his administration? >> not entirely. i think that the unemployment figures have to trouble them a bit, especially, you know, austan saying that he can envision situations where we're in double-digit unemployment for a stretch of time. that stimulus money, the figure he used was only 10% of it is really out there in the economy doing much good. so that's been probably a little bit slower than they had expected. interestingly, on health care, even though he said, well, we're just at the beginning, and we all know it's not quite the beginning, i do think that they are still reasonably on track timewise here on capitol hill to try to move a bill. it will not be easy. there will be more bumps along the way. but they are certainly making progress on that. >> your newspaper has been spending a lot of time looking at the situation in the states. we asked briefly about that. california, most notably sitting on i.o.u.'s to some of those who are due refunds, huge layoffs of government

employees. put that into the whole mix. >> it just shows -- i mean, california, i think, is a uniquely bad situation in terms of what they're facing. >> their unemployment is 11%. >> true, true. so it's obviously very state by state. but their problems are more acute because the way the system works in california is that solving the problems is more difficult, because you need such a large -- i think it's a 2/3 majority in the legislature to pass any budget. so it's very hard to solve the problems in california and the problems themselves are quite challenging. i think that to some extent -- and then the white house has, to some extent, been a little bit hands-off with california. there was talk at one point of sort of a federal bailout and that never went anywhere. on thursday at the white house briefing there was some back and forth about whether states should be coming to the white house for assistance, and the spokesperson robert gibbs was not encouraging that, although

acknowledging that they may be coming hat in hand anyway. i think the situation in the states does make the more challenging, but i this that -- i think that overall it's really the macro economy that the white house is worried about and really hoping to try to get the stimulus money out the door and do other things and hope that the other factors that are outside their control start getting things up and slowly making those systematic predictions come true, that we do have recovery later in this year. >> question for both you. what did you learn today? [laughter] >> what did i learn today. i suppose i was a little bit intrigued, but i don't want to hold him to too high of a standard, because he's not their health care expert. but on the question of the public plan, he certainly seemed to speak much more in the direction of something along the lines of medicare. i don't know if that's what he intended to say necessarily, because, yes, most people would say that medicare is a behemoth government health insurance program for 44 million

individuals. it happens to be fairly popular with those individuals. but it's very much a government-run health system. >> i think that on that question -- that was an interesting answer. my guess is he was probably a little out of his depth on that question, because if you talk to other people in the administration about really what do you mean about a public plan, which the president, as ceci noted, has been out there pro potting, not just at the town hall meeting but several events that preceded that. i think they're a lot more flexible about what they would accept. and what austan kept coming back to is what we hear a lot of white house officials keep coming back to, and that is we want to build the lower cost, expands coverage. a lot of people can continue to have choice of doctors, choice of plans, and thails the bottom line. and if they get something that they can label as meeting those criteria, public plan or no, i suspect that they will be happily signing a bill in the

rose garden. >> laura meckler, who covers white house and politics for the "wall street journal," thanks for being with us, and ceci connolly, who covers congress and the health care beat for the "washington post." thanks for being with us. >> coming up next, results of a survey on people's attitudes in pakistan. after that, a coverings with the secretary of the smithsonian institution, and then a preview of the president's overseas trip, which includes a visit to russia. >> threes places reminds me of modern cathedrals that donors would build wings on, hoping they'd go to heaven. >> walter kirn would like to see changes to the higher education system. >> i think, for example,

princeton's philosophy lectures should be on the web. i think these wonderfully concentrated islands of talent and wealth and erudition should be opened up to the larger society, not cultishly kept separate, which they still are, and i can't understand why. >> walter kirn, lost in the meritocracy, the undereducation of an overachiever on "q&a" tonight at 8:00 on c-span. you can also listen on x.m. satellite radio or download the c-span podcast. >> according to a new pakistani opinion poll, most view al qaeda and the taliban as a major security threat. also, they are opposed to the use of unmanned drones by the u.s. military inside pakistan. more now on the survey from a group called world public opinion. this lasts about an hour and a half.

>> my name is steve weber, i'm with a program on international policy attitudes, and we manage world public opinion.org. this is a network of organizations around the world that conduct research on international policy questions, and this study, along with all of our other work, can be found on our website,-year-oldpublicopinion. org, along with a questionnaire and distributions and so forth. we also have studies on pakistan and southeast asia

that can be found there as well. this morning we will be looking at findings from a national survey from the people of pakistan that was conducted in late may, slightly over a month ago. the specific dates were may 17 to 28. to put this in an american context, this was four months after president obama was inaugurated and about one week before his speech in cairo in which he addressed the leaders of the world. clay ramsey on my right will present the issues, including the public's views of the conflict in the swat valley and of the pakistani taliban. also, attitudes about the war in afghanistan and attitudes about the role of the u.s. in the region. clay is director of research at pepa and has worked extensively in south asia, recently a study of attitudes about the conflict

in cashmere. -- kashmir. christine will present differing opinions. pakistan's ethnic mix is crucial to understand its politics and its relations to its neighbors. we will see that it is important to understanding attitudes toward the u.s. and to the taliban as well. christine is a specialist in south asia. she's traveled many times to both afghanistan and pakistan. she speaks the language and i a senior political scientist at the rand corporation and previously was at the u.s. institute of peace. some of christine's good ideas went into the development of the questionnaire for this study. and finally, steven connie is a senior fellow at brookings institution. he has co-authored books in the american engagement in south asia and in a volume entitled

"the idea of pakistan." he's had an exceptional career both as an academic and a member of the policy planning staff of the state department. steven will engage us on policy issues that he finds in the study. so i would like clay to start out and present the core findings of the research. >> thank you all very much for coming. interviews were conducted at home in randomly selected urban and rural sampling points. with 5% of the population, we

oversampled and weighted the results back down so that they would be proportional to the rest of the country. the margin of error is plus or minus 3.2%. these are the topic i'll cover, which steve has listed fow, the swat valley conflict, attitudes toward president obama and the u.s. and al qaeda. so a major shift has taken place in pakistani's perceptions of religious militant groups in their country. 81% now see the activities of islamist militants and the fatah in settled areas as a critical threat to pakistan, while in fall 2007, when we asked the same question, only 34% saw them as critical. more broadly, the activities of

religious militant groups in pakistan as a whole are seen as a critical threat by 2/3, up from 38%. when they're asked where their sympathies lie in the swat conflict, 7-10 are supportive of the government. 10% volunteered on defense response, both equally or neither, but only 5% said the pakistani taliban. confidence in the pakistani government and army to handle the situation is at majority levels. 4-10 say they have a lot of confidence, and 7-10 say they have at least some. the public seems definite that the pakistani taliban represents a road they don't want their country to go down. we asked them to think what if the pakistani taliban were to gain control over all of

pakistan, how would this be? and 75% called this bad. 67% said it would be very bad. at the same time, a majority see such a takeover of the whole country as unlikely. about half say it's very unlikely. we asked people whether they thought the pakistani taliban actually has the ambition of taking over the whole country and imposing its form of sha ria, or whether it just means to run the northwest, which is a sizable goal in itself. a bare majority of 51% thinks the pakistani taliban is focused on the northwest, but a sizable minority, 36%, disagrees and thinks its ambitions are national. now, the public leans slightly toward feeling that even though the pact with the swat and the talabani government failed,

they were still right to attempt to compromise. we reminded them that government forces agreed to withdraw and allow the taliban to establish a system in swat, while the taliban agreed to turn in their heavy weapons and close down their training camps. 44% said the government did the right thing in making the agreement, while 40% said the government made a mistake. this is another sign of a shift in opinion, because just before the agreement in march, a poll by international republican institute found 72% then supporting a peace deal. further, the public has judged that the pakistani taliban definitely broke the agreement by its actions. when they were asked, "do you think that sending their forces into more areas that swat violated or didn't violate the agreement?" 2/3 said, yes, this was a violation. a large majority does not even

think the pakistani taliban would submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the courts they were demanding. 71% think the pakistani taliban will not accept the courts having the power to try taliban members, and this may seem a small point, but it can be important for how militant groups are perceived in future, because the willingness to accept a rule for yourself, if you want to impose it on others, is often basic to people's perceptions of fairness. there is a big divide between the imagine orpts of you -- of some aspects of the crourt and the pakistani's view. we asked people what they think the court allows and then later asked what they think the pakistani taliban allows. so are women allowed to work according to the law? 75% said yes. will the pakistani taliban allow women to work in areas they control? 81% said no. are girls allowed to go to

school, according to shari's a? 83% said yes. very few think the talabani government will deliver goods, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they done have faith in the government. we asked which would do a better job. what about providing effective and timely justice in the courts? only 14% think the pakistani taliban would do a better job. a majority, 56%, thinks the government would, but 26% opted out and said both or neither. preventing corruption in government. just 9% prefer the taliban, but fewer than half, 47%, prefer the government, a large 38% say both or neither. helping the poor. 7% said taliban, 44% the

