finding enough to make the operation sustainable. we will figure it out. rupert murdoch will figure it out. someone will figure it out, and we will survive. >> let me just add that there is now a huge demand on the part of american people to have content. there is no lack of that. they want to read stuff. they want to read news. there are a lot of poor websites that you would not go to to get information. there is strong demand that will

not end. the question is whether it will be paid for somehow. the magazine publishers, also edited publications and written for them, i am interested in staying in business. the physicality of the product, i don't know that date will remain the same. as a publisher, i have to buy a paper from every magazine i publish. i don't have to do that on line. i do think we are in a revolution of sorts. i was out at stanford last week talking to the librarian, and all of the old books from centuries ago, and the newer ones they are putting right into an electronic format right now.

i ask myself, am i really going to see and newspaper thrown in my yard? will i see that in 5 to 10 years? haft -- i have to find a model that will support journalism. i think advertising is a serious issue. the only other stream of revenue you can have is paying for that subscription. people talk a lot about how much do you charge on line right now? they should be talking about how much are you going to charge off line? >> unless there are any burning questions, please join me in thanking our panelists for their

presentation. [applause] thank you all for coming today. we enjoyed our panel. thank you. >> scheduled in the u.s. house this week out, a plan to offer cash rebates to americans who trade in older cars for newer, more efficient models. a measure that increases military and nonmilitary aid to pakistan. house and senate negotiators are trying to agree on a bill that would allocate almost $100 billion for additional iraq and afghanistan were spending. the house convenes in a couple of minutes for general speeches, and at 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. we will have large -- live

coverage. the senate is waiting for agreement on that war spending bill. we will have live senate coverage on cspan2. while we wait for the house to gavel and, here are some headlines. host: open phones on any issue. let's take a look at some of the capitol hill news. the headline, democrats shaky and agenda. democrats have hit turbulence, as they enter a crucial period. the first week after the memorial day recess, a major split over health care, in war supplemental spending bill, and speaker nancy pelosi cracking

her whip act swiftly on the climate bill. further he writes, the split over health care could prove to be a tough issue for the democratic leaders in the weeks ahead. here is a story from this morning's the politico. they write about arlen specter and his first trek out as a democratic -- as a democrati. he has been a republican officeholder for more than 40 years. you would have hardly noted saturday, when he made his debut in front of the it pennsylvania democratic party. he had his unofficial coming out party, and he used at teleprompter for his speech. he told an audience of elected officials, he felt welcome and comfortable.

he said he has spent most of his life with the democrats, he said. they also right that he paid home -- two democratic icons such as franklin roosevelt and singled out gop men also. west virginia on our democrats line. caller: thank you for c-span. i book like to talk about our mountaintop removal issues. currently, there has been approximately 1 million a. of mountain range removed down here in west virginia by the practice

of mountaintop removal. they go in and remove the entire mountain range down approximately 1,000 ft.. what this does is it theforests deforests our mountains. more than 1,200 mi., 62% of all the streams in west virginia are impaired, most contaminated with heavy metals. people really need to look at this situation. we don't have to do mountaintop removal, we can do underground mining, we can use contour or

height walt mining. this whole cleaning process that they do, it contains toxins, the same thing that occurred in tennessee. these things are permitted to hold in excess of 10 billion gal.. in the buffalo creek in 1972 in logan county, west virginia, it failed and killed 125 people and destroyed 4000 homes. it cost over $400 million worth of damage in 1972. host: with the energy bill coming up in congress before too long, what would you like congress to do? caller: i would like to see them change some regulations.

we are not against coal mining. the technology exists not to have these things. and also on the mountaintop removal, the original law in 1967 said if they remove the top of these mountains and return it to the original come to work, they have to make a post mining plan that benefits the community. host: were they going to revisit some of those regulations? caller: basically, you cannot fill within 100 ft. of a stream. they eliminated that. they go in and level these mountains off in the fill these

valleys. host: frankland, ark., on our independent line. caller: i have watched c-span for a long time. i am a little nervous. just a couple of points on what your last discussion was. i worked for the fdic. part of the rules were the director -- the directors were personally liable if they went under. i think everything that just happen, because they are all bank holding companies that doesn't apply. when you are talking about executive pay, how it can be regulated, if you have one

person that does of very good job and somebody else who is a slacker, when it comes to pay raises, there is a rule in play where they can only six received the same race, what ever is -- the same race, whatever it is. i remember when congress wanted to -- not congress -- but they wanted to social security income in congress, they said they cannot do that because if the stock market fails, then everyone would lose their savings. but they did anyway. host: st. louis on the republican line. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i have been a real-estate agent for 23 years. i am having a tough time getting my property's appraised, even though they are selling wholesale. it is like you cannot win there. i have a tough time with people on credit scores, because they are going down the tubes. host: the credit qualifications are tougher than they used to be? caller: 2 often credit scoring companies, and if we know that glass stiegel has caused the collapse, why don't they changed that. that $15,000 tax credit for all humboldt -- home buyers, -- for all home buyers by didn't they note that in to get the come -- the country moving? >> michigan on the democrats'

line. caller: you have some really smart people out there in america. maybe congress needs to listen and pay attention to c-span in the morning. that coal mining is horrifying that he was talking about in west virginia. the fact that we are still dealing with greed and corruption is -- as the other caller said, now i am telling you that the fact that there are some representatives that will not allow us to have service without profit is world -- is horrible for us. i think max baucus needs to be

stripped of his personal insurance. anyone at that what set against the public for their best interest to cover, and give the people of america what they deserve, with their own taxpayer money, by the way, with our own choice, needs to be booted out of congress. thank you. host: north carolina is next on the independent line. caller: i would like to just make an opinion about the two- party system we have here in america. to me, it does not seem like the republican party or the republican party have america's best interests at heart. it just means that, if i can make up but, that is what i will do. or if we have to cut programs here, or spend