life and career. .

reporter then weblog's inches nnchings c. i do. when you see me think that way just think of the music. janes founded weblog's inc. then went on the found the hollow. i happened to moderate a session with them in 2005 when they were at each other's throats competing at the start of weblogs. i think it improved weblogs as a result. the whole thing. small w. as a business. yes. but improved gawker. unfortunately for you, they're very friendly now and not as

contention and angry but we'll see what comes out of them. why don't we start with yesterday? there was a session -- we were all a part of the media crack-up. so yesterday afternoon and last night there was a session with varies luminaries trying to talk about trying to grasp for a future business model for media. what did you think of the thinking so far? >> this is my first time at the ideas festival and i understand the least -- it's a polite affair. one isn't supposed to speak ill about the panels. i was surprised that it was pretty much the same kind of panel, same kind of conversation that one would have heard in 1999. maybe a little bit of the air of the -- the air of desperation now is a little more intense. but it's the same discussions

about, you know, is the model for news and online content, is it subscription or is it free, ad supported, a mixture of the two. is it going to be micropayments or monthly subscriptions? i was trying to work out what is new about the conversation here on the stage with steven and katherine. >> it was a conversation that could have occurred in 1 5-1996 and if you look at the media industry, they went from being arrogantly does administrative of the internet in the 1995 -- dismissive of the internet in the 1995-1996 time frame. at the time they were paying over $5 listen -- an hour or a.o.l. or compuserve. then it went to maybe it's an

opportunity? so they went from dismissive to maybe it's an opportunity to now -- because of 10, 15 years because of poor execution being terrified. when people are scared they take sort of two forms. they seem like they are actually -- some of them are defiant. like we're going to go down with the ship, which is very noble, i understand. also very stupid. they're going to go down with the ship. we've seen it happen as newspapers close. and some who are literally frozen, some of those people in the media business. they know it's over. they know the titanic is sinking. they see the life rafts and they're just looking, don't do anything. >> katherine was, i thought -- >> plush irof the "washington post." >> very smart. savvy, sensible and she described herself as being open

minded towards steven briles' idea of putting all newspapers together behind some pay wall and charging access to them all entirely. >> 10% of their content and 10% of the people who pay and he has productions of the wealth that will cost. >> the idea of being open minded now or on the idea -- you've actually recommended yourself that newspapers experiment, that they try everything. it's too late. it's 2009. the time for experimentation was about a decade ago. i think it's reasonably clear what newspapers should be and what they can do. >> so what is that? >> i think they have to cut down on their political coverage, hive off and create brands around the areas of content that actually will attract readers and advertisers. like for instance, sunday

styles, "the new york times" sunday section. very popular, highly female audience. desirable for advertisers. that could very easily be an online brand and get -- and support itself entirely through online advertising. they're don't do it. they're still wedded to the idea of the package, the entire newspaper with all these topics covered and at the very center of it, national and local political coverage, for which there is no ad supported model. >> if you look at what the internet is good at, it speeds things up and it less you go deeper. so you can have, you know, all of the possible information about cars or hybrid cars that you want or sports cars and you can just revel in your niche and if you look at what newspapers did, they were designed to give people a broad view an inch deep of everything going on in the world which is

very noble and it served a great purpose but it's unnecessary now to give people such a shallow look at the world. if you look at autos as an example. "the new york times" has an auto section. they do two stories every week. if you look at the blogs we created about cars. auto blog and jalop nick, they cover 20 to 40 stories per day. per day. and in each of those stories there are five to 150 comments. if you're a car enthusiast, by the time the sunday "new york times" comes around and there are two stories about two cars that are 600 words each, you know everything that's there already. there are no surprises. and that's what's happening. how many times have you had this experience? you get the newspaper in the morning and you look at the front page and you go, i saw that on grudge -- drudge, i saw this on "the new york times" website last night, i got this in an email from a friend.

i sometimes try to go through it and try to find something i don't already know. >> the printing press, since guten berg, 570 years, dictated what accomplishing was going to look like. you could do it once a day or once a week. you could package it. it was going to be one size fits all, shallow. those assumptions come out of the necessity of paper. if you fake away paper it changes how you do the job of journalism. >> people consume news now in a live cnn-like experience. someone said michael jackson died and you keep getting little nuggets of information through the your day. not only have they not changed the disk bution, not experimented with the online, they're taking the method they did on print and doing it

online which is wildly boring and effective when you have these scrappy start-ups sending out lots and lots of pieces of information and letting people debate them. >> the real question now is not what newspapers should be doing. i think the answer to that is -- is there some chatter in the back? it's kind of annoying. it's how institutionly newspapers can force through the change. i think it's reasonably obvious that maybe there's a few sections of coverage that could be supported by subscriptions. there are a few areas, women, gadgets, cars. all those special sections in newspapers -- actually, newspapers for a long time did quite a good job of that. the papers were expanding. what was "the new york times" -- circuits. why wasn't that, "the new york

times" computer technology section, why did that never become a brand? why did they let you with the gadgets and us -- yeah. i don't understand why they did that. so how institutionly can you make people aware of that? >> can you. is it possible for the institutions we're talking about. put "the new york times" aside and the "washington post" aside because they're national in some way. but if you're the boston globe, losing $ 5 million a year. it's going to bring them down. what do you do with the "boston globe"? >> i have no idea. i don't really know local newspapers this country. the only ones that seem to have a chance are newspapers like "the new york times" and the "new york post" that have some franchise. the "washington post" could become -- if it hadn't let

politico come in and grab -- "washington post" could be the dominant online -- >> it could be maersk's washington brewo. >> what about the "l.a. times"? >> i was asked to with the president of digital when somebody was trying to buy it. i didn't take the job. but they asked me what they should do. i said we should cancel the print edition except on the weekends. we should put a large amount of it into that weekend edition that has deep stories that people could curl up with and keep it as a keepsake. you wouldn't want to throw it away because it's too valuable, almost like a magazine. >> is the staff of the "l.a. times" capable of producing that kind of paper? >> absolutely. they're basically doing some of that already. what happens when you have this printing press and daily deadlines -- you're spending all your time managing the machine, the printing and the

distribution. just for the c.e.o. and the management team, all their focus is getting put on that and they can't focus on the real opportunities, which is the niche market online and other things. they have to have a radically smaller footprint. it's very hard for people to go backwards, i think. and be nimble. in history, i.b.m., incredible business, and they were able to adapt and move into a services company. i don't think the newspaper industry is largely capable of making this change. i think the local news business -- almost all of those newspapers will shut down and be online editions only or weeklies at best. >> i have one idea. for a long time i had no idea of how a newspaper could -- i used to work at the financial times. it's a relatively progressive newspaper, but to push change through an organization like,

that which is welded -- which has great traditions that it adheres to, it's very, very difficult. the one idea -- everyone says, oh, you have to pay attention to your readers. be reader centric, which is fine to say but it doesn't really mean anything. if newspapers did two things -- they put page view numbers next to every article. which we do in our blog posts -- posts. a measure many of the popularity of every single thing that's written. nothing more than that. and secondly, if they opened up the newspaper to reader comments so that they -- they could be moderated but basically every single article should have at the end of it a discussion involving the readers, maybe the source of the story, maybe the reporter. something to expose what the readers think about the

particular piece. i'll tell you what would happen. for something like "the new york times," the newspaper which i read. within about six months they would have to give up a lot of the local political coverage. there's a very small class of people, maybe the -- mainly the political class that cares about those stories sosh stories. they would realize that sunday styles was one of their most important franchises. all the things that they ought to know anyway would become undenial. >> they have all that data now. >> by exposing it to the public, it becomes impossible to ignore. the readers complain less if you point and -- see, that was 1,000 views. >> the standard argument is the paris hilton times that it would become, not "the new york

times." >> that's probably true. >> this is an anecdote. i woke up on the saturday where the poor woman was killed in iran. nehta? and i happened to be on twitter and i saw iranian election, clicked it. and i was reading the links and someone said, oh, my god, this woman has been shot. i clicked on it. they only had like 300 views at that point. i just jumped down that rabbit hole and started getting obsessed about swhast going on there which, is the wonderful ability about the internet, the ability to get o.d.c. on something. think how extraordinary it is that we can learn everything about a subject to quickly. "the new york times" was doing a live blog coverage of what was coming out of iran. it was brilliant, the best thing online. then i went and had a cup of

coffee and came back and i tried to find it. i went to the nimentse. i couldn't find it. they had it buried like seven levels deep. >> online. >> online. there was somebody putting updates every 15 minutes about what was going on in iran with two or three links to the source material. it was like why is this not the home page right now? there are smart people at "the new york times," i know many of them. but there is insurance institutional sloth and greed and fatness. they can't move quick. >> that is the tragedy. these newspapers have brilliant, brilliant people and more importantly, they have brilliant readers. i remember an article about blogging. it was the emily gould front cover of "the new york times" magazine about how too much blogging, too much sharing, too much exposure of your own life

could not be worth it. they opened up that comment -- article to comments. for the first time ever i have -- i was terrified of "the new york times" as a competitor. the grammar was perfect, the comments were smart. certainly our readers are very smart about gadgets or cars but not all of them can write and to see -- >> it doesn't deter them. >> no, no. why couldn't "the new york times" -- if the "new york times" could actually capture the intelligence of their writers and these people who are doing the great twitter live live logs and their incredibly smart readers -- >> the f.t. and the guardian write write -- the argument is you have an incredibly wise crowd and the challenge is to bring this out. in this new age, when i talk to

companies about what their value is, they're always inwardly focused. media or any other company. we have our brand, our content, our reputation, our this our that. they hardly ever say our public. i'm violating this rule right now. we're in a smart crowd. what are we doing up here just talking to ourselves? that's true of companies too. if they can find ways to capture the wisdom of their crowd, just in equal at a timive ways. they're missing that intelligence. >> when we were doing weblogs and we had 500 bloggers for us before we sold the company. i tried to hire journalist the. every time i ran into the same kind of problems, specifically with the audience. they had no interest in interacting with the audience. they wanted to moderate the

comments. if somebody were to say you made a mistake, they would like to catch that before it got posted, fix it. this is where i think journalism got a little bit off the race and the media got a little fat and full of themselves. the number one rule, you don't do that. they actually thought that they were very important people and they start to think that they're like the subjects they're covering. when you're a journalist and you start toly think that you're like the big c.e.o.'s or whatever important people you're covering, you start to lose something. they couldn't handle the pressure of the public audience interacting with them. that led us to the bleach we should hire some of the great commentators. people would write a article twice as long as the log -- blog post. that created the idea that

we're equal in some ways. yes, i'm writing the post but you're an intelligence person. we respect you. you might know more than us. has anybody within been quoted in the "new york times"? has anybody who's been quoted maybe felt that their quote wasn't perfectly accurate? exactly. we've all been manipulateed that way and have the writer ask you seven questions in a row to try to get you to say it a certain way, and it's insulting. and now that whole sort of process has been flipped over. frankly, i think they deserve to die, a lot of them. i don't cry for them at all. they made their bed and creative destruction is good. there's going to be a whole group of new news sources that are going to be better. faster and more accurate and deliver a quality of news that i think is less pretentious and treats the audience with a little more respect.