government, and another 44% said both or neither. so since we see this shift of attitudes about the pakistani taliban, does this change carry over to views of the afghan taliban, and if so, to what degree? nearly all pakistanis say that in principle, the afghan taliban should not be allowed to have basis in -- bases in pakistan. 87% thought this. at the same time, many pakistanis seal unwilling to face the prospect that the afghan taliban do operate from sanctuary basis on the pakistani side of the border. so 77% said that taliban groups were trying to overthrow the government in afghanistan and are not operating from bases in pakistan. however, pakistanis do seem willing to follow their government, if it were to take the lead in clarifying the

issue and asked, if the pakistani government were to identify bases in pakistan of taliban groups who are trying to overthrow the afghan government, do you think the government should or should not close these bases, even if it requires the use of military force? 78% said the government should close such bases. only 13% disagreed. this appears to show a considerable growth and support for pakistani military action to secure its western border. our september 2007 poll did find a plurality that favored allowing the pakistani army to pursue and capture taliban insurgents who have crossed over from afghanistan, 48% to 34%, but this support was not at majority levels then. if the afghan taliban were to succeed in its goal and take over afghanistan, three in five pakistanis would see this as a negative outcome. 61% said that if the taliban

were to regain power in afghanistan, this would be bad. 54% called it very pad. -- very bad. 24% said this would be a good outcome and another 10% volunteered it would be neither good nor bad. when the united states is brought into the picture, this gives rise to very different attitudes. asked about the current u.s. drone aircraft attacks that struck targets in northwest pakistan, 82% called them unjustified. only 13% disagreed. if the u.s. were to identify bases in pakistan, 79% say it would not be justified in bombing them, though, as we've seen, this type of action is supported now, when carried out by pakistan's own government. we asked a question that would remind respondents that the international community, not only the u.s., originated the

military presence in afghanistan. it read, "as you may know, the u.n. has authorized the nato mission in afghanistan manned by forces from the u.s. and other countries. this mission is meant to stabilize afghanistan and help the government defend itself from taliban insurgents. do you approve or disapprove of this mission?" 72% disapprove of the nato mission. only 18% approve. do you think the nato mission in afghanistan should be continued or do you think it should be ended now? and 79% said it should be ended now, 13%, that it should continue. the recent decision by the obama administration to send up to 17,000 more u.s. troops to afghanistan this year is widely rejected in pakistan. 86% said they diseye proved. -- disapproved. so there are few since of a washover of public support from the fight with the pakistani

taliban to the war in afghanistan. but to the degree that the war in afghanistan is brought on to pakistani soil by either side, there is a strong public reaction. let's look now at whether the arrival of obama has brought any signs of warmer attitudes toward the u.s. and i should say this poll was conducted just before the president's speech in cairo. he did briefly mention the war in afghanistan and u.s. plans for economic and humanitarian aid in pakistan. asked how much confidence they have in president obama to do the right thing regarding world affairs, a 62% majority have low confidence in him, 30% expressed some or a lot of confidence. now, when pew asked the same question about president bush in 2008, it found even fewer expressing confidence, 7%, but you have the same number, 61%,

expressing low confidence. so more pakistanis express confidence in obama than did in president bush. but the majority expressing a lack of confidence in a u.s. president is really the same as before. we asked pakistanis to consider what president obama's policies may mean for their country. 32% said the policies are barack obama will be better for pakistan. 36% said they'd be worse. and 26% said they'll be about the same. so 3-5 think obama's policies mean things will say as they are or perhaps get worse. now, 69% feel unfavorably towards the current u.s. government and 58% are very unfavorable. only 27% have a positive view, and this is roughly similar to

responses in 2008, when 56% were unfavorable and 17% favorable. attitudes are lopsided when they talk about efforts to promote international law, respondents chose between two statements, on the right you see the u.s. has been an important leader in promoting international laws and sets a good example by following them, or the u.s. tries to promote international laws for other countries but is hypocritical because it often does not follow these rules itself. and a comparatively moderate 2/3 took the critical view of the u.s. this is down from 78% in 2008 and a significant minority chose a statement which praises the u.s. the u.s. is perceived

as showing a disrespect toward muslim countries that a majority think is purposeful. given three options, only 7% said the u.s. mostly shows respect to the islamic world. a substantial 1-3, though, said this is not intentional. the u.s. is often disrespectful to the islamic world, but out of ignorance and insensitivity. however, a 55% majority thought the u.s. purposely tries to humiliate the islamic world. so this image of u.s. actions toward muslim countries seems pretty entrenched. but if broader attitudes toward the united states have shown little improvement, what about attitudes toward al qaeda, the u.s.'s adversary? there has been a major shift in pakistani opinion toward al qaeda so far as it regards pakistan itself. in late 2007, if you look at

the bottom bar, 41% saw al qaeda's activities as a critical threat to the vital interests of pakistan in the next 10 years. in the current study, 82% called al qaeda's activities a critical threat to pakistan. so this doubled. an overwhelming majority thinks al qaeda should not be allowed to run training camps in pakistan. 88% said this. however, most say al qaeda is not operating training camps in pakistan. 76% thought this is not the case. nonetheless, if the pakistani government were to identify al qaeda training camps in pakistan -- that's how it was put to them -- 74% said the government should close them down, even if it requires use of military force. 17% disagreed. and this shows a shift in attitudes from 18 months ago.

for comparison, in our 2007 poll, just a 44% plurality then favored the pakistani army entering federally administered tribal areas to pursue and capture al qaeda fighters, while 36% were opposed. even if the u.s. were to identify al qaeda training camps operating in pakistan, 4-5 pakistanis do not think it would be justified for the u.s. to bomb such camps. 81% rejected this. similarly, back in 2007, 80% said the pakistan government should not allow american or other foreign troops to enter pakistan to pursue and capture al qaeda fighters. only 5% thought their government should permit it. so pakistanis' views have changed a lot where their own government's actions are concerned. but where u.s. actions are concerned, pakistanis' views

have barely changed. one way of understanding all this may be that we are seeing a rising of pakistani national feelings directed at both extremist groups within the country that are increasingly seen as harming the integrity of the state and against outside forces that are also seen as harming the integrity of the state. many in the pakistani public see the pakistani tal pan, the afghan taliban, the u.s. and al qaeda as all harming pakistan's state integrity. so though the image of the u.s. does not pen fit from this shift and this rise in national awareness, overall i think this change should still be welcome to the u.s. >> ok, thank you, clay. christine will take another slice at these data.

so when you hit the button, it makes them appear. >> it's so complicated. so let me give you a brief overview of what we're trying to do with this next presentation. this next presentation tries to disaggregate with pakistan looked like. we tried two kinds of disaggregation of the first kind was urban/rural. we didn't actually find a lot of variation between residents of the world parts of pakistan and those in urban areas. so we're presenting here interprovincial differences. it's important to say that in pakistan there's often more variation within a province than there is between provinces. so the only way we can really look at the determinant variations in a country is through a regression model and

that's obviously not something we're doing here. another caveat is that this sample size is only 1,000 and the sample was drawn to be nationally representative. so we are very cautious in presenting interprovincial differences because the sample was not drawn to be representative at the provincial level. so what we're going to present here are only those variables that have a substantially interprovincial difference that we feel confident that those differences are statistically significant. so you can assume that if we don't have a specific slide addressing the previous variables that clay presented, that there was no significant interprovincial differences, or at least a difference that we felt confident in sharing with you. i also want to point out that in this sick round of survey, pipa used a different firm. and i have another survey that i'm doing at princeton and stanford that uses the same firm and we're doing 6,000 people. some of the interprovincial differences that we point out

here we're going to be tracking in the 6,000-person survey. before i go further, i think it also might be interesting to share anecdotes. before pipa signed up with this firm to do the survey, jacob and i actually went to pakistan to do enumerator training. and i think it's really important to understand the vernacular that you see presented here has been distilled out. and one of the most interesting things that we found when we did the enumerator training -- and by that i mean those people that are going out to interview the participants in the survey -- we went through every single question a minute detail and we questioned them very rigorously to make sure the enumerators understood the question. what we found in our previous sample in 2007, that there were a lot of respondents who said they didn't know or didn't want to respond. and trying to figure out whether they don't know or don't want to respond is obviously an important issue. and so to minimize the don't knows, we spent a lot of time with these enumerators, making sure they understood terminology. there were probably two

interesting findings that jacob and i had from the enumerator training, and that is when you actually ask people, do you know what al qaeda is, most of the enumerators, who were very well educated, all of them had essays, which is the 10 plus two in the pakistani system. almost all of them had b.a.'s, many had m.a.'s, and all of them had five or more years of experience in marketing or survey work. in other words, these folks are very well educated and they could not tell us what al qaeda was. so we trained the enumerators to explain to the respondents, who also may not know, that al qaeda is osama bin laden's organization. . .

is likeal lumpy soup. you have to take bites all over the soup, right. it is likeal lumpy soup. we don't know if the results is an arty fact of a lumpy soup

problem or whether it reflects the results. it is an outlier. in the 6,000 person survey we have. i'm going to present two attitudes. the first is about pakistani threat assessment and threat perception. and the second is about attitudes towards american policy, leadership and so forth. turning to the threat assessment. and this is a slide you have seen, we asked them if they see these as a threat or not. this particular slide looks at the activities of islamic militants and local taliban in settled areas. and this is what we find. what's really interesting -- looking at critical, not a threat. look at the differences. people in these two provinces are concerned about those

activities and in the high threat category. there is an explanation if we can assume these figures are reflecting the attitudes. while it is the home of the taliban, the region is about insurgent violence. you haven't seen the taliban active in that region. so maybe the taliban are clever and not going to make a problem in this region. but you have islamic violence across these other three provinces. so maybe that explains why they are an outlier here. we asked them about activities in pact as a whole. you see provincial differences. we see it being most concerned.

if you think about this, in 2006, when the taliban really began a concerted campaign of suicide bombing throughout pact, they were concentrated in punjab and the attack on beautyo, has been spared. and you see this reflected in the interprovincial differences. so going back to the question of the pakistani taliban goals and pact taliban, not afghan taliban, we asked them if the pact taliban if it were to take overall of pact, how would the outcome be, and again you see, it's fascinating with interprovincial differences. it is much more worrisome and

apprehensive. and many pakistanis don't necessarily view in the same way although people know about the outsource of the violence. but again, the two provinces that are on the brunt of this violence are much more apprehensive about an outcome of a takeover. we asked folks about pakistanis' goals. this is the second time you have seen this slide. again, fascinating interprovincial differences. even though folks in the punjab, they are much more likely to believe it is their goal to take overall of pact. it is important to remember when this survey was taken, it was

fielded after the taliban had moved in in complete violation of the peace deal. and my interpretation is that folks in the heartland of pact, there is almost this sense as long as the craziness happens in the nwp and the punjab, many pakistanis view especially in the tribal areas -- and they don't have the nifmentse and the rights and the obligations of the pakistani citizenry. it is a legal status, but a very different status. my interpretation is that really changed the world view. if you go and look at the data that was fielded in march right before the deal was finalized and the subsequent events,

people have a different opinion about the pact taliban and what its goals and what the likelihood is that they would succeed. and they think the taliban will just stop at the northwest frontier province. when we asked them about the likelihood of a pakistani talabani takeover, there is very striking interprovincial differentiation. in the previous slide, you saw them behaving similarly, here what you see is a very different provincial grouping. folks in the nwp, ground zero of the ttp, if you include the somewhat likely. folks in the punjab are much

more skeptical. and again, you see, they are a little bit more a.m. biff lent. we wanted to understand how folks in the provinces view the government as well as the pakistani talabani with respect to the swat conflict. again you see folks in the punjab, you see a different view. there are any number of interpretations. i think one way perhaps of interpretting this and the only way we can know is some sort of aggression model. there is long-standing disen franchisement from the federal government. there is an insurgency. and there have been ep sodic

periods of ethnic violence centered around control. it is kind of difficult to disaggregate to come from their own perceived disen franchisement or exposed less to the ttp violence. we asked about their confidence of the government's handling of swat. so you see a lot of variation here depending upon where folks are sitting across the country. and i found the nwp results to be baffling. i have no coherent explanation because they are the ones that have borne the brunt of the situation. the punjab is where i expected them to be.

and there is jean -- an outlier. but the nwp siggeting is extraordinary and i have no explanation. so if you have any thoughts, let me know because i have no way of rationalizing that. we asked folks about their confidence in the army's dealing with the ttp. and again, nwp looks similar to how it did in the previous slide . so again, nwp is looking very strange. punjab is silingt significant. sindh -- the folks are much more likely to have no confidence in the way in which the army has been handling the ttp situation.

now we're going to turn to the second basket. if you don't slide the characterics. the next is we will be looking at how folks view the u.s. leadership, policy. we will revisit their belief about whether or not obama is going to be better or worse for pact. and again, really enormous provincial differences. and oddly, -- i want to talk about nwp. so pralm became obama and he was on the campaign trail, much more than bush. he said we will continue doing this.

if you look at president bush how he handled this, it was a situation of denial until the very end of his elected term. the u.s. was in kind of denial about it and look at the earlier press reports when americans said these were american strikes, there was silence, maybe we won't confirm or disconfirm. obama more so than bush who said this is a tool useful to us. yet despite that, folks think that things are going to be better. in this survey, the overall survey, pakistanis were uniformly opposed to the predator strikes. if you look at data -- remember our survey doesn't have fatah. you can do surveys but most people don't.

but there was a sample of fatah. but they went in and asked them about drone strikes, people on the main were supportive. people living there next to ttp as well as al qaeda, do you think the data is a metric, folks were most positive about the drone strikes. and the same firm has a very large survey. the results aren't public. and i believe one of the issues they asked there are the drone strikes. but the punjab is on the range of sindh. more people think things are going to get west and similar in punjab are more dubious.

now the next set of questions, pipa, you asked these questions of a lot of countries, these particular questions. so they may seem strange. but pipa asked these questions in the countries which they operate and it is a good collaboration of how pakistanis view these. and because they asked this question in pact, it gives them a trend line. to my knowledge, you haven't written out provincial differences. so we don't have a trend line here. but we asked pakistanis what they believe to be a u.s. goal. and the first question here is the creation of a palestinian state. now nwfp is an outlier. i don't know why they would have this view. obviously overall, there is not a lot of views.

vast majority think it's not a goal. there is a reason why this question is important in pact. i spent a lot of time looking at militancy in that country. and even though the militant groups haven't sent folks over, but i think there was a suicide bombing in 2004 that were brits, but pakistani origin. on the main, the pact militant groups are contained in the theater. i mean, afghanistan, pact and india with a few "oddball"s popping up in iraq and elsewhere. what i have found is that the palestine issue is a huge not vator. and the palestinian issue is really a recurrent theme across these militant groups. if you are think what plight be,

this actually is an important question, even though it is useful in benchmarking pact. with that caveat, nwfp is an outlier. going to u.s. goal -- again this is a question that pipa asked all over the place. what you see overwhelmingly folks seem to think this is a goal. but nwfp is an outlier. they are appearing in a similar cluster of questions. it makes me feel more confident they were measuring the opinion of people there as opposed to this being some sort of freaky error. and again, very similar to nwfp. now going back to -- perhaps we should have reorganized this. but looking at al qaeda and the

activities of bin laden. this is framed because many folks don't know the word al qaeda, but they know bin laden. again, you see a lot of interprovincial variation. and again, i suspect because they haven't borne the brunt of islamic violence. you are looking at variation. when you add in important but not critical, the vast majority of folks think that al qaeda and bin laden are actually bad news. returning to the question of afghan taliban bases in pact and whether or not the government should close down these bases even if it requires the use of force. you see strong provincial variation, three are firmly of the belief it should. although the nwfp, one out of

three say they should not. and sindh supportive that they should shut down. al qaeda training camps in pact, we asked the same question whether or not pact should close them down even if it requires force, we see a similar interprovincial variation. sindh much more vocal. and nwfp, one in three think the government should not shut them down. the results similar to the question posed about the ttp. pipa again has asked this question in other countries and correct me if wrime wrong, but i think the motivation of this is what pipa is trying to do is disaggregate -- you can certainly imagine that you support attacks on the united

states and you support al qaeda's goals, but al qaeda's goals are much more expansive than attacking the united states. it's also possible that you could share al qaeda's other goals but reject attacks on the united states. and there are people who would like to see large numbers on, those who don't share al qaeda's views on the rest of the world and also oppose attacks on the united states. there are variation across the provinces. punjab oppose al qaeda and attacking us in. the nwfp and this is contradictory to some of the other findings, they are more likely to support attacking the united states and sharing al qaeda's attitudes towards the united states. the other province shares

attitudes. this gives you a good flavor of how people in the different provinces align themselves to al qaeda and violence that al qaeda seeks to perpetrate on americans. on osama bin laden, over the years, when you see polls on pakistanis and their views about bin laden, there are different ways of asking the question, so it's difficult to get a solid trend line. clay can give you a sense, but again, it is an interesting interprovincial variation. there is some considerable differences. in the pun jab, you see the least level of belief that bin laden is an ok guy and you actually see the largest number

of people who have a negative view of him. and that's it. thank you. >> gr morning. when i was asked to participate i told clay that i'm not a big fan of public opinion polls and this grows out of my experience in college polling regarding potato chips and highways and we manufactured the data in both cases. so i was very skeptical of the process, but i find it important and useful in some ways and perhaps looking at it from a policy perspective in unexpected ways. once when i briefed bill casey