>> we should pass that more accurate. let's face it, blogs are actually individually extremely inaccurate. we get stories wrong the whole damn time. if i was going to be -- getting back to your example of what it's like to be interviewed by "the new york times." "the new york times" is never going to totally screw you over. they'll always be relatively fair. even if the writer is inclined against you, the editor will stop it becoming a hit piece. on a blog there's no one to call, no one to complain to. no ombudsman or anything like that. i think the key point is that in aggregate the blogs get it right, eventually. the great parallel here is the british press, which is more like blogs versus the american press in the coverage of where

were the weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of iraq? i think the lag between the british press in getting hold of that story and the american press doing it was somewhere between six and 12 months. a british press bottom -- got a lot of the individual stories wrong. they relied on one source inside the government, on leaks eck, misdirection. but eventually they got it right. i think that's the future of blog style journalism. it will be messy and -- >> journalism is not a product. we thought he was -- it was. that was a myth. it's a process. it's always been messy. we just tried to hide the mess to you. >> a french restaurant, a beautiful plate came out and if you went into the kitchen, oh, my god, it's a mess. some chefs, what we do is not

perfect, but you're going to get to watch me cook. i think that's cool. when woodward and bernstein were doing their thing, would you have liked to listen in on some of their conferrings? things like watergate occurring during a blog era would have come out much quicker because there would have been so many leaks. i'm a big boy. i can read something that says, ok this is a leak. buyer beware. it's probably false but it could be true troofment give me all the news and help me sort through it. that's a better process than we're going to collect it all for a couple of weeks and then let some out. >> when an official calls up for comment, the officials lie the whole damn time and if you're dependent on getting the on the record comment from the official you're not going to be able to print the truth because

they're not going to give you the truth. you need to be able to rely on unofficial sources or maybe some crazy blogger who's going to print it anyway even without the official confirmation and then force the official or the company into making a denial or confirming some elements of the story. and so that process -- it may be at the end of the day you need somebody like "the new york times" or its online equivalent to put the stamp of -- this is the 100% confirmed truth. >> for today. it may change tomorrow. still processing in the nimentse. >> we need the people to take the crazy risks for the story. >> hatch baked posts and blogs. nick, years ago, he often forgets things he tells me. but i'll quote him anyway. saying that this is what we know, this is what we don't know. what do you know. but putting up a story

unfinished is like google putting out a beta. journalists have to become as good as saying what they don't know as they are as -- at saying what they know. even that blog on "the new york times" is an important cultural move for them. imes you -- >> [inaudible] the traditional media or the model of the traditional media was that you had credibility and gravitas and you know where to find it. right? i think we've all seen a talent drain in the traditional media's quality over the last few years, too. right? to your points about -- and so at the same time we have the deep but unverified assertions of the bloggers, right? there's this bridge that's missing -- how do you recreate

in my online media the same credibility -- does popularity do it? they were trying to basically measure gravitas and that had its limitations. then you have to inject on that the absence of a business model, right? that online generates that -- how do you get the robust business model -- >> there are business models. may not be enough to support the 1,200 people in the "new york times" newsroom because the structure is different. >> we have 100 journalists. you have -- >> we have 500 freelancers. if you put them into full-time positions it would be 100, 150, something like that. >> we're hiring right now. the unit you sold to a.o.l. is profitable. >> very profitable. yeah. >> we're profitable. there is a model. >> it goes to your point. it may not make that kind of packaging that the industry that we were used to for

hundreds of years. there's going to be chaos. clay sharky wrote a beautiful essay -- "thinking the unthinkable" is the name. google it. i recommend it hile high he. -- highly. we are hopeful we'll end up with something good but it is definitely going to be different. our assumptions can't necessarily rise and say -- >> in the process of shutting down our public libraries. >> i met with the new york public libraries. it was in my beautiful by the way, i'm a hypocrite for putting out a book, but they paid me. i asked the question to them, what if you shut down the

building in what are you? same thing you ask a newspaper. shut down the press, what are you? you're not paper. that's the death of them because they think they're paper. the library, they realize that besides being a repository for books -- the internet can be that now. they still have value. it's both knowledge, but knowledge of how to do things but also how to connect people. if you reinvented alexandria today, you'd probably call it google. >> if you go to the new york public library and you see all those people waiting in line for the computers and they're not allowed to do homework and reserve and all that. obviously the library has a lot of purpose. maybe not to store books anymore. people can have that equal access anywhere. >> i worked at the new york public library for eight years as the vice president for

development and i think what's missing here is the absolute joy of seeing the primary resource material, and we're talking about collections that are far beyond books, particularly in the new york public library and there are special collections in libraries flout the world but in the united states we have really, really valuable resources that are not translated through the distinguished gentleman fromtyization. i don't care what anyone says. you cannot capture the beauty of a work of art on the internet. you can enjoy the image, but the aschettic experience -- >> that doesn't mean the book is bad. >> no, but you can have the opportunity to see actually man scriments, actually books that have value beyond the content. the actually touching of the book. when we would pull out the japanese scrolls at the norble

public library for potential donors, it was just magic. that doesn't mean that all of the information that you want on -- about those scrolls can't be accessed by the internet. >> people should have access to both, yeah. >> i don't think any on this panel is -- >> the question of the asympathetic appeal, the same argument that people made for paper print newspapers -- my iphone won't have -- >> or scribes who beautifully decorated the page and guten burg ruined all that. >> i admit ffl to having guten berg mentality but i'm very interested in the legal aspects of print versus you guys. and you have no ink base period but press has to sit back and say when am i going to be sued? you don't seem to enjoy

lawsuits. i don't see any -- yes, but you're not bothered by the legality of lawsuits, are you? >> newspapers -- it's permanent. so once it's written it's committed. and anything that's actually accomplished online can be changed and can be updated. and that changes the circumstances somewhat. >> and if there's disclosure and somebody says, we've got, you know, this leaked memo and in our anonymous email box from a yahoo! email address, take it for what it's worth, here it is. as the audience knows this is an anonymous tip and they can judge it as such. that means you're not going to really get sued. that being said, we got takedown letters all the time for things that were leaked to us. everything from schematics for an iphone to a blackberry --

>> maybe part of your success is that you're free of lawyers. >> we're not fry of lawyers. in fact, our head of operations is a lawyer and spends at least half his time dealing with letters from people who are threatening to sue us. let's take an example -- the church of scientology. a very fearsome organization. they've intimidated most newspapers. i think st. petersburg times got sued pretty badley by them. they pretty much scared off mainstream journalists. weapon ran a video of tom cruise -- a secret internal cult video of him. we got the usual scientology letters, cease and desist, threats to sue. we're not necessarily brave,

but the internet collectively, the competitive pressures to get something out, even if there is a legal risk. if you're not going to do it then somebody else is. collectively the internet is a more formidable foe to people like the church of scientology, who want to keep things quiet. >> i think the law has to update too, just as industry does. it always must. we have to pay attention not to the mistake made but about what you do to it, what you do about it. i learned the ethic of correction on blogs is you don't erase the error. you have to cross out the error. you have to show that it was there. oh, yeah, he did say that but now it's corrected. >> the st. petersburg times, the church of scientology spent $37 to file that lawsuit. it has cost them their livelihood. >> the harassment factor is there, yes.

>> but now they've given up. in the last year or two. >> they can't win anymore. >> if they knock one internet site down another one pops up with the same information. >> you largely can take credit for that. >> not personally. it would have been somebody else. >> yesterday there was a conversation, if any of you went to the content? the content. did anyone go to that yesterday? it was content of the future and pri sele was the speaker and she was talking about books. and your comment about the library. i love the internet and all the news but this balance of liking the book and looking it up and reading. it was interesting what they were talking about with the kinly? the kendall. how you can order books in sections or chapters or short

stories and embedded would be john f. kennedy's speech. so the whole thing is so ready to change. just the news and -- >> yes. >> the bulk of your initial discussion had to do with blogs versus newspapers, but where to magazines or sunday sections of newspapers like the week in review section of "the new york times" or say an article in "newsweek" magazine about biological anthropology. you know, people who really want to find out about something but don't have either the inclination or the time or the either thetic to sit down in front of a computer screen as opposed to having something where you can turn back and -- i mean -- >> he was the founding editor of "entertainment weekly," so -- >> we were talking about this earlier. nick in's goal in life at one point was to be the psi new

house of -- cy new house of blogs. is that still the case? >> i'm not sure -- >> if i started today it wouldn't be a magazine because it takes away this one size fits all notion. it would be rotten tomatoes and other things. after a reported nelvet of 120 million. e.w. took an investment of $200 million, not all my fault -- before it broke even. my theory is that magazines will come back with the economy to some level of health but we're never going to see that level of nelvet again. what dice is magazine launches so hug the ones you much. >> long form journalism in a physical magazine. but there actually probably is a future for long form journalism online, certainly as readers get better and the

screen definition of i fonse improves. one of the things that we found when we started -- and probably jason would confirm this -- there's a shortage of pointers to good information online so we provide the pointers. blogs where basically short paragraphs with a joke or two and a link pointing usually to a newspaper article. one of the things we've discovered is that the returns -- this is not a morale imperativetous but the return for producing original and sometimes long form journalism, the return has improved. now there's a million twitter accounts and there are all these blogs and there's dig and there are all these people linking. all these people desperately looking for anything original online. and so whereas before an original piece might have gotten 10 times the page views,

10 times the audience of a throwaway one paragraph joke in a link, now probably the ratio is more like 100 to one. so the market is starting to correct itself. anyone bemoaning the fate of long form journalism should be reassured by that. >> also, people have a.d.d. and it's part of our culture to sort of move from things very quickly. but after consuming information that way for a while i think people start to desire something longer and some wisdom -- wisdom. it's a natural -- if you've been watching short things for a while to be watching something long fomplet people are easily distracted online but long form journalism will be fine. magazines -- i had a magazine and sold it. it's a horrible business to be in.

if you think about news, the news function of a magazine. we're talking about the news function of a daily newspaper being taken away from them. magazines just 10, 15 years ago used to be able to breaking news. oh, my god, a story coming out in "vanity fair" is unbelievable, it's going to be on the news. people used to cover stories in magazines in the news, on tv. it's impossible now to keep a story that you're working on for three months under wraps. it's going to leak on the blogs. >> if you can talk about some of the new organizations in blogs like tumbler or delicious and digg and these sharing sites that are exploding. >> twitter is the biggest innovation. it's really just short form blogging and ironically i -- i think twitter is probably better news for newspapers than it is for blofplgts if you think about it, newspapers, the

average article length is maybe, let's say 800 words. blogs, the average item length is 200 words, and twitter, the average length is probably 10 words? and 10 words goes better with 800 words than with 200 words. if you look at a twitter feed and you click on a link and you go through to a short blog post, you kind of feel cheated. whereas if it's a newspaper article, 20 words seems like a good introduction to 800 words. and so i think actually the latest innovation in blogging is bad news for the early blogs and good news for those ancient newspapers that now have another way to pitch their stories. >> i think a large portion of the traffic referred to newspapers will be twitter.

it may be -- maybe it won't be google level but it could be for a niche publication, if they cover about something going on in aspen, some controversy, and 10 people from aspen tweeted and they each have 50 followers, that's 500 people. and they have other twitter followers. it's going to spread very quickly if it's news worthy. it's pretty radical change. it's accelerated the virility of stories. >> it becomes a means of choosing where to go. add search to that and you have the trends and a whole new lehr of news. >> they said this is good enough for me to tame -- take to time to share with it -- you. you're sort of validating it. the chance of someone click it go way up.

>> no surprise that twitter is so popular among people you would have thought of as being dinosaurs. there are newspaper journalists who never got into any form or phase of technology and they take to twitter. i think partly because they like to broadcast and twitter is kind of a broadcast model. whereas, if you're writing something in facebook, you're writing for your friends. they are your equals. on twitter, there are no equals on twilighter. jason has -- how many followers due you have? >> 7,000. >> and how many people do you follow? >> 300, 400. >> it's asymmetric, which works quite well if you're a newspaper person and used to lecturing to people. >> i'm preaching to the converted, obviously, but there's a lot of concern about investigative journalism

disappearing but it seems to me just on that point that twitter, ironically somebody who we see here and appreciate a lot, tom friedman has said he's kind of let his twitter account languish. but others have not. to what extent and how ironic is it that something is that as brief as twitter may make up that difference for the funded investigative journalism, which i thought was always overfunded -- underfunded and overhyped. are we able to make up for that with twit summer >> i think the blogs will do a better job of investigative journalism than twitter. journalists will use twilighter as a source of ideas. >> distribution, and input. >> but i think the impact of twitter is also that, by

providing all that attitude and those quick links they can force everybody else to up their game. it's not enough for us to do quick blog post. we have to do original stories that will get linked by twitter. we're being pushed into doing good despite all our best intention. >> i am feeling older and older. the longer i sit in this class. how does twitter make money? and who owns twitter? >> it doesn't. it was created, though, by the die -- guy -- one of the co-founders is evan williams who created blog and blogs changed the world. i would underestimate evan and company at one's peril. they're looking for a business

model. google when it started had no business model. it was an ad company. skype when it started -- you can go to all these networks in a network economy. you grow to that size and they will make money. >> they'll make money for advertising. it's text ads. you do a serve and -- search and there will be an ad that says, come to -- and you'll click that and they'll pay 50 cents every time you click. you'll see what people are twitting about the ski conditions in aspen and there will be a ski resort with some special for you to click on. >> i, too, don't want to sound like a dinosaur but what is a tumbler? >> it's a lightweight blog software.