about the war in -- first war in afghanistan, then head of the cia and somebody said, well, in punjab, they don't do this. he said where's punjab. we have a problem. i think pakistani polling is useful if it can serve as an educational process for policy makers. i like chris' add-ons. it forces you to think of the differences in pact. the notion is pakistani public opinion. there is no pakistani public opinion. it may be useful in the sense that if there is a pakistani public opinion acid fide by the polling organizations, that gives us something to talk about. and to the degree that pact

moves towards being more participate tower state, that's useful. it has to take account of its own public opinion perhaps in its policies, which i think is a step forward. from the point of view from american policy makers, polling forces them to think about pact and what chris has done in this data, critical differences between provinces. in india, the attitudes of north indians and south indians towards kashmir are enormous. in the south, they don't know where it's at. so i think there are important regional differences in pact and i particularly like chris's use of this data to bring these out. however, the polling itself, i'll argue with you about the

methodology, having done this -- where did you travel, what kind of poe tatea lo chips -- potato chips did you eat, a lot of the stuff is fabricated to suit the customer. that's what we were doing. let me talk about a few policy implications and then be very brief and let you move on to questions. i think polls are an educational tool for the policy maker. if you can get them to look at them, especially if you have differences and if you do them over time. what struck me about this poll is the earlier numbers ofions and no answer are lighter. and i think that's a critical issue. let me say first that pakistanis have been bombarded by

propoganda of all sorts for generations right from the beginning of the country. this is a country that grew up on anti-americaism. you could buy the protocols of zyon. and a lot of this was state- sponsored. you have the indians colludding. it has been subjected more than brainwashing of its own population. i think that -- but that didn't matter in a sense. particularly to the army, president mureb -- musharraf. the people didn't care, who knows. they don't have uniforms.

they are really not our friends, so the polling was irrelevant. but now i think pact has sort of a democracy in moving towards the democracy. opinion of people does matter. we may be creating an identity through these polls. i'm not sure the government has any comparable mechanism. i don't know if they have people like me doing their polls, but i think this has changed. radical change in attitudes towards pact and this began in the last year or two of the most recent bush administration, it wasn't want the military or musharraf thought but what the pakistani people were thinking and going. there was a realization that pact could be and is one of

america's biggest foreign policy problems. this wasn't an american policy in the executive branch but in congress. there is concern about future of pact and therefore attitudes of pakistanis towards their future and towards us. i think public opinion polling is now more relevant. but i caution policy makers about taking it too seriously. what would be useful would be if you could deconstruct these polls and look more carefully at age differential and class differential among those who respond. you might need a larger sample. but i'm interested in what the 17, 19 year olds think about the future of pact. that is going to myex project. how do they see pact. how do they see america. people going to be running pact 10 or 15 years from now

particularly in punjab and frontier. you know, how do they view the future. it would be useful in the future if you do questions and say in the list of all the possible futures for your country, what do you see as the most desirable, least desirable. that would be helpful to myself. so i think that polling would give -- that kind of question might give policy makers a better idea about what are the deepest concerns of pakistanis of all sorts, especially young pakistanis besides do you like the taliban, do you not like the taliban. that seems to follow headlines. but the anti-americanism is deep. it would be interesting to find out why. and which sectors hold these views more intensely than

others. i think american policy should not only address this question through greater expansion of libraries and exchanges and so forth, but when we come across people lying about us for one reason or another, i think we should confront them as a mat irof policy, challenge them openly and publicly. why do you say this? why do you believe that. that's one of the fantasies that circulates in the highest levels of the taliban where this retired colonel sitting in virginia shapes policy about the destruction of pact. so i think the polls will show that this is strongly held belief, even among educated pakistanis. we should go after these people, confront them with what we know are falsehoods.

we have a huge weapon in our arsenal. pralm. -- president obama. i would say the visit in cairo was $15 billion wan his interview which was not commented on here -- in other words, where we would have had to spend that kind of money to get that result. maybe you couldn't spend any kind of money. we have this great arsenal, weapon in our arsenal, obama and clearly his states, the statements of other american leaders, when hole brook went to a refugee camp. they are critically more important than billions of dollars. i'm not sure if you can measure that in a poll.

few other final points, now do we need to worry about pact in terms of where public opinion and the public is going in pact? yes, i think the administration is coming to the conclusion that it is perhaps more important than afghanistan. what the pakistani peoples think, because there is no single people, different classes in pact, i think it is important for american public policy. that's why this has to be from our point of view not a one-time shot, but a more enduring relationship with pact. polling provides us one window into the attitudes and minds of the pakistani people. and therefore, i look forward to your next performance.

>> thank you all. and we will run as long as we'd like or at least as 20, 25 minutes. i know christine has an observation. and while you think about your -- prepare your thoughtful brief question for the panel, i would like to pose a quick simple question for our panelists. all of these people have to go back to their office today probably and you will go back to your office and someone will say, where were you this morning? at a presentation on pact. you should be able to tell them one important thing to justify these 90 minutes. i would like to ask our panelists if you could help the audience with one thing they

found interesting or important from this public opinion research. would anybody like to start? christine. >> to all these folks, you can't change what pakistanis think until you figure out what they think and why. and i think we have to move away from this idea of pakistani as being this coherent thing where everyone thinks alike. and the other survey that we are doing, we are looking at age differences. and it's interesting, we look at gender, urban, rural, age, what you find are views are held differently across the country. public diplomacy have to why do they think and stop thinking about a pact, because there are actually multiple pacts. >> to me, the thing that i have

gathered from this whole process is that many observers and reporters of the pakistani scene over the last few months have said there seems to have been a sea change in pakistani public opinion and for good or ill, the tools of social science turn out to say the same thing. so either both loads of knowledge are wrongor both loads are right. the other really key thing for me is to understand that this greatly increased negativity and skepticism towards religious militant groups in the country does not bring with it any sort of automatic reinforcement of

other attitudes that the u.s. would like to see for its foreign policy reasons. so this should always be clearly distinguished in people's minds. >> i think pact is evolving a new identity and there is a new idea of pact. and that idea certainly now does not include any favorable attitudes to the united states. so i think it's important that we understand what kind of pact may evolve in the future. the polls are good, but they tell us about the past, but they do offer some trends and if they're well done, give you the deeper reasons for attitudes. i think it's important that we understand that pact may evolve in a way which is a clearly pakistani identity, but which we may not like. you may have a coherent pact but

a pact that in some ways rubs up against america's concerns and interests. >> very briefly. i share steve's skepticism about polls in general. without going through the enumerator training -- i want to show you how polling has changed. my favorite example, survey collected a lot of data about the views of musharraf and they asked questions what are your views about the army and public opinion declined throughout 2007 and they asked another question, to what extent do you think less of the army because of president musharraf. majority of people said this, that this was their view. and musharraf was so angry about

these polls that he actually said, you are destabilizing the region and he went on and on and on and actually kicked out the chief of mission. so i think there is an interesting dialogue. and i think your point was spot on, the fact that you have folks -- you have folks that are collecting data on what pakistanis think feed into that government and musharraf was brought down through mobilization of civil society and what people thought. i think these polls are important, thank you. >> one of our associates will bring the microphone. go ahead. >> thank you. thanks very much. it's very interesting set of results. i have some questions about the

questions that you asked. focus on bases in pact and focusing on not the real problem is. and the question on the goals of the taliban, either take overall of pact or take over only the nwfp. there are lots of other possibilities. there is an interesting timing question that you didn't mention and it may help explain a lot of your results and that is this happened 10 days after the government's decision to go in militarily in swat. to me, that probably sets up a situation where you have the maximum unpopularity of the taliban. i was struck in spite of the provincial differences, by the fact that the taliban were unpopular everywhere, it's a question of how much.

and that might explain this other wise bizarre finding in the nwfp. i think this may have been and i worry what the answer might be to that same question in say, august, if the displaced people are still away from home. >> any response or observations? >> i share that. the timing of this is very important. when you look at their findings versus what i found in march. i suspect strongly that that is actually driving it. i share your concerns about the i.d.p.'s situation. my understanding there are more i.d.p.'s in peoples' homes than in actual camps. when i was in pact during the

enumerator training, there was already displaced persons. and the concern during the meetings was, well, they have different values and cultural commitments and more religious. when we were doing the training in april, pakistanis were registering concerns about what the impact would be on the i.d.p.'s. and many of them do parallels to the afghan refugees during the 1980's. my colleagues and i, we are doing our 6,000-person survey. we were asking people about their future and not just their past. i'm pretty sure they are doing questions on the i.d.p.'s. >> question here. >> thank you very much. i think excellent -- i have

similar observations. i'm professor. i'm working on a project. i have written observation. i agree with most of the remarks. and i know some of the problems. two observations, one about sindh. i'm from sindh. and i think that the observations you have of sindh -- i think there are problems about how the data was collected. sindh, 50% of the population lives in urban areas. yes, there are a lot of pashtoon

speaking. they are reflecting their views. the population, 95% -- i don't think -- there are striking results that need to be looked about -- i have done surveys. one of the very difficult places to do interviewing. most of the people are upper middle class and don't want to give any -- they don't want to entertain anyone at their homes, period. i did a survey of 5,000 households and had a lot of problems. that is one observation. i can't believe 96% of people in sindh would be in favor al

qaeda. very high percentage. and 90% of them would be not accepting obama's views, because i was there immediately after the last elections and i did some work and public opinion for a local magazine and i thought the people that live there, 40% of the sindh's population is extremely in favor of obama. what i think, when i did a survey in pact -- pact -- and it was about positive interviews. using the same ones, but two different surveys, that would be

problematic. just reminding you about the problems in the field. i agree with the professor's remarks. do the survey of young people. 60% of the population is under 30. they are the future leaders. there are more younger people there than in iraq and in afghanistan. also do the opinion poll of people who matter, educated people. they are the ones who write in english newspapers, other newspapers. they give your opinion. i don't know if they would know all the intricate questions you are asking.