>> it's a real easy way to click quotes. >> thank you. hi, i'm nancy rye land. what do you say to the argument, why be on these social sites beyond connecting? following someone -- i can barely be uber productive in my own life rather than watching everyone else be productive? my father is asking in his 70's, why would i do that? i can barrel get through my day and accomplish what you -- i choose to accomplish. so why would i do it? it's like watching tv about other people doing great things. why don't i do something great today? i'm not saying it's not a good place to get news, but this social networking bit -- >> it's probably a waste of time.

i agree. there are probably better things to do. i concur. >> it saves me time. reporters i know who use it go out and ask the public questions and the answers come back. it's pretty magical that way. my book -- my readers wrote an entire chapter because i had no ideas. they said you're wrong, jarvis, here's what's going on, and they wrote the chapter. >> they'll design -- [inaudible] >> it's a generous world if you enable it to be. >> [inaudible] >> don't you follow your friends, your family? don't you follow "the new york times"? >> i love them but i don't need to know -- i don't even know where my husband -- >> there's a reason to get twitter. >> you might need to have him start tweeting. >> i'm going to change the

subject. how do you see blogging and the future of education? i'm a teacher at the middle school here. i've started to do some blogs but i see a lot of potential that i can't really envision. >> it's obviously a great way to communicate. i know a lot of schools have blogs and it's a great way for people to build community and discuss issues around the school. i think it's probably a great way for students to learn how to communicate. writing blog posts you have to be pretty succinct. i don't know that they're necessarily the best tools for education. there might be others that are better, to be hongs. >> sort of follow-up comments, and i know you're not dealing with this. but do you know any good following cal studies on the impact of all this? recently i spent way too many hours in the denver airport and a young mother was there with maybe a 3 or 4-year-old and i was there for four hours and

she was on her blackberry the entire time, not paying any attention to her child. i'm a professor and i worry about the lack of direct communication with people. i think it's great to reach out to others but i also worry about personal interaction, eye-to-eye contact, conversation when, in the middle of talking to somebody, suddenly they're on their i phone and suddenly you're not nearly as important as that message coming in from some place else. another issue is what are we saving time for? what is the purpose of saving so much time? what are you then using that time for -- in order to go -- do more blogging in i'm curious. >> there's an excellent movie coming out called "we live in public" that won the prize at sundance about this very issue. people online can lose a little bit of their humility and you have to balance it. most bloggers, the good ones,

sump from bloring burnout. they get too obsessed looks like -- like anything. some people reeled too much, ski too much, read too many books and don't socialize enough. everything in balance. you might have some terrible disease that you can't relate to anybody because nobody has this but you go online and you meet 20 people instantly who have that and you can immediately start talking to them. that's an ini -- incredible advantage to the online world. but you are correct that there is no substitute for real world communication. i think we're evolving as a species to include this new lehr of campaign occasion, of interacting. if people told you 100 years ago that we would be watching 50 hours a week of television or whatever it is, they would

tell you it's science fiction, not possible. >> i think we will learn eventually how to deal with these technologies but we certainly haven't yet. the lack of attention that people pay to people you're asking speaking to at the time is definitely an issue. the other problem is that often writers, even news writers, will realize -- they will get so much response from anything they expose about themselves that they'll expose more. it feeds into narcissism. you have -- we had a writer -- i can say who she is because she wrote a big "new york times" magazine piece about this whole phenomenon. a writer called emily gould. she used to complain that she had writer is block. she was a good writer but infrequently accomplished. she started writing for us.

writing news about also palking a -- talking about her relationship with a guy caulked -- called jasho, who was also a writer on the site. he would talk about his relationship with her. rapidly the whole thing got out of control. she exposed more than i think she wanted to. it was addicting because the more she would expose the more response she would get. emails, comments. i don't think people have learned to dial that down. they haven't learned the price yet of that kind of composure. >> certainly young people don't think about the price of exposure like that. they think, oh, my god, i'm drunk. i'm going to take a picture of that and put it on my facebook. someone is hiring them and they google their name and it's like, whoa, hello. >> there are also benefits to publicness. because i live in public i found help for a medical

condition i have, i got a book contract, i came here. i also think we're more social than ever. i think it's a good thing. how much of you have searched google for your high school or college or former boyfriends or girlfriends? pretty honest crowd. the he's -- rest of you aren't, but that's all right. >> because we're a lot older. >> you wish you hadn't. you think of how you would never have found those people again if not for google. think how young people today will be connected to people for the rest of their lives and they can't run away, they can't hide. someone is looking for nick right now. these are profound changes in society we're only -- only beginning to figure out. we can do what the newspaper industry has done and try to resist them and hold off the change. the change is coming. we figure out about what to do

wilt. you see here three optimists and you have the final world. >> in my generation we were taught, i think, that we only have one reputation, and you all have the ability to ruin one's reputation, but you say, oh, well, this was something i got anonymously. but once you say it it is so hard for a person to ever take that away from themselves. i hope you have a great sense of responsibility. >> i wouldn't worry that much about the younger generation whose reputations are being trashed online because -- >> people can be ruined. >> i think the general public standards have changed too. the whole concept of what ruin means. paris hilton, who has sex, who has sex on camera, a sex video which is vute by tense, if not hundreds of millions of people,

who actually has had no -- there's been no adverse consequence. i think the key -- key is the shame is only the shame that you allowed yourself to feel. >> the president inhaled. this president inhaled and he got in. you could say that means a low erling of our standards or eric schmidt said a few years ago that perhaps we should all at the age of 41 be able to change our names so we can start over. there's a theory of mutual humiliation. jason has done embarrassing things. i've done embarrassing things. why go after him because he'll go after mine. >> it will make us more tolerant people. everyone has sex tapes, everyone does drugs -- >> and it makes for good blogging. >> i missed the sex at the aspen institute.

>> and none of it really matters. >> [inaudible] >> not if somebody's taken a screen shot of it. >> on this note i think we've hit our time but thank you very much and thank you nick and jason. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> up next, young republicans talk about the future of the g.o.p. after that, country singer toby keeth on his life and career. and then friends and colleagues discuss the work of supreme court justice nominee sonia sotomayor. >> tomorrow on washington journal -- ed whelan and maria

cardona preview the confirmation hearings for judge sonia sotomayor. alimseytoff discusses the conflict and can jonathan morgenstein talks about the u.s. counter insurgency in afghanistan. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> sunday, ronald and allis radosh on president harry truman and his decision to recognize the state of israel. >> no one newspaper what truman would do. there was a press conference the day before. what he would do if the jews declare a state. he said i don't know we'll have to see. but he had already decided. >> sunday at 8:00 p.m. skeern pacific. you can also listen to the

program on c-span radio on x.m. satellite radio and online. >> and now the 2009 convention chair of the young republicans talks about the future of the g.o.p. from today's "washington journal." about 25 minutes. >> todd joins us. he's the 2009 convention chair of the young republicans and he is joining us from indianapolis. good morning. >> good morning. and wonderful. tell us about what you've been doing this week with the young republicans and what's been going on in indianapolis? >> i think we've been having a great time. we've had what seems to be the largest convention in 20 years. this morning we added about 120 new seats to the election process. we've had some great speakers. chairman michael steele. congressman aaron schock, ari fleischer, mike pence.

just a lot of enthusiasm. trying to find ways we can help the party. >> tell us about your organization and what it does. >> the young republicans, we're the founders of kind of the younger professionals of our party. we're about 21 to 40 years old. we're the campaign managers, the policy people. we're also the ones in the congressional offices or we have a lot of people that don't do this for a living. i'm an i.t. person but i love politics and the interaction with people. i love giving back to society. my leanings are more towards a fiscally responsible party. a lot of the young republicans maybe see themselves being a campaign manager, maybe working for the white house or at some point running for office. >> what are some of the main issues that are coming up this week in indianapolis? >> everybody's been talking about the fiscal policies.

trying to see what's going on in d.c., how the spending is going to affect my future, my friends' future, the kids we have and how that's all going to affect. . party and country. policies in regards to fiscal areas. you have your policy. how do you et that message out to people. we've been working with local companies. how do we take that message and make sure we are putting that message out briefly you can calm and join in the conference on the line. democrats and independents.

you mentioned the discussion about the economy. tell us your vision and strat guy. the two houses and the opportunity for >> we have two state chair people, we can . it allows young republicans to take a leadership role for our state. we see a vision -- i don't know if we have a -- we have a vision but don't know how we're going to produce that. right now the young republicans are trying to find their way, their slice of the pie of how we're going to move our party forward. i would say young republicans are very enthusiastic about helping our state, helping our

party, and helping our country at the end of the day we're all americans but come from a different area. right now i think young republicans here have a great enthusiasm about being leaders a lot sooner than maybe if we had the white house right now. i think there's a lot of enthusiasm. >> there's a story in the associated press this week, r.n.c. chairman fires up indiana republican fundraiser. talking about how the national committee chairman michael steele riled indiana republicans wednesday night, and he said "lift your heads." i'm so sick and tired of republicans whining and moaning and complaining. you lost, get over it. he goes on to say, wake up and pay attention and focus on the fact that our country is being taken apart bit by bit." how much did the loss of the white house resonate with young republicans, are they doing what mr. steele recommended in getting enthusiastic and getting out there and doing what's next? >> i can't agree with them more. i think starting with wednesday night's event, all the way to today, there's been nothing but enthusiasm.

i think people see opportunity. the r.n.c. chairman also said it's time for the young republicans to step forward and take leadership roles and that's exactly what this convention has been saying to everybody. it's time for us to not necessarily stop whining but stop waiting for take leadership roles, it's time for us to run for state rep, for congress, be the state chairmen around the country. i think what the r.n.c. chairman steele is saying is exactly what people here have been waiting for someone to say, hey, guys, it's time for us, time for young republicans, young republicans, fiscal conservatives to take leadership roles. stop waiting for the opportunity. sometimes you have to seize that opportunity. and i think you'll hear coming out of this convention a lot of people that have enthusiasm, are willing to take that next step and not hesitate anymore to take that next step. i think what michael steele said wednesday night is what a lot of people needed to hear but more importantly what we wanted to hear. >> our first caller is bruce on the republican's line calling from defiance, ohio. good morning, bruce. caller: good morning it.

how are you? >> fine, sir. caller: it's very important in my opinion the republican party come truly identified with its core values. i think a lot of times you hear constantly that the republican parties that to change and have a new direction and i think that's a disaster. it's almost like trying to wear many different masks to appease the different people. there's core values i believe the republican party should stand for and used to but we slipped away from that. i believe in a strong national defense. i believe in securing our borders. i believe it's wrong to have a pro death penalty and you put people to death if they commit violent crimes, anti-abortion, pro guns, pro freedom of speech and freedom of religion. what we have to do as republicans a relish that and stand up for it and not cater or kowtow to people. i've heard a few different, not you, of course but i've heard many republicans say we have to identify more with the hispanic

community or we have to identify more with the african-american community. and i envision mr. mccain coming out with baggy pants and a pinata. it's ridiculous to have to do this. all americans, it doesn't matter your color, we should be fiscally conservative and proud of our country and defend it. i think what you guys have to do is take a deep breath and realize it's better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you're not, throw your shoulders back and continue on with the fine work you gentlemen and ladies do and realize that we're under attack, you're doing the right thing. him guest: i think what we need to do is do some more outreach. i think there's a lot of opportunities in the hispanic and minority community, i think r.n.c. chairman steele is doing a great job and we have a gentleman by the name of ryan frazier running for u.s. senate in colorado. i don't think we need to pander. that's not what we need to do but stand for what we stand for and make sure what we stand for is what's being told out there.

i think too often, specifically on the fiscal policies, we did lose our way, no doubt about it. if you were to attend this convention you would hear a lot of people saying we've got to get back to smaller government, our personal responsibility. those are the core values we believe in. i don't think that is pandering but what it's doing is putting us assets young republicans or republican gentlemen out in the forefront of doing our own marketing which is exactly what we need to be doing. there's a lot of hispanics, be it female, african-americans, asian, whatever somebody may be, and even younger people. obviously we did not do so well with the younger people. what we need to do is take our message and be proactive. i think what we did perhaps maybe last year was be a little bit more reactive to obama but this does have such great charisma that we weren't being proactive in getting our message out there, what we've always done and what the young republicans are looking to take from this week and say we can't act to president obama, he is our president and we're all americans but we need to be proactive in getting our

message out there to those people and they will ski if they support our policies but we're not going to change our policies just like the democrats do or don't change their policies, we have to be the same. we either stand for fiscal policy and we are going to get the fiscal responsibility and get that out there and let the voters react but we have to get the message out there. maybe in more different mediums. we've been talking about technology, how do we get to the voters not just once or twice but as many times as possible to make sure they truly understand what we as a party and what each individual candidate believes and then the constituents will have the information they need and on voting day they will know who they support and at the end of the day i can do that. host: you mentioned using technology. there was a recent eruption and controversy on facebook this week with adra shea running for election to lead your group. there was a comment made on her facebook page, a derogatory comment towards african-americans and we have a question on twitter, our

tweeter is asking, what does mr. tolson think of aurvings, dra shay's comments this week. should she be a representative for republicans. >> i'm not familiar with the situation. i know audra shay personally and the two people running for our chairmanship. she's never presented herself in any other way than a respectful person. she's never said a comment around me i think is derogatory, from what i've been told i think the comment that was made on her facebook was sort of taken out of context but i would feel much better responding to that if i knew a lot more about what happened on facebook. i know there was a comment made and subsequently, people know you can make a comment and 50 more people can make a comment and if you make a comment to the one above you, it can be taken out of context. so it seems like this issue is a nonissue since it was taken out of context. i know the person personally and i respect audra. and she's never said a negative comment about anybody in such a manner around me.