>> i have one or two observations in a broadway about polling and pakistan. something that we have found is that our samples tend to be slightly more educated than the populations as a whole. i think the question we find challenging is not representing the lower income, less educated people, because we tend to find that it's easier to complete interviews on topics like this. and this issue of what do young people think in the islamic world comes up a lot. and i'm sure it varies from country to country. generally, when we have done analyses of young people, that they are substantially or dramatically more positive to america and the west than the

population as a whole. those are broad general liesed statements but that represents our experience in looking at the demographics of our samples in the muslim world and also trying to understand how young people are approaching international relations. >> whenever i go to pakistan, i try to visit classrooms and talk to students there. and i would get the opposite conclusion, the students i met more anti-american. they absorbed more of the anti-american propoganda and internalized it. >> that is reflected in the provincial distributions as well. that is one possible explanation for some of the things that you

are pointing out as puzzling, in questions that are just focused on the u.s., in the provinces that are more urban and better educated, there tended to be larger majorities giving anti-american, quote, unquote, answers than those provinces that were less so. >> i have a couple of concerns. i really take your point and that's why i said up front, this was not a sample that was selected to be pro vingsallyly representative. in the survey that we are doing with princeton and stanford, we will be looking closely at the issues you noted. we have asked to see the enumerateors, the grid by which they select homes. we were also asking to see household by household what the refusal rate to participate is and what are the characterics that are observeable. if you aren't going to

participate in a sample, we don't know. are you in on a lit street, apartment building or urban or rural area. in the 6,000-person sample, we asked and paid for to get the information about those who participate and those who didn't, so we can look at that issue. in the 6,000-person sample, and some of the issues that came here, because we asked similar questions and we will be looking morrow busly and i take your point on the sampling issue. and i think sindh has that pumpi soup problem, particularly in the constitution of the urban areas. but on the age thing, this is why i'm skeptical of tabulations. i think the only way you can look at urban, rural, age or

other demographic information is to do an acon no metric aggression. is it usual and-rural or interprovincial because the percentage is different. the interprovincial differences suck up the urban-rural, we don't know. that being said, when we have looked at anti-americaism, i hope i'm not distorting the results, but we have found similar things about youth being more -- they are not pro america. and when we did the iran survey, young people were somewhat different in their views. i know when we looked at this in the regregs analysis, there were differences across youth. you can only say what is the impact of age about doing these regregs analysis. >> question? >> foreign service officer and i

spent two years in the foreign service. i spent two years in afghanistan and did a lot of work and research. i'm skeptical of your poll dating. human beings are very complex and it's very difficult to come to conclusions based on a broad spectrum. look at these people in this room, you come up with different sources. what are the sources that you tested for? and i wonder, to what degree -- since the two groups split between the border provinces with afghanistan and the rest of the country are pretty pronounced, to what degree is the effect of pastun felt?

and it is the code of ethics and conduct. osama bin laden is a foreigner, just like americans are. and that affects and certainly did in afghanistan and continues to do that in afghanistan, it affects the impressions of afghans. and i would expect it to be reflected in the pastun part of the population. the second explaining factor that i didn't hear much of in the results was the impact of literacy and how people get their information which form these attitudes. most of the people block of border peoples, the literacy rate is much lower and the polling would agree, that although it may be 60% in the

big cities, when you get out near the border, it falls way down to 12% and women particularly are not educated. everything is intertwined. but i wonder because the cause atlantay is as important as the findings. >> i really loathe this idea of questioning -- i think it is so reductionist and assumes that this thing is not changing. and when you look at pastun, it is actually changing. this idea of hospital, it is utter rubbish. and people have enriched themselves from taking money from hosting foreigners. this notion that americans love to resort to to explain unusual behavior needs to be

interrogated very seriously because across the belt this is interpretted very differently. in swat, americans love to talk about jergas. this idea doesn't illuminates. there are enormous within provincial differences between literacy rates overall and male and female. there are differences between provinces. if you look at the data, folks in one province are less likely to be less lit rat than people in the nwfp. on the border areas, don't assume they are less lit rat. if you look at world bank data, you see families are making choices.

so it is true that in the tribal areas, women are less leakly to be educated. you cannot assume this is because of pashtun wally. in parts of the country, people will send their daughters to school only if there is a school nearby. and this is true in punjab. they will not send their girls to school if the school is far away. you have to think not about these reductionist categories. because when they are behaving in pakistan, they are behaving like others. i don't think there is a short answer. >> let me add a reminder that we showed some provincial breakdowns because of purposes of policy, it is important to understand how attitudes might be distributed differently in

places where there is a war than places where there is not, just putting it very crudely. the great majority of findings overall in this study do not show these big differences. the other point i would like to make is, it has to do with this idea of identity that somehow if, in fact, across four provinces, everyone winds up with the majority agreeing and saying the same thing that that means some kind of identity of pakistanis is being manufactured here. since we polled internationally, we document many, many questions in which people on opposite sides of the world happen to have majorities that answer questions the same way. that doesn't mean that they're sharing an identity.

it certainly means they're sharing something because they are in a big respublica. they have some impact from the media. they are sharing the same universe and don't have to share the same identity. >> we had a particularly lively discussion this morning. we have time for perhaps one more question or two. al and the young lady sitting behind you. and why don't we ask them together and try to address them. >> particularly interesting to me is to see the variation across pakistan and their attitudes. i have a brief question. this survey, along with several other recent surveys shows that pakistan attitudes towards the

you are are -- the u.s. are negative. your recent survey, 20-country survey. obama surprisingly is 2-1 negative where 20 countries as a whole are 2-1 positive. if we can only pakistan and the world. my question is, what might turn pact attitudes into normal direction? -- pack is tan attitudes into normal direction. >> i understand what you said about the nwfp. and you said that the poll data showed that there was some inclinations towards the u.s. on

al qaeda attacks and maybe some sympathies or more optimism about obama in the nwfp. but at the same time there are more sympathies towards al qaeda and its goals. do you think that the shift in opinion kind of presentences an opportunity, diplomatally speaking? >> would anybody like to answer? >> i think i can go first and let me take the last question first. one -- and i'm saying this as someone who has not and never been a full-time student to pakistan. there is a -- people who are farther away from what i'll call the pakistani metro polls have

lessor a different mix of education and that they are less idealogically formed. their views don't necessarily all line up in a row properly, certainly less so than someone in an urban area. so you could postulate a person who says americans should get off our land, get out of our neighborhood. that obama doesn't look so bad. maybe it could be better. perhaps this comes out all in one breath for someone and that is a many looser knit way of thinking relative to ideology. let me give you some time. >> what i have noticed over the

years, americans when viewing pakistan have had a lot of false thoughts. they assume that if you are anti-militant, you must be pro american. if you are pro-musharraf, you must be pro-american. and what i have seen since 9/11 as well as looking at poll data, this is binary. you can think al qaeda is great and that is uncorrelated to your view. if you think -- gal up asked folks, they defined radicals and whether they thought 9/11 attacks were justified and what explained that belief. they found out it wasn't religious or their belief about sharia, but about their belief towards america. only in these models do you find these correlations.

any experience has been in terms of opinions about any particular question that they are absolutely not connected. . . obama talked about regional approach. he talked about a special envoy. in the original formulation india was involved, you had the idea that 2 stimulus the one you

had to get pakistan to be nice. the well-healed indian lobby through up a storm and the next few kashmir was removed from the portfolio. that was a victory for the indians, but in the zero sum game of relations it was seen as evidence of the indian influence. pakistani and people believe that india is the new israel. this was very disappointing. it reinforced the idea that the u.s. has a strong long-term relationship with india and a short-term transactional focus on pakistan. it is really about stabilizing our war effort in afghanistan.

that is why i think you see strange figures about obama compared to those of other countries. >> the final word, i think that part the problem is that the pakistani people have not had much to boast about recently. their victory in the world cricket cup did more to provide an identity for the people of pakistan and their future. i had a student who studied indian national identity and reluctantly concluded it was bollywood and the sports industry, and pakistan needs the same. [laughter] [inaudible] >> i think the his answer is the

correct short term point. >> we may have to get used to the fact that we have a historical legacy. we should be happy with the category where pakistani senate reject militancy but still think that we suck. >> and i think that kashmir has to be in the discussion. if it is obviously excluded been that is a real negative. if it were brought back in it would be ostentatious whether we like it or not. but i think it would have some impact. >> one final word. we have to understand in terms of the pakistani self-a majority india may play a bigger role than we do. india can do more to hurt or to help than we can. maybe we should stand back and allow them to work this out.