host: and if someone commented on her facebook page and there was a series of response and responses after that. guest: i'm sorry? host: there was a series of comments of someone made on her page. megan paige is speaking out and we have a piece here where she's concerned about race politics in the republican party. megan mccain is someone who has maybe more socially liberal values. how is that figuring into the republican party, this idea of perhaps medaling socially liberal values with fiscally conservative values? host: i think you would find in young republicans a pretty robust debate about social versus fiscal. i think a lot of young republicans, not all, at least a majority, are fiscally conservative. when it comes to the social issues, i personally take social issues hutch more personally and don't do a lot of discussions about those. you by think you'll find a lot of young republicans that are struggling with where do we put

fiscal and social issues on the totem pole of our marketing? do we front fiscal policies or continue on with social? i think you would find if you did a nice little survey of young republicans, a lot more leaning towards maybe a more caring thought process on the social issues. and those are the people that -- and in polling find themselves to be republicans but when it comes to elections we lost them in november. there's no doubt about it. and i think young republicans and young professionals and moderate republicans, which frankly speaking only on my behalf, i would not speak on young republicans, i'm a moderate republican but that doesn't mean i'm not willing to listen to others. they have a voice and we have to listen to the voice. megan mccain is right sometimes, we have to decide, are we allowing an open discussion about social conservative and moderate -- conservatism in liberal social people within our party. and i think the young republicans are willing to allow that to happen and it's happening here this week.

we've had some discussion on social policy and where do we stand on that and how does that meld perhaps with republicans as seen in the society today? because i think a lot of people think we're just socially conservative and don't have a portion within our party that is moderate or liberal. and i think that's a falsity we have a lot of those people in our party and i think the young republicans are allowing the discussion to happen this weekend. host: our guest has been involved in politics since his freshman year in college. politics is his passion. he works in the impt t. sector as his day -- i.t. sector as his day job. our next caller is on the democrats' line, calling from nothingham, maryland. good morning. caller: hi, todd. it's nice talking to you. i was pretty much interested in -- now i'm confused.

host: what's your question? guest: take your time. caller: in getting rid of the democratic party completely, especially obama, i'd like to see him impeached as bad as he is. guest: i don't think that's the discussion happening around the young republican convention or young republicans in general. he is our president. you have to respect the president. i think we as republicans just went through some pretty harsh words about our former president. anything that happened negative, if a pothole popped up on your street, it was president bush's fault. if something happened it was president bush's fault. i think it would be not in our best interest for us to turn around and do the same thing with president obama. there are some policies that we have to discuss. i think we have to have an open debate about his policies. but if he were as republicans to sit back and listen to what we just went through with our

president, i think you have to respect the president. president bush was a great president and in open debate maybe some issues could have changed but we don't need to turn around and say president obama is the reason for everything. there is speaker nancy pelosi, there are other people that are leaving their policies and i think to focus solely on the president is not in our best interest and to blame him for everything is not in our best interests. at the end of the day we are all americans and sometimes the debate in my estimation gets a little too personal and why a lot of our americans unfortunately aren't voting on a regular basis. i think we have to have an open debate and look each other in the eye and say i stand for this, you stand for that. and in some ways, the majority of the time we can find compromise. host: i was going to get our next caller, maria is from the independence line from pennsylvania. caller: good morning, america, how are you. i'm just calling to tell todd that there's no such thing as a

young republican. and also would like to know how awful and daunting a task it must be to try and make hypocrisy, bigotry sound logical. host: let's explore the idea of young republicans and sort of where young republicans fit in the broad spectrum of the republican party itself. how are you guys being met by the leaders of the party? are they enthusiastic and excited to get you in, are they seeing a role for you to play? guest: i think that's why for our kickoff we had the r.n.c. chairman michael steele here and we're ending with mike pence of indiana who is obviously one of the leaders in d.c. i think the speakers that we're having at this convention speak to -- really speak to your answer. the people are willing to come

out. we've had the state chairmen and technology experts and people in the bush administration. i think they're seeing a growing role for us because i think they saw the numbers come out of november and we did not do as well as i think a lot of us would have hopped. i think they're seeing maybe it's not always what you say but sometimes who says it. i can say one thing and someone else will say another and will be taken in two different very contexts. i think this is an opportunity for young republicans to be the spokespeople for the youth, get out there and turn the tide on losing 63% of the younger vote. we can do better than that. we can do a lot better than that. i think the r.n.c., the n.r.c. are seeing opportunities, state parties are seeing opportunities for us as young republicans or those that follow in the young republicans, like the previous caller said, and sometimes there is no such thing as a young republican. i know plenty of team in their 40's and 50's who are young republicans at heart and they're getting out there and saying it's time for young republicans to take a leadership role and the r.n.c.

and other people like state parties are seeing that opportunity and saying hey, it's time to hand off the baton. host: has it been demoralizing to see the issues that have come up with some republican leaders who show great promise, governor sanford and ensign and how are people talking about that in indianapolis? guest: i'm not in every conversation but it hasn't come up. i think we're looking forward and not backwards. governor sanford, that's a south carolina issue. same thing with ensign. from our perspective here, we're looking forward. we're not going to get caught into these ancillary issues for our party. we need to look for it on policy and how to get that policy out. governor sanford has a policy in that and so does ensign and a lot of other republicans. i don't think young republicans want to get caught up in those side ancillary things because he's the governor of south carolina. he has to make his amends and we're going to move forward as a party. >> sherry is now joining us on the republicans line from

dallas, texas. good morning, sherry. caller: yes, hello. first of all, i've been a lifelong republican and changed at one time because i'm in dallas, texas and that way you can vote as an open primary because our party, let's face it, i reregistered so i could vote for ron paul who is the only republican running for president and he got a bum rap. you know, our party has been totally neoconned and bought up by the a pack -- apac lobby, a jewish lobby and am upset about it and never will vote democrat but when someone says they're running as a republican i really question how they believe. guest: i'm not sure how toence that question. we talked earlier megan mccain said there a role for social liberals. i think people don't really

truly appreciate how big our tent is. our party has a -- there's kevintives, no doubt about it in our party. there's fiscal conservatives, international conservatives. i would debate to say we're controlled by the neocons. we're controlled by ourselves. our party controls ourselves. there's no outside group that tells us what to do. we have internal debate on a long-standing issue constantly within our party. and i think we can control -- there's no association, there's no political action committee, there's no behind-the-scenes person that controls the republican party and too often is put out there. i would say on my behalf and on behalf of the young republicans, and the republican party control our destiny. we just have to figure out where we want to go, how we're going to get there and leave that message to the people and at the end of the day in november i think we're going to win. host: jack joins us on the democrats' line calling from rocky hill, connecticut. caller: good morning. host: good morning, jack.

you're on the air. caller: i'm a moderate democrat and i feel the republican party definitely, i believe, needs to reach out more to different minority groups, you know, the black by nature conservative people. i don't think it's so much about, you know, republicans, abe lincoln ended slavery, i think we're conservative by nature. and i think a lot of times they get away from what we believe, you know, and i think, you know, if you would take a poll, you would see minorities pretty much have the same view as conservatives. and i do think republicans need to give back to their conservative ways because that's what's going to bring them back up. guest: i would agree, we can do better in outreach. and i think r.n.c. chairman steele is doing a great job

with that. i would say we're only six months into his term. we're not going to see change overnight within our party in getting a robust number of minorities in office but i think we're well underway of having some great candidates and can't speak more highly by a gentleman of ryan frazier who is running for u.s. senate, an absolutely amazing candidate, great story. but when those people come to the forefront and say i want to run and run as a republican, our party has to be willing to say, let's do this, let's move forward, we want to support you and ryan frazier is a great example. we have many more across the country and he's just one i speak of because i've had the opportunity to meet this week but i agree with you we have to do better in outreach. host: audrey from indianapolis joins us on the independent line. is it andy? good morning. can you hear us, andy? looks like we lost our next

caller, unfortunately. we'll try one more time. ok. he's gone. he hung up. todd tollson, while we still have you for a few more minutes, let's talk a little bit about what some of the take away goals are. are you going to leave this week with a handful of ideas, whether it's social networking, talking in your communities, what is it at the grassroots effort and the broader effort you're going away with? >> i think one of the high reaching goals was for us as the convention team was to bring forth the opportunity of using technology. a lot of people are using facebook, a lot of people are using twitter but there are other opportunities out there. we had three local groups, exact target that were able to come forth and show us ways we can use technology. i think that's the biggest way we can lead this young republican convention. we all know what our message is. unfortunately we're not using all mediums to get it out there and technology is one of the

best ways we can do that and need to be proactive in getting our message out there. the other discussion is how do we rectify what's happening now in spending and how do we move forward and go back to our fiscal conservative values of small government, personal responsibility. i think as people leave tomorrow, when they leave, they'll leave with ok, we've got a new technology and got to use what we stand for. nothing will change in our policy. we're just going to change how we get out there. i think the republicans are an absolute -- i wouldn't say underutilized to get that marketing out there, get that message out to people. we should not be losing 60% of the younger vote at all. we will change. and what we're learning this week and i think you'll see a vast change. i would say look at virginia this coming november. look at the gubernatorial race and you'll see what we're putting in action. host: tell us anyone you're particularly excited about, party leaders, whether it's

governor sarah palin or someone who is younger, the young republicans. is there anybody that's caught your attention. you'll be watching to be a new leader. guest: in a couple hours we have aaron shock out of illinois, a great leader out of illinois. i would say ryan phraser is a great one, tray grayson out of kentucky i think is one with a great future. and we would have people here in indiana, secretary of state todd okita. i can't speak to all of them but the people that have come this week have been amazing. i think they've left a great vision for the young elected officials, all those people, tray grayson is the secretary of state of connecticut exploring the opportunity to run for u.s. senate from kentucky. aaron shock, tray grayson. and speaking now at the convention is a very engaging speaker and currently in the

leadership of congress but i think has great things in his future as well. host: thank you for joining us today. guest: not a problem. have a great week. >> tomorrow on "washington journal" ed whelan, and maria cardona. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> alim seytoff talks about the weighingers. -- alim seytof fnchings talks about the uighurs. >> president obama gave his weekly address from italy, the site of the g.-8 economic summit and he talks about his economic recovery plan to stimulate the u.s. economy and need for overhauling the nation's health care system. he's followed by house g.o.p. whip eric cantor with the

republican address. he also talks about the economy and gives his perspective on the president's plan and his party's alternative proposals. >> this week we've made important progress towards the goal of bringing about change abroad and change at home. during my visit to russia, we began the process of resetting relations so that we can address key national priorities like the threat of nuclear weapons and extremism. at the g-8 summit leaders from nearly 30 nations met to discuss how we'll collectively confront the urgent challenges of our time from managing recession to fighting global warming to addressing global hunger and poverty. in ghana i lady out my plan for africa and the world. my thoughts are on the state of our economy at home though i laid these thoughts out. and that's what i want to talk to you about today. we came in office facing the most severe economic downturn

since the great depression. at the time we were losing on average 700,000 jobs a month and many fears our financial system was on the verge of collapse. as a result of the swift and aggressive action we took in the first few months of this year we've been able to pull our financial system and our economy back through the brink. we took steps to restart lending to families and businesses, stabilize our major financial institutions and help homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages. we also passed the largest and most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation's history. the recovery act wasn't designed to restore the economy to full health on its own but provide the boost necessary to stop the freefall. it was designed to spurt people spending again and cushion those who had borne the brunt of the crisis and it was designed to save jobs and create new ones. and in a little over 100 case this -- 100 days this recovery act has worked as extended and extended unemployment insurance

and health insurance to those who lost their jobs in this recession and delivered $43 billion in tax relief to american working families and businesses. without the help the recovery act has provided to struggling states, it's estimated that state deficits would be nearly twice as large as they are now resulting in tens of thousands of additional layoffs, layoffs that will affect police officers, teachers and firefighters. the recovery act has allowed small businesses and clean energy companies to hire new workers or scrap their plans for eliminating current jobs and it's led to new jobs building roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects, thousands of which are only beginning now. in the months to come, thousands more projects will begin leading to additional jobs. now, i realize when we pass this recovery there are those who felt doing something was an answer. today those same critics are judging the effort of failure though they haven't offered a plausible alternative.