>> thank you all very much for your attention. and for the lively discussion. [applause] this week, chief economist on the president's economic recovery advisory board who talks about the latest employment figures. >> unfortunately, i do not think we are dim. we are not out of the woods. we have a tough job market reports.

-- i don't think we are done. when the recession began from 2007, the rate has slowed of job loss since the president has taken office, but i imagine that unemployment might push into the double digits by the time we get to the peak of this. >> see the entire interview on c-span today at 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> how is he's been funded? >> the u.s. government. >> i do not know. some of it is government-race. >> it is not public funding. >> probably donations. >> for me through my tax dollars. >> 30 years ago america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, a private business initiative. no government mandate, no government money.

>> and now the secretary of the the smithsonian institution talks about the use of new technology in a speech titled " bites, stars, helixes, and history." >> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. i'm president of the national press club and reporter for "usa today" for the world's leading organization for journalists. for more information about the national press club please visit our web site. on behalf of our 3500 members worldwide of like to welcome our speaker and guests in the

audience today. i would also like to welcome those watching us on c-span. we are looking forward to today speech and afterwards i will ask as many questions from the audience as time permits. please hold your applause during the speech so we have time for as many questions as possible. for our broadcast audience if you hear a pause it might be from the guests and members of the general public and not necessarily from the working press. [laughter] i like to introduce our head table in guests. from your right, catherine, writer and author. syndicated columnist and television host next for the white house conical. coco, a state editor -- as a suitor come and voice of the hill this river. in environmentalist, kipling or,

chairman of the kip winger washington editors. betsy, director of the smithsonian american art museum in guest of the speaker. skipping over the podium, angela, bloomberg news and chair of the speaker's committee for npc. mary lou, producer and editor of artistically speaking in the speaker's committee meeting who arranged today's luncheon. thank you very much. lonny, rector of the national museum of african-american history and culture. doris, president of editorial assistance. richard, washington bureau chief of hearst and a former national press club president. and sonya, host of the newseum, and a new member.

if you have ever been to washington, d.c. it is almost a sure thing you have been to the smithsonian institution. with its 137 million things from the hope diamond to dorothy's ruby slippers with its 19 museums and 20 libraries, with its world class research centers, and who can fill to mention? the world famous panda at the national zoo, it is one of the greatest repositories of history, science, and education. but the smithsonian has fallen on hard times recently. in 2007 its secretary resigned in shame after spending lavishly from the smithsonian's coffers on his personal whims. what senator grassley of iowa called his champagne lifestyle. our guest took the helm among low staff morale one year ago.

since then he has visited nearly every smithsonian program, museum, an outpost, tweeted on his place in the new fluke, and gotten the blessing of a priest. the 163-year-old institution is changing the way that we do business through the new technology tools available. it is digitizing its collections of the world can access it. as the secretary of the smithsonian he will also have to restore the institutions integrity and its aging building. the secretary is here today to share his vision for the summit. we also hope he will give us the inside scoop on "night at the museum." please welcome wayne clough.

[applause] >> thank you. thank you for the fine introduction. it is an honor and privilege to serve as secretary of the smithsonian and to be with you today. especially on my 1-year anniversary. i can promise you based on the lavish spending previously that this is the best lunch i have had all year. [laughter] it is fun to end on a high note here, but that is due to our great colleagues in volunteers, congress, and the american people who have made it a good year for this institution. three of my distinguished colleagues join me here on the dias and others here in the audience, but these are individuals from whom i have gained wisdom and who often have an innovative spirit. it is a privilege to work with you. that's the american art and with

lonny at this soon to be museum of african-american history and culture and to believe this is a unique time for this 163-year- old institution, the smithsonian. it is time for renewal and rethinking what our role is in the nation and in the world. we are a global institution. we are entering a new era about which i am optimistic. in san francisco a few months ago i was at a brainstorming session about the future of the smithsonian with a group of "new millennials cc younger people than me and many of you. i asked them how we could reach out to them given the way that they communicate. we had a lively discussion and at one time all young woman with me and said if you want to reach me, surprised me. i thought about that.

this could be a generational thing. millennials are always looking for something new and different? or could be something where they have a different approach. she was saying something more fundamental, i think. we know that creativity and surprise are two sides of the same coin. i think what she meant by surprise me was doing something not necessarily new and different, maybe, but also bringing creativity to bear on what you need to know or want to know in an intriguing, delightful, interesting way so that you will want to know more. that is the advice and think the missing man can take to the bank from this young woman in california. for my own party have been privileged to see the smithsonian in a way that you have been able to do. seeing an institution this reverse means hit the road, do

cross-country, make visits to places like panama, kenya, and chile -- three places where the smithsonian does business. in my first year i have learned that it is surprising and inspiring. we have brilliant compassionate people determined to make a difference in the life of our country and the world. this is a place where art, history, and culture of come together. we have the capacity to tell the story of america in all of its hopes, struggles, triumphs, creativity, contradictions, and courage. today we have the opportunity to reach people in ways that literally were unimaginable in years past. probably i inherited an optimistic nature from my parents who were great people

who survived the depression. i grew up in the small town of douglas, ga., in the deep south. in my in the days some might say i was a bit wild. i spent too much time focusing on fast cars, elvis, and anne, future bride. i worked my way through college and have a wonderful privilege of going to two great public institutions, georgia tech, and the university of california at berkeley. the cars and elvis are gone -- at least zero buses gone physically [laughter] i am particularly grateful that my wife anne here today is still with me. we're blessed with two wonderful children and three grandchildren. because of them i take my job as secretary of the smithsonian even more seriously because i believe it is critical that this great institution reach out to the and people of our nation.

you heard from donna about the movie, "9 at the museum, battle at the smithsonian." we get a small share of the profit. i encourage you all to go. is a chance to pare down and tell people is ok to have fun and let a little magic seep into your soul when you visit the smithsonian. even though the movie was a little tongue-in-cheek, some people still take it too seriously to go to the smithsonian. we found for my offices in the castle building as we go to the guard station that we find families consisting the downstairs and get into those archives underneath the mall. there are no archives under the law that i know of. maybe it is a secret. nonetheless, we hope people did enjoy the movie. there is no were to think the smithsonian has gone hollywood. we think we are headed more

silicon valley because of the opportunities offered by technological advances. among them, the enormous increase in digital storage capacity, the possibility of digitizing our collections insuring them, and the advent of social networking tools. when we used to speak about digital storage we talked in terms of bytes. we now have a peda-byte capability. that means that we can put a vast amount of knowledge on devices like this. this is called a thumb-drive and has the smithsonian logo with a great deal of information about the smithsonian on it in places to go to get even more information. in fact, there is more

information on this little device then you can find in all of the bookstores combined at the smithsonian. yet this represents just the beginning of what is yet to come. we know that many families in america cannot afford a visit to the smithsonian, although we get about 26 million visits per year there are many who cannot come. ultimately, we want to put all of our 137 of just on a thumb drive in take part in the learning tree. we want to offer the smithsonian express to everyone, not only those who can afford to come. this extends to people beyond our borders because i believe the smithsonian has a powerful role in not only in forming a about ourselves but of the people about what it means to beat be an american. we have long reached people

through our portals and through our traveling exhibits, but center technology we will reach millions of people and among them will be boys and girls growing up in georgia like me and knew millennials in california, and in the people of all the nations of the earth. this sounds promising and derring-do, but the transformational use of technology is not new to the system of the first secretary, a former physicist was keenly interested in meteorological studies in the fact that there was no weather forecasting capability of his time in 1850. get a large weather map in headquarters in his building and called on volunteers all over the u.s. to relate in real time information to him about weather conditions and their various using that newfangled technology

called the telegraph. henry was instrumental than in revolutionizing weather forecasting. he actually created the national weather service. so, how do we trust it tto our own well? we brought together a group of experts and leaders in january in new and social media. these met with a group of talented people at the smithsonian who themselves are leading the way in use a web technology. working together they produce a set of what they call mind maps to give us an sec on how to use new technology to connect to new generations and to use those -- to give us inside. and to improve its ability to learn and communicate. during the seminar one of these young people who had come to visit us, our digerati, and

visited it what he called an old school centers. so, generations we believe can be crossed. -- an old school scientist. our good friend, and mickey hart, a drummer for the grateful dead, our generation, recently asked to speak to one of our young astronomers because he is into taking light waves emanating from space in converting them into sound waves here on earth to create the sound of the universe. you can actually see that on his website. i call that a smithsonian moment that someone would seek that kind of information -- that nikki guard would seek that kind of intermission. picking up one non one of the suggestions recently we will

soon hire a new media person who will capture this creativity that goes on behind the scenes all the time and posted on youtube where generations can experience the wonder of discovery in real time. the larger point really is the surprise comes from creativity, from the for ways of looking at the world. with its vast resources the smithsonian is a place where such conversations can start and continue. this year is the bicentennial of abraham lincoln's birth. in february we conducted a two- day preluding our six exhibits on his life to see how we might use digital technology to inform people about our collections. with little fanfare because it was a pilot -- we had 5000 participate logging in from all 50 states and 2000 cities -- in addition, the surprise factor

was, people from 75 countries participated. we think that is a good thing. people from my own hometown participated in the teacher said thank you. this is the next best thing to being there. the student said this was really cool. i think that this pilot illustrates how the smithsonian can build an important -- fill important gaps in education and reach audiences we have not reached before. in the fall we will have a second seminar. this summit will focus on global warming. this month i will travel to miami to see the field workers and scientists -- to wyoming. his work allows us to see what is the world really looks like

when will warming happens that would be opposed to much of the speculation that we hear about it. there is much more to our climate change capacity through work suggests the facility in the chesapeake bay and the tropical research institute in panama, among others. his work could not have been possible without the development of new tools that allow for deep analysis and sharing of knowledge across the field. these new tools are opening knowledge in different fields. in may and visited the observatory in chiles in the high andes with the national consortium to build a giant magellan telescope that will allow us to see stars in universes' to times more powerful and will wait then the present hubble space telescope

does. this giant magellan telescope and similar ones are like time machines. we see light waves that have traveled in distant time to get here, millions of years. future discoveries will allow us to see all the way back perhaps to the beginning of our universe, 14 billion years ago. not to be left elk our biologists and let scientists are using new technology to do what would have been inconceivable, launching a collaborative partnership, an on-line encyclopedia of liked that will have a web page for each of the 1.8 million species known to exist on planet earth. more than 160,000 pages have been created. but on each web page information is able to describe how the double helix is of our dna strands make us all you need travelers' on earth.

the encyclopedia is already serving as a place of convergence to allow conversations to take place that would not have occurred before. k-12 science teachers are riding lessons plans and sharing them. children are sending in pictures from their iphones and asking us to which web pages they should look for and our scientists are helping them to connect. the smithsonian is a trusted source of information and a trusted meeting place in cyberspace. but it is much more than sons. we offer our world of history, art, in culture we have a significant contribution to make to this of a glut of our country. for example, our american art museum exhibition, 1934, a new deal for artists, reminds us we

have suffered through difficult economic times and survived them before. it celebrates the 75th anniversary of the public work our program with paintings that are poignant and powerful. to expand the scope of the exhibition at the suggestion of one of our 2.0 participants the museum put up its entire collection of 1934 pinking so you can see the exhibition and everything there, some things that were not chosen. these we believe it started the conversation that has spanned generations and continues at the national postal museum, fdr and the stance of the great depression. it turns out that if the are designed stance himself. art can start conversations across cultures. -- at the are designed to stamp collections himself.

as of our country becomes ever more diverse, it is important for us to strengthen the cohesiveness of our society. we believe our artifacts in specimens to a wonderful stories illustrating the great american spirit. the the eyes of the different groups that make up our country. working with others to clarify what america means to its citizens as well as what we mean to those in other lands. the challenge for us as any experienced teacher knows is to tell these stories and exciting and engaging ways. we believe that is what the national museum of the american indian those as it tells the story of the nation's first inhabitants' to our nation's inhabitants. that is with the newly reopened national museum of natural history those with the star spangled banner exhibition.

it is an engaging expense. i get chills every time i go. through interactive computer services you learn the inspiring story of how a flag and anthem became prominent national symbols. that is what our latest museum will do when its doors open in the future in its special place on the national mall. david, a beloved fuehrer and the american museum of nature and history collected whimsical objects, and bells, tools, playboy bunny customs, cue sticks, supports, lunch boxes, and much more. included. an object such as those from ground zero and from hurricane katrina.

he died last year. he explained his work one time. there is an accurate perception that we are forever. that we will honor an object maternally. that perception of immortality is very precious to people. i think that he spoke for us all at the smithsonian. i think he inspires us continually today. the smithsonian we believe is entering a new era for we will harness the latest technology in pursuit of an age old mission. we know that we can help face many challenges that lie ahead and will do so with all the creativity we can muster. i promise you that we will surprise you. thank you very much. [applause]

>> you mentioned that just 10% of the 1.6 million species have their own web page. how long will it take to get 137 million objects online? >> we have made progress. funding is a big issue. first of all, we have had tremendous support from the macarthur foundation, sloan foundation, and others. through those contributions we are making enormous progress. and about one year is estimated we will have it all done. the photographs are very beautiful. it takes a lot of development. there is information about dna and what makes a species of a species. we do not really know there is

1.8 million. we are constantly discovering new species. there are maybe hundreds of thousands we do not know about. we might lose them before we even know what they are. >> how much money will you invest in digitizing and will come out of the budgets for exhibits? >> that is a good question. with 137 million of 6 we do not expect to do that right away. it will take us awhile. we will work our way through the collections by making decisions about those things we think relates specifically to exhibits we have and those we think can be used mostly to support efforts in education. it is probably not necessary for you to see every tick in our collection that we use to study infectious diseases -- there are things you do not need

to have pictures of it at this time. many are research-related. we will prioritize. >> will it affect the funding for exhibits? >> no, it should not. the things we see about digitization is that it will be complementary to what we do. it could not exist without exhibits and a scholarship going into them. otherwise we would not be thinking about digitization. we found the smithsonian can be something it has always wanted to, the national and connect to people all of the country in the world -- it can only be accomplished through digitization. we made it a priority. in the fy082010 budget we hope to get started on this in the most important areas. -- in the fy 2010 budget we are

hoping for. >> speaking of that budget, how is your relationship with congress going? do you expect -- a couple of years ago that threatened to withhold $17 million from the budget. are you getting along better with the appropriation people? >> we are very grateful for every dollar we receive. we know those are tax payer dollars. the smithsonian gets almost 70% of its budget from the federal government. i have made probably 35 visits to the hill and have always been well-received. there is an enormous well of love and respect for the smithsonian. when i walked into an office and speak to a congressperson is always on a positive basis. they are facing challenges and have to make difficult choices. the smithsonian is a great place to invest a taxpayer dollars, we think, but there are also many others.

we have been well-treated. since i have been here i have seen positive recognition of what the facilities can do and on the programmatic said. we're pleased with the congressional support and believe it will continue to be as strong as possible given the budget circumstances. >> by digitizing the museum's holdings we be diminishing the museum experience? there is nothing like sitting down at a civil rights era counter or walking tour rocket ship. >> i think that the questioner answer the question in the real expense can never be duplicated. it has been my belief -- and i had been in the digital world for a long time as president of the georgia institute of technology, that the real world cannot be beat. it is simply there to support human aspirations. human beings like to express

things together. we still like to go to movies together. we like to go to museums to be with our own kind into the reaction of other people when they experience wonder at an exhibit. the story i have told many times that is true -- as a young person i had been very impressed with the starry night by van gogh. i had always heard this song and theme in the never knew that there was a real painting. i was at moma in new york wandering around and there was the thinking. i almost fell on the floor. i could not believe it. i could not believe how long it took me to see this painting. nothing like that could have prepared me for that experience, not a digital one. you cannot see the brush strokes on a flat screen, the passion and artist put into a painting unless you see the real thing.

you cannot have the feeling go up your spine when you look to the star-spangled banner unless you have been in the exhibit and see how fragile that flag is and know how close our country came to losing it. you can only have that by having these real things. digital will not come close to replacing the real thing, but can only enhance it and encourage people to see the real thing. >> how do you acquire up? and what are you seeking next? >> we do not have a big budget for acquisition. we often depend on donors. betsy and her museum received the gift of the lichtenstein head, a marvelous objects of art that survived the 9/11 direct hit. it was a gift to us. many things we would want.