others believed the recovery plan should have been even larger and they're already calling for a second recovery plan. but as i made clear the time it was passed, the recovery act was not designed to work in four mopts. it was designed to work over two years. we also knew it would take time for money to get out the door because we're committed to spending it in a way that's effective and transparent. crucially, this is a plan that will also accelerate through the summer and the fall. we must let it work the way it's supposed to with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity. >> i'm confident the united states of america will weather this economic storm. but once we clear away the wreckage, the real question is what we will build in its place. even as we rescue this economy from a full-blown crisis, i've insisted that we must rebuild it better than before. without serious reforms we're

destined to either see more crises or suffer staggering growth rates for the foreseeable future or a combination of the two. that's a future i absolutely reject. and that's why we're laying a new foundation that's not only strong enough to withstand the challenges of the 21st century but one that will allow us to thrive and compete in a global economy. that means investing in the jobs of the future, training our workers to compete for those jobs and controlling the health care costs that are driving us into debt. through the clean energy investment we've made in to the recovery act we're already seeing startups and small businesses make plans to create thousands of new jobs. in california 3,000 people will be employed to build a new solar plant. in michigan investment in wind turbines and wind technology is expected to create over 2,600 jobs. and a few weeks ago the house of representatives passed historic legislation that would finally make clean energy a lovityable kind of energy, leading to whole new industries and jobs that can't be

outsourced. to give our workers the skills and education they need to compete for the jobs of the future, we're working on reforms that will close achievement gaps, ensure our schools meet high standards, reward our teachers for performance and give them new pathways to advancement. we've made important progress in the past few weeks on health care reform and will control the costs that are driving our families, our businesses and government into debt. both the senate and house have now produced legislation that will bring down costs, provide better care for patients and curb the worst practices of insurance companies so they can no longer deny americans coverage based on a preexisting medical condition. it's a plan that would also allow americans to keep their health insurance if they lose their job or if they change their job and would set up a health insurance exchange, a marketplace that will allow families and small businesses to access one-stop shopping for quality, affordable coverage and help them compare prices

and choose the plan that best suits their needs. one such choice would be a public option that would make health care more affordable through competition that keeps the insurance companies honest. one other point, part of what makes our current economic situation so challenging is that we already have massive deficits as the recession gathered force. although the recovery act represents just a small fraction of our long term debt people have legitimate questions as to whether we can afford reform without making our deficits much worse. so let me be clear, i have been firm and consistent that health care reform and clean energy cannot add to our deficit and i continue our work to eliminate waste and reform our retirement programs to ensure our long term deficits are brought under control.

i believe one american out of work is one too many but we're moving in the right direction and cleaning up the wreckage of this storm and we are laying a firmer, stronger foundation so that we may better weather whatever future storms may come. this year has been and will continue to be a year of rescuing our economy from disaster. but just as important will be the work of rebuilding a long-term engine for economic growth. it won't be easy and there will continue to be those who argue that we have to put off our decisions that were already deferred for far too long but earlier generations of americans didn't build this great country by fearing the future and shrinking our dreams. this generation, our generation has to show that same courage and determination. i believe we will. thanks for listening. >> hello, i'm house republican whip eric cantor and i have the

great privilege of representing the hard-working people of virginia's seventh district. american families and small businesses today are struggling. republicans have put forth thoughtful, serious, and comprehensive plans of action that put jobs first. we offer an economic recovery plan that would have revitalized struggling small businesses and help middle class families by putting americans back to work. yet the president in tandem with democrats in congress have pushed through a $787 billion bill full of pork barrel spending, government waste, and massive borrowing cleverly called stimulus. there's no doubt our nation faces many challenges but the plain truth is president obama's economic decisions have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity and simply have not worked. president obama has already asked you to borrow trillions

of dollars and so far nearly three million jobs have been lost alone this year. remember the promises, they promised you that if you paid for their stimulus, jobs would be created immediately. in fact, they said that unemployment would stay under 8%. yet just months later, they're telling us now to brace for unemployment to climb over 10%. they promise jobs created. now they scramble to find a way to play games with government numbers by claiming jobs saved. simply put, this is now president obama's economy, and the american people are beginning to question whether his policies are working. but that doesn't mean we're out of options. together we can bring about a strong and real recovery. we can create an environment that empowers small businesses and american workers to thrive. we must focus on job creation

and restoring the financial and retirement security lost by millions of americans. and for the sake of our children and our long-term fiscal reliability, washington must stop spending money it doesn't have. that's why every day my republican colleagues and i are fighting to enact policies that will stabilize our economy, create jobs, and ignite prosperity. you and your family deserve no less. since january, we have offered alternatives to the out of control, big government democrat agenda that unfortunately became law and has completely failed to create jobs. our plan is simple and smart and our strength is that it doesn't invest in washington. it invests in the american people. we believe washington should stop its war on the middle class and reduce taxes so every hard-working tax-paying family in america will see an immediate increase in their

income. a prosperous middle class is critical for our entire nation's well-being. we believe washington must stop targeting america's small businesses and instead should empower them by allowing employers to take a tax deduction to free up funds to retain and hire new workers. our history proves that it is the small business men and women who will reignite our economy by putting people back to work. washington should get out of the way and encourage small business employers to start business. lastly, we believe washington must be responsible for every taxpayer dollar that is spent. washington must live within its means. we will not support tax hikes to pay for even more so-called stimulus spending. the overwhelming majority of americans are working hard and are playing by the rules.

they are providing for their families and doing their part to return america to the pinnacle of prosperity. their reward -- trillions more in debt for the stimulus alone, washington borrowed nearly $10,000 from every american household. let me ask you, do you feel $10,000 richer today? do you feel $10,000 better off? if you don't, please know most people agree. that's why we continue our fight because during these tough economic times, it often seems that washington is offering you few choices except for spend and borrow. i'm here today to let you know there are alternatives, common sense tax relief, smart and necessary reductions in spending, and intelligent policies that do not bankrupt our nation. that is why i'm asking you to join our fight for

accountability and common sense. we can do better. and we will do better, but first we have to come together to change what is going on. the time is critical. the choice is yours. i'm eric cantor, and on behalf of my republican colleagues, join with us to get washington working for you once again. thank you for listening. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> up next, country singer toby keith on his life and career. and then friends and colleagues discuss the work of supreme court justice nominee judge sonia sotomayor. and following that forum on journalism and the impact of bloggers. >> a look at the life of judge sonia sotomayor through friends, colleagues and former classmates plus the

confirmation process with former staff director for the senate judiciary committee michael o'neal and jamie brown who was part of the white house team that shepherded justices alito and roberts through the confirmation process. at 6 3:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. eastern on c-span on sunday. >> live coach of the confirmation hearing for supreme court thom knee -- nominee sonia sotomayor starts monday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span radio and on the web at cspan.org and we'll replay the proceedings week nights on c-span 2. and coming this fall, tour the home to america's highest court, the supreme court on c-span. >> and now country singer toby keith talking about his life and career and was a guest speaker at the national press conference for about an hour. [applause] >> thank you.

[applause] >> thank you very much. it's an honor to be here with the press club. we're launching our seventh campaign for our two-week stay in the middle east, or -- i don't really have my itinerary yet but tonight we're leaving for, i think, afghanistan and iraq. [laughter] [applause] >> first of all, you can thank me for being here because that's your chicken fried steak you got. and it might be the first time in the history of the press club that you got a chicken fried steak. but as you can tell, the saga continues about the green beans. they just can't quite get it, can they?

[laughter] >> it's an honor to be here. as we embark on our seventh u.s.o. tour, we've done over 100 shows in the last seven years -- six years in the middle east and in afghanistan, and we also did kosovo and bosnia back in the day, also. so it's a labor of love for us as we go. and i want to take this opportunity, it's great timing for leaving d.c., the national press club invited us to be here because it gives me a chance to go on record and say some things since the press is here. [laughter] >> first of all, i got here today thinking for the last week that i might be getting ambushed here but in the premeeting upstairs, or next door while ago, there's enough military in here that i think we have the perimeter secured. [laughter] >> so we're in good shape. but i'll take you all on.

i don't care. bring it, baby. [laughter] after 9/11, my father is a veteran who was injured during his service. and he came back a proud virp. he taught his children at an early age to respect veterans and people who are willing to -- or even that were drafted. you can't just say willing. there are great volunteers today but there have been many men and women drafted in our armed forces that were very vigilant and stood for this country stands for. >> when you live in this country and make the kind of money entertainers make and live free, that's a great thing. but even living on the bad end of this country and being poor, you still live free in this country. [applause] >> that's through people going and making sure the laws of

this land are protected and that our freedoms are protected, and you can't have it both ways. you can't stand on the first amendment and try to x out the second amendment. they're all there. we all have to live by them and that's what our country was founded by. [applause] >> i'm not a political guy, never have been. it really freaks people out when they find out that i'm a democrat. [laughter] >> it really does. because they've read so much lies and stuff in the press that they just assumed that i'm a right-wing loco, you know. and it's simply not true. this isn't a pity party for me and i'm not up here going to defend myself and will stand firm on whatever i've done in the past. i'm not sorry i wrote the song, i'm not sorry i'm patriotic and i never apologize for anything, ever. [applause]

>> the polarization that happens in this country is boiling to the point to where i feel like living in middle america that it's -- it feels like a civil war to me. there's so much hate on both ends that it's hard to get anything accomplished in this country, even though i come from a family that's never had one republican on my family tree, ever. they still know right from wrong and they still defend their country and they still understand the sacrifices that are made by people that go do these things. and i get -- what i think is unfair about our media today is everybody is selling headlines so much that once you -- half the time when you read the story it never matches up to the magnitude of what the headline is that drew you in in the beginning anyway. so if somebody prints a headline about me and slams me

and the retraction comes later, it will be back on page 45. it's not a big headline. so by being this lightning rod, if you will, of patriotism, it also gives me all the check marks in the right-hand column, extreme right-hand column with all the left. however, i have so many disagreements with the extreme right, there's great democrats, mrs. great republicans, there's great independent americans in this country that all get along and can argue and disagree and agree over issues. but those extreme ends seem to create all the noise and they're poison. and that is what needs to come to a stop. and i don't know how with the internet the way it is today, i don't know how with everybody competing for a diluted -- there's not just one or two

places we get our trusted news anymore. i want somebody to just report me the news. i was involved in a deal where there was four people that were quoted by a guy saying that i -- that something happened, there was a headline about me. three of the four people that were there, including me, said it didn't happen. even the guy was supposed to dress me down and said you don't recall it happening especially to toby keith. the publication said we're sticking to the story and running with it. it's ridiculous. there's no way i can defend that. i'm a celebrity and there's a million of those out there and i can't begin to defend those things and i'm not going to try. now, if i ever cross paths with this guy -- [laughter] >> i might have to tap him on the shoulder and have a little chat with him. but when you say, you know, do you wear your country's uniform, boy? you ever been paid for this or

shot somebody or ever drew a check? i'll answer those questions. i happen to be wearing what i wear on the u.s.o. tour and this was issued to me by the military so in one way or another i have one the country's uniform. that will be taken out of context somewhere tomorrow. i'm not confusing that going door to door trying to draw gunfire and that's the way our guys fight. we go into bad places. we don't just blow the whole place up and go door to door looking for bad guys and we draw fire and then fire back. we don't go in and fire. that's not the rules of engagement for the american military. that's a tough order to have to deal with every day. and you can't know these things until you go to the operating bases where i go and see what goes on every day. so as i've gone to seven u.s.o. tours, we do two ford operating bases called fobs and sometimes there will be 25 guys guarding a smuggler's route and that place has been hit three times

this week and we have to be escorted in by the apache attack helicopters by the best, the best pilots, the guys on the ground do their jobs so good and why i go. i feel secure when i'm in there. and it took me a hundred shows in the forward operating zone to learn to trust how good our guys really are and what they sacrifice. these are volunteers that are elected officials chose to send to afghanistan. so after 9/11 i wrote a song "courage to the red, white and blue" knowing that our military was asking a bunch of volunteers to go in and find justice for the people that died on 9/11. if you read my song word for word and don't apply your agenda to it either way, that's all it says, it just says i want you to win. i don't want you to die. i want you to go win and find the people responsible for 9/11. that has been taken out of context. it has surpassed over 25

million album sells it. it has surpassed 25 number one hits. it has surpassed soldout concert number one ticket sellers in years. it has surpassed all that because it is so agenda poison. and there's no way to stop it. it's -- everybody is trying to compete for the headlines. we're trying to sell headlines and it's poisoning america. and it's pushing us to where there's so much hate from both sides that there's no way we can continue and get along some day. may not be in my lifetime but if it continues on like it does, there will be people die in this country over their political agephardta. it's just getting ridiculous. i've never been a political guy. i've got check marks all over the place. i've got -- my lefty friends think i'm a nazi and my righty friends think i'm a hippie. [laughter] >> anybody that knows me

personally, anybody that knows me personally knows i'm just a normal guy that goes out and fishes, raises racehorses, raises his kids. i dedicate two weeks every year to u.s.o. which is contrary to what you hear in the news sometimes, they're the best organization and they've been doing it longer than anybody and they provide more for anybody than just entertainment. they send every kind of care package in the world to our guys on the front line and the u.s.o. is the grandest organization designed to do that very function that there's ever been. [applause] >> some people in the news media last year were saying, in the media last year were saying that the u.s.o. wasn't doing their job and i jumped up and went straight to the top and started fighting with them right off the bat. the reason the u.s.o. can't get more people to go in there is because it's a hell zone.