every now and then we have people offer things we respectfully decline. it has to qualify for the collection, something unique that it adds. it is a decision made by the curator, not the smithsonian sector. the curators are the experts. it does us no good to accept something we might never show. that is another thing that digitalization those. you might never is it something, but with digitalization we can make sure everything is available. but things have to meet certain criteria. >> is there anything you personally would really love to see at the smithsonian, like perhaps a michael jackson lunchbox, or particular piece of art? >> we have had a number of conversations right now about

michael jackson, a great a gifted artist. if someone were willing to share some artifacts i'm sure we would love to have them. we have a popular culture section. recently i was in boston with colleagues. we jointly excepted from the boston red sox third base from the 2004 world series victory, breaking bambino's occurs. but the problem was everyone wanted to see it right away. it took us awhile. -- breaking the c iurse. we were of course, working hard to get that hat from aretha from the unknown origin. are we getting close? >> what percent of your collection is displayed in a given time? >> it is less than 1%. you can imagine you do not see

many of the things, the average person. but some you may not want to see, but some are interesting. we have giant collection centers, two in maryland, that maintain these things. when we take an object would take responsibility for ever. that means we have to put them under protective conditions. it means temperature, humidity control. we have five that signed baseballs five baby ruth. my office does not have a temperature and light control and you lose the signature over time. the key is to take care of an object. then through digital is asian so that we can share it with people. as though 2.0 people said, we're getting out of the mud where a

few selected people matrix's about what we the people can too. as i told the new millennials in california, you own 137 million things you have never seen. it is not fair. we should not hide things, but be in a position to share things. we should learn from you about things we may not know. it is a two-way street. you may know more about an object than we do and i can only help our educational capabilities. >> can you tell us about a couple things in the basement? what have we not seen? >> there are all kinds of magnificent things. i associate them more with people than with things. for example, i visited with our beatle guy. he is passionate about a subject. we have one of the best beetle

collections in the world. we do it in cooperation with the u.s. department of agriculture. they're eating down the trees and the west and we have to find ways to combat these little devils. terry and his colleagues help make those decisions. those kind of things are fine. recently we had the case whether our identification lab it became a part because of the hudson river emergency landing. when they landed it was discovered as the pilot indicated that some birds had been ingested into the into. the question was, who were these birds? where did they come from? the first place they came, there were about 7000 birds strikes in

the engines per year, about 4000 serious enough to in up at the smithsonian -- the other identification levitt is headed up by a person named carla duff. she is a bright compassionate person about birds and help to identify that these were canadian geese. the with further working with the migratory bird lab at some special facilities and determined these were not canadian geese that just hang around new york. these were migrating canadian keyes. we cannot blame that on the canadiens. -- there were migrating geese. you can run off the ones that were just hanging around. but if they are migrating it is hard to do much about that. much rethinking going on with that. issue in example of the kind of thing that is important to science.

>> you mentioned you do not like to hear the smithsonian refer to as the american attic. what bothers you about that phrase? >> i grew up in the deep south and we did not have basements, but do have at 6. something about boyhood, growing up in the south, calling up into an attic -- it is hot, of a dust motes, things that people forgot. they can be interesting things, but they were not really going anywhere. there were not of interest to anyone but a little kid who had crawled up into the attic. the smithsonian is a place where research and scholarship, creativity take place in drive the ethic. it is not a place where collections collect dust and are not taking care of. they are very cared for and

used in endeavour's, there for the future. many things, for example, the birds you can now do dna studies and find out something about evolution and patterns. it is an active, dynamic process. it is not an attic. >> one audience member says that his young cousin recently saw the hope diamond. i told him it was crushed. he asked if the smithsonian had been cursed for having it in its collection. what is your view? >> well, if you want to really know the answer -- richard has written a book on it. i recommend it highly. it is a fascinating book about

held the hope them and came to be, how it was discovered and entered into the family's. -- into the family of thoselouis, and then was captured by the revolutionaries in france. somewhere in there through all these machinations a legend built up around it that it was cursed. richard proves that it is not. some people still like to believe that it is. i was told that when harry winston agreed to give the diamond to the smithsonian summer convinced that the smithsonian would beakers. i ain't enough believe it is true. one of the wonderful things about the gem collection, and being a geological engineer is great -- it changes all the time.

if you go up there they are acquiring stones of the time. people have left the jewelry collections. people say they saw that three years ago -- well, it is different now. there are new, magnificent things. it is always updated. i encourage you not to be deterred by the curse. come to see all the beautifulgems and minerals there. >> what are some of the top misconceptions about what gets in or what is refused in the collection? >> i suspect, when he was first learned that i was coming here, i got lots of letters from people wanting me to present things. somebody had found a coffin barrett on her property and thought it would be perfect. i had to respectfully decline.

it really is a scholarly discourse about whether we will accept an object. it has to have some value, be differentiated. may have science content, might be different than where you would expect. something that might be a fossil returns out our collections are very important because they are america's collection, the largest to the world. we do let go of things as we find we have duplications. people with collections are getting very serious about this issue because no one can keep all this. many universities with their financial problems are divesting themselves in their collections. you have to be concerned. many of these objects are irreplaceable.

who will ensure you get to see them? it is a big issue. our story, history is in the collection of our country. the smithsonian is all about telling stories. collections should tell stories. the smithsonian's great art collection, it tells a story of america's creativity. that is what we try to do. do we have the right question to tell the story? in the future we want to mirror the diversity of this country. i did not agree there. we will have no majority in 20 years.

i we representing it in collecting things so that we represent the new united states? we have to be there and represent our entire country. we have to do this well and tell the story. our collection should make it possible. >> please give as much more detail about the new african- american museum to be open in five years. >> this is a wonderful opportunity for our country. fortunately, it is just around the corner. lony is the director. african-americans paid a price to help make this country great. they have contributed many things to make our culture grid. we want to celebrate those things. we will build a museum to hal's

objects to tell the story. -- to house objects to tell the story. it will cost about five and a million dollars. we have about 300,000 square feet of space and will be on constitution avenue. we just announced the selection of architects. they respect the position of at this museum. they understand it is one of a series. but it is also in front of the washington monument. some of this will go underground to respect the view lines of the washington money. he and his colleagues are already creating the collection. they are reaching across america where there are many

wonderful regional african- american museums. we want to work together with them to tell the story. i see it as a tremendous opportunity for me to come in and be one of the series of individuals who hopefully can make this dream come true for us all. >> ok, $500 million is a lot of money. how is the fund-raising going? >> it is going well so far. we have work ahead of us. the deal established was that $250 million would come from the federal government and breast from private sources. so far we have had very sympathetic ears to our visits. i had joined lonny but he has

been diligent far beyond me working with donors. given the opportunity to participate in building one of the less museums on the mall is their remarkable one. foundations and people should want to be there. we find that tree. even in this down economy we find people are very supportive of these aspirations. i feel confident. >> although the smithsonian gets most of its funding from the federal government is not subject to gao audits. why not? when they add to your financial transparency and help make the case to congress for more funding? >> we are subject to gao audits and are subject -- we have our own inspector general inside the smithsonian who helps to watch over our activities. most of the federal agencies

have such offices in them. they are independent of the institution and report to governing boards. our inspector general reports to the board of regents, not me. we work with them. we supplied them with intermission and seek advice from their office. in addition gao and other entities can conduct audits of the smithsonian in the time. we do a lot of research funding. the office of naval research can conduct an audit at any time. we do have a lot of oversight at the smithsonian. we respect that when 70% of our money comes from the government and american people. we have tried to work to establish the in everything we

do since i have been there. >> what kinds of innovative revenue opportunities are you looking at, like the movies? >> well, obviously, we are in a position like many institutions in the knowledge business. if you are in the newspaper, book, it university, museum business, or research business, these are interesting times. there is so much change. some funding sources are disappearing, others appear. you have to be agile if you will survive. if you are in an institution with 19 museums, you have to work at being nimble and responsive. we are doing strategic planning and hoping to position ourselves. that is important.

as we look at the smithsonian will not going to the case of charging admission. that has been a tradition. it is great to walk into our museum into families enjoying themselves and able to do that without having to worry about an admissions charge. we are open every day of the year but christmas. visitors from all over the world. it is free admission. amazing. the federal government supports us to do that. but it does not mean that we will not try to recover costs that are legitimate. we do not give food away. we charge for it. if you buy it from our stores are bookstores there is a cost. we recover the costs that makes sense to. we're not trying to make money, but we do have issues about having enough traders to keep the questions up in to support the scholarship. there is a mission for us to

recover costs, if it is appropriate, then we will do that. >> would you consider having advertising on your web site? >> advertising on the web site -- well, if you could to national geographic you find the do a good job. but we will be cautious. we recognize we are a federally- supported entity and have obligations and the stakeholders who want us to be very cautious. we know national public radio in public television do indicate they have sponsors. that may not be advertising, but if this sponsorship. on web sites we do have a policy to allow us to display the sponsor's name if they have made a significant contribution to the smithsonian, however it cannot lead you to their corporate or commercial website. we want to be cautious. and we want to be conservative

about it. but we do want to recognize our government. >> what are some of the concrete effects the bad economy is having? are layoffs planned it? if any changes in hours or ones that will affect the public? >> maybe 35% of our funding comes from private sources. a number of those are under some duress. we are in a hybrid institution. we have an endowment like a university. it used to beat $1 billion. it is now around $815 million. still a lot. it to the rates income. this private funding we get from our private endowment allows us to do the really creative things. federal government cannot give us the kind of money. when we did oceans hall, a fabulous new exhibit, we had $50 million of support from other resources then federal appropriations. we could not havead