it's a war zone. it's hard to convince somebody who's making movies or making recordings to stop what they're doing here in disneyland and go sit in the middle of a war zone. i've never shot anybody but i've been shot at. several times. i've raced other marines and soldiers to a bunker when the sirens go off. i know how it feels on my little world, my little 14 days i'm over there. but can you imagine being over there 18 months? it's a long time to have to live on the edge and then everybody expects them just to come back here and you have to support these guys. if you see one of them at an airport, drop your agenda and go over and thank him. or at least make sure you say what you want to say. [applause]

>> the u.s.o. works dill gephardtly, we don't just talk the talk -- diligently. we don't just talk the talk. my booking agent -- my motor, brian o'connell who is one of the big wigs, my assistant, my band, everybody has a group effort decided we were going to go donate our time to the military. kurt motley is now for years been a board member with the u.s.o. he's worked hand in hand on a daily basis not only on my behalf but in trying to get other artists over there and has been completely responsible for picking up the traffic of entertainers that go over. and it's just difficult to get people to go because of an agenda or because they're afraid to go to a war zone. and i under those things. so we try to go the forward

operating bases, set examples for them, show them that, you know, just because you make a lot of money, here i go and set the example. you don't have to go there, just go over to walter reed hospital or go by a base or go to the green zone where it's safe. i would take my son, my 12-year-old son to the green zone in baghdad. and that was a war that not everybody agreed with. i didn't understand it. but at the same time we had people in there that are our elected officials sent in. i'll support them. i supports bosnia. i didn't support the war but supported the troops and did my time in there, also. wherever the next conflict starts, nobody in this room is powerful enough to stop it or start it. including myself. but we have people that are volunteers and are making sure that it doesn't go on right here in d.c. or in oklahoma or

california and hollywood. so as long as those people are willing to go out and take care of it out on the perimeter for us, the least we can do is walk up and pat them on the bat and shake their hand and say good job. you know what i mean? [applause] >> back on "courtesy of the red, white and blue" that song word for word has nothing to do with kosovo and bosnia and has nothing to do with iraq or north korea or iran. it tells new there word for word we've got sucker punched on that day and you know, these guys are coming in to serve justice on you. you will be found and you will not do this to our country again. everybody that i know that are good republicans and democrats and independents all want for the same thing. if there's a big blue button we could all push and say peace on it, we would all push it but we

all just have different ways of pursuing that and what our idea are to handle that. but as americans everybody should agree at least we need a military and that they do a great job for us and that we need to support them. [applause] >> i'm going to shut up yapping because i'm going to take a bunch of questions and see what we've got in here but in closing i want to thank the national press club. i want to thank the u.s.o. and i want to thank my staff for going on another great u.s.o. tour overseas. and i want to thank our military that are enlisted that are present and the veterans and thank you all for having me. [applause] >> so you've done i guess a

dozen u.s.o. tours now, half a dozen? >> seven years. >> what keeps you coming back, why do you keep doing it? >> i've developed so many friendships and relationships from national security advisor -- i mean, i knew right off the bat that i was not going to be a hypocrite with all the hate bush or the hate clinton stuff that went on in the last 16 years. when you've got a commander in chief, you have to give him a chance, whether you agree with him or not, our american citizens voted our commander in chief in, and the first thing he did was hire one of my best friends and dearest friend, general james jones as its national security advisor. and right off the bat he got a big brownie point from me because i can't imagine anybody who would have won that

presidency not picking james jones in the national security advisor position. [applause] >> i think he ought to run for president some day. he's a great guy. but he was the reason that i released "courtesy of the red, white and blue." when i saw those marines go out of there with their -- they were leaving from i think constitution hall, am i right, sarah? constitution hall. i played for a couple thousand marines and i had written "courtesy red, white, and blue" in my u.s.o. troops so i would have something to play for the military and he was commandant of the marines and he said you have so many marines in here, 600, there's not an unclenched fist or dry eye. he said everybody in the military needs to hear that song. it's the greatest military song we ever heard. so my first relationship before i went in the middle east was with general james jones.

then i met rusty frudegar over there. he climbed in every helicopter i got in and was my escort everywhere i went for years. so those are the kind of relationships. and then meeting people and so many of the people that i met, had lunch and stuff with, would pass -- would perish a week later. i would have lunch and my host would be a young sergeant, and i would move on to afghanistan and sarah, who works for general james' office now who is my u.s.o. host, she would say, you remember sullivan at camp cook or fallujah, he got killed by a roadside attack. and so, you know, then you meet their families out on the road. i'd come back and play oregon and first lieutenant eric

mccray, his parents came to the show and i flew with his coffin out of baghdad one time that was one of the most disturbing flights, moments of my life. we were loaded on a c-17 and they brought a flag draped coffin up and it was the remains of the first lieutenant eric mccray. his parents had not missed -- they'd been to four shows, every time i go to oregon, his whole family comes out and we try to treat them and thank them and feel sorry for their loss. but you make so many relationships it become as family. and one more thing before you ask your next question, i'm just going to take over here. >> hey now. >> did y'all hear the one about -- there's been some hatemongers, a report that i get paid to go over there.

the u.s.o. from the marines from general jones down, the army, general pace, petraeus, any of them, will tell you i've never made one red cent. there are people that go and shoot tv shows over there in the green zone and get paid half a million or million and come back and show they've been in the military zone. i try to get very little press from it. i don't go out and promote it. that's why not very many people know i've been to a hundred shows over there and by the time we get back, we'll have -- be well on our way to 125 or something. but never one time have i taken one penny. now, next question. [applause] >> we've got some rules here. this is mine. why is the easy money band joining you on your middle east tours when in the past years it's been you and scotty emrick, is it due to increased stability in the region, bigger

audiences? >> they have joined me before but usually they pick three or four places so we did a big memorial day in germany. . >> how would you compare military audiences to civilian audiences? >> it is different everywhere you go. and when i went in baghdad, most of the time is just ready and they are drinking near beer. [laughter] we're one of the few countries

that do not allow our guys to have a day off and have a drink. most of the other countries do, but our guys are not allowed to. that being said, have also been in places like, when the first time i landed in the baghdad -- into baghdad, they was me away to colusa. . fallujah. they had just taken it and i got there at midnight into an old bunker. it was still smokey and the marines were on the floor, about 500 of them. it was difficult to entertain because there were so beat up and tired. there were actually later in -- lange on their tax -- laying on their packs and it was difficult.

but most of the time, it was just a party. >> speaking of fallujah, why not there? >> the military and the uso both agree that there really is no use to go to iraq. >> you mentioned that you have never been in the military. why did you not in list when you were younger? >> one reason is because my dad had the job waiting when i turned 18. i was a song writer on the side and had a band going, but my dad had a job waiting for me in the oil field that would have paid me more money than even if i had gone to college. everybody ran from the draft if you did not want to go into the army. luckily, i came at a time when there was no draft. that is why i tip my hat so hard to the people who do serve.

>> you mentioned polarization among the american people. do you feel you have the ability to influence the american population enough to decrease the current polarization and how would you do that? >> no, i do not have enough power. first, i am not an activist, as far as other than supporting the troops. i do not have any other time that i put into anything other than my children's charity. i do not know what else i would do. i am not an activist. i'm just not a very political person. i just know that from my point of view, the hate that i see from both sides is really polarized. if you read a review of my concert somewhere, which i've learned back in the 1990's never to read your own press because if somebody is writing a review on you, you are not that good or you are not that bad ever. but once in awhile, my manager,

a booking agent will read one, or my promoter, and say, this guy really took it to you. but when you read it or they tell you about it, it is all agenda. it is not whether he can sing or write or whether the place was sold out or was a big party. they take you down with their agenda and is implied in their ahold time. you can see that they give themselves away. so, it is really difficulty to figure out how you can pull those two sides together when you have got somebody that does not know you who is going to write that same review every time you come to his town. çand the people that were at te show are reading it going, this does not make sense. and the people who were not there were not enough of a fan to even come to your show. [laughter] so, if they say, toby keith sykes and you were not there, you go, well, that is why i did not go.

[laughter] and if you were there, you were going, what is this guy doing? this guy was not at the same show i was. our show is more down like -- i mean, i would compare it to a magic show at vegas. our friend must burden goes out every night and does a magic act. if he blows his magic act, then everyone is going to say he is not that good. he nails every night. he can seek intricate things that he could fix or did not quite nail, but the audience never notices. we did the same exact were on show -- on tour every night. these are very professional people. unless i have a cold, that is the only thing that it take how good or bad we are. -- that dictates how good or bad we are. if the crowd is rocking and it is sold out and it is the same show we did last night and the same before, we never get very

far off the center line. so, when the building -- the head of the building comes and says, wow, this was like the seventh game at the world series out here, this place was not. and then the next day you get up and read a review that says everyone sat on their hands all 3%night, and even his red white and blue song and soldiers on did not get them going, so he resorted to putting sports teams up -- you know what i mean? it is like, you are giving yourself away here, pal. but there is no way to pull the two together that i am powerful enough to do. i'm just telling you like it is. [laughter] >> what has been your experience with how accurately the press covers reviews on public policy issues? >> i have covered that. [laughter] it is so much out of context

that one line in one song out ways one of the most successful song writers and performers of the last 20 years. i mean, i have been very successful. i embrace -- i learned years ago that i could not friday. because you just cannot stop hate. i mean, there is no way. what i did is i got smart about it and i just embraced it. what i'd do is i save millions of dollars on publicity by finding out where these hitters exist -- haters exist and what i've put a -- an album out, i go to their forms and give them something to hate. i drove my album out there and let them all go to work for me. [laughter] [applause] it is really easy. am i right?

my publicist is right down there and she says, your the best that has ever been. but i will go on steven colbert and put an album on theire and i know who is watching. i know that much. and i will do a song, a "red, white, and blue" or "hannan them high -- the "hang em high" or something and get them blogging about it. and but in every one of their problems, it is like, he has got a bum out. [laughter] -- he has got a new album out. [laughter] >> what are you seen in iraq every time you go? >> i have got a very eloquently written letter from a major in iraq. there were building schools and

a reporter came in and spent three days with him. he took him around and showed where the community was, how is developed, how the school system is working, how the hospital is operating, how locals have taken to having the military there and understanding that they are going to leave them with it. and a whole store that the woman came back and road was so opposite of everything that happened that he felt compelled to write to this newspaper publication a letter. and i have got a copy that he gave me when i was over there. just like i was telling you çearlier, all of the people who do not support the military or the war -- i mean, i have talked with people that do not believe we even need a military. it does not make sense to me. i know the difference between right and wrong, but i just wonder sometimes if a guy like john wayne or bob hope would

even be able to exist in hollywood today. but i have talked to people while doing movies and stuff who do not even think -- they think we should just open our borders and get rid of our military. they just do not even think we need protection at all. so, when i see -- when you're talking to these people and then i go see what we are trying to accomplish over there, they think we just go in and bomb everybody and kill everybody big enough to die and take over and press our way of life on everybody. these radicals and extreme people want all western heiferers -- westerners, western civilization, christians and jews, they want us dead. and whenever one figures this out, they will understand that we can either back up and protect our perimeter and stay right here, or we can go out and

try to help the world, but something has to happen. you cannot just allow people to come in here and press their will on us. [applause] and not every time it is a war, not every time it is our war. the world is going to have to step up. they will find out if you allow this extremism to grow, the world will find out how bloody they can be and how serious they are about their agenda. it gets really difficult sometimes to watch us how to be the leaders in that, but sometimes i really wish we would back up and sit right here and watch the world do what they are going to do. we are not getting the help. our guys have to leave most of the time. >> i will ask you in your question, how about that? >> did i answer the old one? >> you were around there.

your father once said, the higher you fly the flag, the bigger target you are. can you give examples in your life when that has proven true. >> there are a lot of people that support the military, and you have to be a big name to get the haters to come get you. i go into hollywood and i see working on a movie or a project or a tv show, and i will run into other entertainers. they will pull me aside and just as much as the right-as hollywood, there are a lot of people in hollywood that will pull you aside and go, hey, man, i support the troops, too, but i cannot do it out loud. it is just the activist and the people who want to stand up and protest that make the noise that give hollywood a bad name.

but there are a lot of people who support it. there are a lot of people in my business who will not speak up -- in country music, who will not speak up against the war because they do not want that to be pushed on to them like the other side gets. it is back and forth and back and forth. it is mainly, a big name, and my dad said, when you get up the flagpole far enough for everyone to see your rear end, that is when they come get you. the only come and get the big famous guys. you know what i mean? they only come and get the had started. -- the head started. i will accept that because i learned to embrace it and you cannot stop it. i will let them believe what they want to believe. most of the time is wrong. >> to using that the u.s. is doing a good enough job taking care of its recent veterans. why or why not?

well, they are trying. i get e-mails -- >> well, they are trying. i get e-mails every day from :iwxñpeople who are veterans. i do not know if our government will ever do a good enough job. and none of usóc can never repay it veteran for his time spent over there. but i do know that?z the public and a lot of the citizens in the u.s. have got thousands of organizations that are doing lots of charity work to try to raise money for our veterans. i wish the government would do more, but i know the public is busting their comp. -- hump. >> what do you think about officiahthat say that soldiers coming back from combat zones are dangerous? >> well, they are dangerous. [laughter] make no mistake about it, they are. but they are not dangerous to this society. we have been bringing veterans

back home for years and years and years, and they will sell one or two out that goes off on a binge sometimes can get on a clock tower somewhere -- and gets on a clock tower somewhere, but there are so many that come back and mix right in and become a great citizens. you cannot beat the training and the respect and the adult that comes back when you send it for over there -- when you send a boy over there. they do a great job over there. [applause] >> ok, we have determined that you're a democrat, but our audience asks, would you ever determine -- consider running for public office? specifically, some want to know if you will run for governor of oklahoma in 2018, or possibly sooner? >> i am not political, could not

do that. number two, i could not do all of the allies. -- all of the lie4s. i could not shake your hand and walk 5 feet away and say something bad about you. [laughter] politicians, they kill me. the reason i do not vote straight ticket. the reason i am a democrat is because my family was. you cannot vote straight ticket. you have to vote for someone that you think can make this country or your surroundings a better place to live. and that can advance us to a better spot. and hate, hate, hate -- you know, i would be accused with my song of being a hater or a warmonger, but i do not hate americans. my agenda is not to hate.

being a politician would mean to have to get along with too many people. [laughter] so, no. >> moving from politics to music, can you tell us about the first song you ever wrote and how it came to you? >> i do not even remember the first song i ever wrote at all. i was a teenager and my grandmother had a supper club and had given me a guitar that one of her players in her band had recommended her to get me for my birthday. i sort of somewhere between 14 and 18 to start songs and then must have been so that i do not even remember them a road about 500 songs before our family wrote one -- and i wrote about 500 of before someone in my family and said, you wrote that one? it was probably something like,

"she broke my heart and i broke her jaw" or something like that. [laughter] i'm only kidding. [laughter] we are on c-span. to be careful. [laughter] >> when did it occur to you that you would become a celebrity? >> i still struggle with that every day because in my hometown, i just play a little golf, raise my resources and coach my son's football team. -- raise might racehorses and coach my son's football team. when i come out in the world, whether it is canada, mexico, europe, wherever -- or all over the u.s. -- anywhere that i recognized, it is really uncomfortable for me. when i'm sitting in a restaurant thinking i'm all by myself and i look up and there are 10 people watching eat, that has never

been very comfortable for me. but it is great to wake up every day and know that that is my job. and as a songwriter, to be that successful -- i do not know. i have got the best job in the world and i would not treat places with anybody. >> one of your big break came three flight attendants. can you tell us that story and have you ever written a song and praise of flight attendants? >> there is a lot to this story. no, there is not. [laughter] i have a huge fan when i was planning regional. her name was loriç kaine and se would come and sit and watch our band play. she knew every song that i had written and we were having to cover songs because we're playing nightclubs and i was not signed with a major recording company yet. she would come and sit and watch us play. she had graduated from college

at new mexico state and move to dallas and took a job as a flight attendant for american airlines. from there, she moved to nashville when it opened the of in theire. i had not seen her for a while and i went to nashville to take six or eight of my best songs that i had written in the last six years to capitol records for a meeting i had to get my first recording contract. the guy told me, why don't you go back to oklahoma and get back in the workshop and work on your riding because the songs are not going to cut it. i went to dinner that night at a steakhouse and ran into her and she says, all i've got are these two old recordings of yours. have you got any new stuff? i have for five things i was

passing around town. i went out to the truck and gave it to her. about two months later she was on a flight with the vice- president of mercury records, the guy who discovered alabama, cyrus pashtun i atwain -- billy ray cyrus, rashayshania twain. he got far out on his boat, far enough out that he did not have any radio signal. he plugged my seat on it -- he plugged might cd in and it had her number on it and he came back and called her and said, was this guy? that is how i got my major recording contract. [applause] >> what keeps you going in the early days of your career when

people are constantly criticizing your songs and things are constantly changing? >> just knowing that the truth is on your side. i pray a lot and a lot of the things that i do in my life involved my relationship with my creator. i just knew i was in a place i was supposed to be. and i knew i could write songs as well as anybody. i knew i could put my hours -- i had put my hours and my time into establishing myself as a songwriter and i had just gotten to the point where i was not going to let the president available -- at the time, the label i was at -- had come up through the mail room and he could not play a chord or sing or nothing and he was telling me what i needed to record and when to do it. and there were other producers in town that had come up to the

studios to the musician side. you know, tony brown played with all the spirielvis. those kinds of guys were playing hits with people and i was on lockdown over at mercury. i went to war with them. i just said to my not going to do the kind of music that you want to do. luckily, i got out of there and that was 25 million albums ago. >> how does audience interaction affect your performances? what do you think of the latter signed your fans make to grab your attention? >> we will not talk about some of them. [laughter] but every night from the tail gate -- replete amphitheaters, which hold about 25,000 people. at some point in the day, they~- just like a football game. the bikers will come in and take the hill -- they tailgate just like a football game. the bikers will come in and take

the hill. people come in and cook burgers. it looks just like a football game. it starts tailgating in the afternoon. so, you know when you hit the stage that night where you are dealing with. [laughter] so, i do not give them what they want. i give them what they need. [laughter] but it does affect your show for night tonight, on how loud the audience is. however, in a professional environment when you are getting paid to deliver a hard ticket date like we do, even if the crowd is not quite there, you still step on the gas. i look at it like, hey, they are not quite as good as last night's crowd, i'm going to try toç work all night long to get them where we needed them to go last night. it just becomes a challenge to me. if they are out there fighting and getting arrested and all of that, i am happy. [laughter] was "how do you like me now?"

autobiographical? >> no, i co-wrote that with a guy. it was fun. we both got our statubs in at or old girlfriend. -- girlfriends. >> you are involved in so many businesses, is there something you would like to try? >> by was to quit, i get so much joy out of coaching my son's football team. if i was to quit what i'm doing, i would go coach football somewhere. >> and where do you see yourself in 10 years? >> standing at the national press club doing this all over again. [laughter] [applause] >> all right, you can come on back. >> i do not have any goals in the music business left to accomplish. i was blackballed by the awards

shows years ago. i do not live in nashville, so again, i'm not political. that is where you have got to be. i do not shake well -- shake hands well with people who do not like me. i have accomplished every song writing award, ever quadruple -- you know, platinum albums, all that stuff. number one ticket seller, i have done everything in the visit -- in the music business there is to do. so i just have to keep enjoying writing songs and just to keep longevity, you know, seeing how long you can compete with the newcomers. every year there is a newcomer that wants to knock you off the perch, but you have got to come and get it. i am not going to give it to you. >> have gotten there is publicity in different

positions. what compels you to fight these battles yourself instead of issuing statements through your publicist? >>' because my publicist is a liberal. [laughter] i do not mean a democrat. i mean a liberal. the two instances you mentioned were direct hits. i mean, there were right in my face. most of the time i would let that stuff go. i wouldn't write it off as 8. -- as haiti. but sometimes, you just have to man up. if i am in an audience of peers and somebody challenges me and use of my peers to try to get them to go against me and i make a statement that says, this is not true, and by the end of the

night the press has already run with it and made their own version up -- especially someone like the tennessean that ran on the rolling stone article, he never checked one fact. i have known him for years. he not only has access to me, but to my man. he is in nashville. he knows by drummers wife. he knows my booking agent for my promoter, a publicist. none of these other people at the awards show in vegas had that kind of access, but he took a story and did not check any facts and ran with it and made a mockery of me. and then that night, when all of the rebuttals started going in and people were saying, no, that did not happen, he said, i wish ihad not gone with the story. so, i addressed him down a little bit. the -- i trust him down a little bit. he was there. it was a deal like this. >> we're almost out of time.

but before asking the last question, we have some business to take care of. on may 11, jeff adelson, president of the baseball hall of fame with special guest brooks robinson will be here. on may 15, john rowe, chairman and ceo of the exxon corporation and on may 21, transportation secretary ray lahood. on may 28, mary tyler moore, actress and spokesperson for the juvenile diabetes association. the national press club would thank you to mr. -- mr. keith for his donation of an autographed guitar for the 12th annual national press club 5 k run, walk, an auction. this will take place on the timber 12, 2009. and for more information on this event, go to our website at

www.press.org. and second, i would like to present our guests with the traditional npc mug. >> all right. [applause] >> we have one more question for you. someone in our audience asks, what is the hardest thing about being toby keith? >> well, it would just be the publicity that comes with the political stuff. it is really difficult to talk about your music when every single interview you do -- you know, if you are releasing a movie or an album you hate to be disrespectful. i am not a disrespectful by. and you hate to be disrespectful, but every interview starts off with something political every time. it is always something to do with the military or it is something to do with the iraq --

the iraq war was the big one parent -- the big one. and it's difficult to go about your life. and you just go, well, you should have just got about your business and not on your song. but i'm a big boy and i can take it. i will never apologize for being patriotic no matter what. [applause] >> we have a special request from the audience. we was -- will you please do a shout out to the press center in iraq? they're moving to can prosperity and watching you ouright now. >> a shot up to the 314 press

club and alabama, godspeed. >> and somebody is asking you for a couple of bars of the " red, white, and blue" song. >> to see what i mean? it always ends up with that's on every time. no, i do not want to sing today. [boos] >> what is that? >> [inaudible] >> haut she is batting her eyes. >> i'm trying. no? >> we are on c-span. >> you cannot sing on c-span. i would like to thank you all for coming today. i would also like to thank the staff members of the national press club for organizing today's lunch. and also, thank you judy npc

library -- thank you to see npc library for their research. our events are available for free download on itunes as well as our website. non-members may purchase transcripts and audio and video copies by calling 202-662-9588. for more information, please go to our website. thank you, and we are adjourned. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> coming up next, friends and colleagues discussed the work of supreme court justice nominee, sonia sotomayor. after that, the effect of journalism and loggers. after that, the future of the gop. >> sunday on c-span's newsmakers, republican representativeç michael burgess and bill cassady, both medical doctors, on health care legislation currently making its way through congress and what to expect before the august recess. >> i think that the whole deadline is being driven by political purposes. as i recall, tom daschle said that the reason that the health plan felt -- failed is because

everybody went home on august break and heard from their constituents and said, heck, i cannot vote for this. i cannot look in the crystal ball and say it is going to go this way or that, but i think that the people are smarter than they presumed to be and they're letting their representatives know now that we want something that is different than what we are hearing about. it may just be that they figured out the scheme and they are moving their pressure up at a rate -- earlier date. >> representative michael burgess and bill cassady on newsmakers sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern time. >> how is c-span funded? >> taxpayer dollars. >> private donations. >> public support. with consumer funded, i guess? >> buehrer funded? >> private contributions. >> 30 years ago, american cable

companies created a c-span as a public service to my private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. but >> this is c-span's america and the courts. on monday, the senate judiciary committee begins confirmation hearings for supreme court nominee sonia sotomayor. coming up, in roundtable discussion on judge sotomayor's decisions during her tenure on the federal bench. but first, we spoke with reform of clerks about her work ethic, personality, and what it was like to work for the judge.

>> with judge sonia sotomayor's confirmation hearings with the supreme court due to begin on july 18, we thought we would -- on july 13, we thought we would take this opportunity to talk to the folks who know her best, that is, some offered formal law clerks. alison barkoff judgeclerk for je sotomayor when she sat on the court of appeals. david moscowitz just clerked for her from 2007 to 2008. and julia taver mason worked for her when she was on the district court in 1996. julia taver mason, when did you first meet judge sotomayor? >> at the time i met the judge, interviews for courtships happened ridiculously early. we were in the first or second year of law school. it was broglie 94 or 95 and i have stayed in touch with her ever since. >> alison barkoff, when you

apply for a clerkship, do you apply it with a specific judged? >> yes, you do. >> what is the process like? >> like julia, the process has changed over time, but what i applied for corrections, it was pretty early in your law school career. the people applied to a number of judges who were of interest to them and you have an opportunity sometimes to interview with multiple judges. >> how many did you interview with? >> i interviewed with several judges and judge sotomayor really stood out to me during my interview as someone who was very different rate at during our conversation, initially during the interview, not only did she look at my reza man asked me some very searching questions about my background and experiences and some of my riding, but she really tried to find out who i was as a person. it was very important to work to find someone to connected with

in a personal way and felt like she could trust. >> david moscowitz, what about your experience? >> i had a similar experience, i think. it is telling that the first question she always asks in interviews is about you, your family, your background. she has done a lot of research on you before you go into the interview. she wants to feel comfortable that you will be part of the chamber's. it is a small environment, for people, so as clerks, you need to find people that worked well together. >> how long was the interview? >> about a half an hour with the çjudge and you also interview with the current clerks who happen to just be there. the current way is during your third year of law school, at the very beginning. the court she will be replacing will interview you as well. >> i also remember the judge had

a great way -- you could see someone with a stellar resume who walked all over you academically, but if the person came in and was in any way route to the staff or the courthouse or in chambers, thinking that the judge was unaware, it did not matter who the person was. it is a fundamental part of who she is as a person. it is very important to her that all of her quirks treat everyone with respect and be good people fundamentally. it is not just about academic excellence. it is about being a good person. >> for all three of you, what was it like to work for judge sotomayor, where the hours like, workload, etc.? we will start with you, alison. >> she is known throughout the courthouse for her extraordinary work ethic. she works amazingly hard and take every single case seriously. i think she truly thinks about the fact that individual people

are affected by her decisions. and the fact that i clerked for her on the court of appeals and when the circuit makes a decision, it is creating a precedent for future cases. she prepares for cases in a way that is beyond what i think many, many judges do. she literally read every page of inches thick records. she reads through memos, asks for more information. and so, in order to be prepared like that, she works hard and her quirks work hard. but she is where thethere with , on evenings, weekends. but working for a judge also means being a part of her personal life. so, when you work with her in a professional way, she was often sang, but greg lunch, let's go to a movie together. she really adopts her clerks as part of her family when you work for her.

>> i completely agree with everything that allison said. we worked extremely hard, but the judge was always there with us. complicated cases went through many iterations back and forth with her, searching for what was the right answer in the case. you have conflicting law on various issues and we would really talk things through. a lot of judges will some to wait to get a bench memo, but she restore all of the briefs first and says, here are my initial impressions, here is what i'm concerned about social can direct the courts to the areas that she cares most about -- so she can direct the clerks to the areas that she cares most about. and then she goes back in time to try to decide what the right outcome is. also in working for the judge, she does care a lot about her quirks. we have lunch with her almost every day, except when she had

plenty of guests. either within new york or flying from around the country to come in and visit with her. it was really great to really get to know her as a person as well. >> i had exactly the same experience, even on the district court. i think she really delves into the law in a way that is sort of breathtaking to watch. she would take away newly published opinions away on vacation with her or on the weekend and she would come back with a stack of opinions that she had read. she demonstrated that work ethic, but she was not only about work. she was always careful to ask on a matter how hard we are working, you know, how is your family? how are you doing? it is like being a part of a very close family. i have to say, when i left, it was hard to leave because it was such a great and are meant to

work. >> julia taver mason, you worked in the 1990's for judge sotomayor. early 200'0's and just recently. do you stay in touch with her? >> yes, she really takes you into her family. what i was in her chambers, there were so many former clerks i got to know because there were a part of her daily life. she is in touch with people about professional decisions. she is in touch[o with people about personal decisions and their lives. she knows all of our children. and she regularly has at events where all of the clerks get together. she sees that once you have worked for her that you are really a part of her family and she keeps the relationship of. >> did you ever disagree with

her on anything, david moscowitz becher ? >> yes, we had some differences. there are many ways to get to a right answer. we would have a lot of back-and- forth discussions. we would sit down in her office as many of pat -- as many times as necessary and hammer through the issues. even if she decided to go with the way that she wanted to go and think that was better than the way i was suggesting, you know i always felt that she thought through the issues and was careful in making a decision. presiding she is actually quite encouraging of healthy dialogue in chamber. she does not want to just dictate a result. she wants to hear your honest feedback. i definitely had some occasions where i would push in one direction. obviously, she is the judge and she is going to make the call. >> it is a known fact that judge sotomayor has diabetes.

did that affect her work abilities in any way? >> i would say that it only affected her work abilities in a positive way. she is very conscious about taking care of herself. when i was working for her she very much could do all of her work and made sure to fit in things like exercising, eating right. as clerks who are working so many hours, she really pushed out on you, too. i remember in the court of appeals i have a workload like this and she said, we are training for a running race. and the whole chamber is doing it and you will not have a choice. [laughter] it is a positive thing. i think she uses that as an outlet, really, to keep her focused and sane and to make sure the people around her stay that way as well. and >> i would agree completely. her healthy meals a lunch, as we were talking about, she often

does have lunch with her clerks every day. it is the sow with the kamras cheese or whatever. i think -- the salad with the cottage cheese or whatever. she gives a sense that you can be a balanced person, you know, work very hard and have great success, but still be a hehelp the person and give back. >> i am probably the least healthy person of anyone here. i received many comments about, and you really need those fries? [laughter] >> what were her office is like? >> the offices have changed. when i clerk of the district court, at that time, she had moved over from the former courthouse and what i hear from the other clerks, that was a torturous process. at the time i did it, the clerks worked together -- there were two clerks and they worked together in one large office with two desks that face each other and the judge had her own office.

and the judges amazing secretary, who was also a mother to us all, had her office. but it was one close-knit family. >> it continues. i have actual shared an office because we're in the district court, so they are not set up now to have four offices for the different clerks. i shared an office with another quirk and there were two other clerks. but you know, we could hear. we are a very lively chambers and you can hear people yelling across to other clerks with questions about various issues that come up. >> dishy encourage that type of back and forth? but certainly, -- >> certainly, she wondered of when to be involved with the important decisions that we have. the more ideas that we had come i think she thought the better outcome we would have. -- i think the more ideas that we had, i think she got a better outcome we would have. >> did she keep a lot of pictures in her chambers?

>> she did, she had a lot of pictures of her family. like i mentioned, different words she had gotten, pictures from weddings she had officiated at. we each had our own offices, but everyone who has court-ordered knows this phrase kaman "guys, book your head in." oke your heads in." i think the relationship that she had with her secretary, who happens to be one of her oldest and closest friends, really set the tone. we're a family in here and we do things together and we work together professionally. and we do things together socially.

>> the same secretary still in 2008? same secretary -- >> singh secretary. >> who is that? >> therese of martin. -- teresa barton. >> what was your reaction when president obama nominated her? >> i was extremely excited. it was kind of an unbelievable experience of that day. i think all the clerks were just at the same time excited, but proud of the judge. she was so impressive that her speech at the white house and i think that we were all on top of the world. >> have any of you talked to her since the nomination? >> i have not talked to her directly since the nomination. she has been crazy busy. i think we have all the sort of felt like imposing on her time at this point would be rough. i spoke to were very soon before the nomination, but not after. >> the week of her nomination,

michael clarke was married, and she officiated the wedding. >> the week before or after? >> the week after, right before she was meeting with senators. she took time out to come back to new york to officiate the wedding. >> so, you got to see her there? >> very briefly, yes. >> i have been in closer touch with theresa, the judge's secretary. and a lot of the clerks have actually been in touch together. we have all been trying to do what we can from the sidelines to support the judge. we have only -- we have even started our own list of "guys, poke your heads in." we have looked to see how we can help her. i think we can act in a way that is very substantial. >> and this is for all of you, as soon as she was nominated, of course, a lot of commentary through to happen in the media and in different groups.

what is one criticism that you felt was unfair? >> i thought the whole opera, if i can call it that, of the retief decision -- >> with the reach a decision? >> the case of the firefighters in connecticut'. the judge sat on that, obviously, with other judges. i thought the whole issue -- you know, rush limbaugh throwing out the words of a " racist" and " reverse discrimination" and things like that. i thought that was truly absurd. i've heard of certain things in politics, but that was beyond the pale to me. >> the jeffrey rosen article before the nomination, for the most part, it was this whisper campaign of "she is not that smart" or "she is able lee" and is completely untrue.

it takes a huge group of people to rebut. and it was clearly try to keep her from being nominated. >> and i thought that one thing that was unjust and fortunately, has not taken a lot of old, was questioning her temperament. we all know that she prepares for cases in a way that may be a lot of other judges do not. she is very searching from the bench. she asks the difficult questions and has very high standards. i have never seen her be bullying in any sort of way and i think that her colleagues who have sat with her on the court, including judge calabrese, have really responded to that and have said that is not at all who she is. >> in a letter signed by law clerks to the leadership in the senate in support of her nomination, one of the freeze is

that you all used was, you said that, she always -- one of the phrases that you all used, was that you said that she always keeps an eye on her goals. >> she brings a new perspective to the supreme court. she is not an ivory tower thinker. in thinking about, angels dance on the head of a pen or something. she really thinks about the impact of the law. some of that comes from her very good experience as aç lawyer. she has done every type of law that there is to do from civil to criminal to being a prosecutor to redistrica distrit judge. she knows every level of the system and how the impact of her decisions affect all the different players in the system. and because she is a fundamentally egalitarian person, she really cares about making sure that everyone gets a fair shake and a fair hearing.

>> david moscowitz, what is her relationship with the other judges? >> shel as a very collegial relationship with the other judges. -- she has a very collegial religion with other judges. we will schedule lunches with them. she would organize all sorts of events for them. each quarter, they have a meeting of the whole court and she would always schedule dinners or events. she was really there, hoping that they could keep everything collegial, even when they differed in their opinions on the court. >> and i think that collegiality she had went to everybody in the courthouse. she is really famous in the courthouse for holiday parties. and a lot of the chamber's do have small holiday parties and they invite the other judges on the court. but judge sotomayor was different. when i was with her in the court of appeals, not only did she invite all the judges from the court of appeals and all the judges from the district court end of the magistrate judge's,

but she invited every person who worked in the courthouse. she knew the names of every custody in, every cafeteria worker. and to her, those people were as much of the above part and as important as her colleagues on the second circuit. i think that really goes to what kind of person she is and how she views people in life. i think she is very humble. she never forgets where she came from. when you asked about the day she was nominated and her comments, i think her homeless really came out in those comments. -- her humbleness came out in those comments. >> julia taver and mason, you have been out of law school the longest -- [laughter] according to these numbers. >> yes. >> what is the benefit of a lot clerkship? >> it is a great benefit. you go to court before you

practice law. you are involved in the process of making long before you go to practice law. it gives you insight into what arguments are persuasive, what judges really care about, how they focus on the various issues in your briefing or in your trials. i think it gives you insight like -- unlike any other. >> what are you practicing now? i'm a litigator. i am in the litigation department at paul weiss. >> david moscowitz, you are just starting your law practice. what is it like? >> it is a very different experience than corking, for sure. you are much more intensely -- a band clerkinthan clerking, for . you are much more intensely involved. when you are on a few cases for a longtime friend, it is a very different experience. >> what kind of law are you

practicing? >> litigation as well. just general commercial litigation. >> allison? >> i think the guy you of a courtship is two things. one is that how the court system works and the persuasiveness of argument, as julia mentioned, but i think it is a very rare opportunity early in your career to have a mentor. judge sotomayor was truly in mentor in helping people figure out, how can you be happy as a lawyer? there are so many unhappy lawyers out there and i think she was keen on doing that. when i was getting ready to finish my courtship, i've always had a strong interest in civil rights law and disability law. she not only talked me through the department of justice verses going to do public interest work, but she would put me in touch with friends of hers who worked in different areas and said, talk to them. she has been a continuing mentor fo