court case about financial laws with adam liptak from the "new york times". "washington journal" is next. >> good morning. it is friday, september 4, and welcome to the "washington journal." this is the start of the long labor day weekend. for many families around the country, the final weekend of summer before schools open next tuesday. that is where we will start this morning. the white house has planned a speech to students for next tuesday morning, some school districts are saying they won't air it and there is a national debate evolving over this. we'd like to ask you, should schools show the president's speech? call the following number for democrats. republicans have a different number and the line for not-for-profits is listed at the bottom of the screen.

>> we are interested in getting to your telephone calls. as we look through the front page of the newspapers, the obama classroom speech, which i said is next tuesday morning, it is actually tuesday afternoon at wake field high school in the arlington suburb of washington, d.c., you can see it made its way on front pages around the country. obama's classroom talk faces wary parents. and the denver post has a balancing act over colorado schools are working hard to accommodate the concerns of parents and richmond, obama controversy grows, school necessary chesterfield won't show speech on tuesday. it made it to the front page of the "new york times." obama's plan for school talk ignights revolt and a measure of support from a place that is often critical of the president. there is favorable editorial in the "wall street journal" today called a teachable moment. we'll show that you when we get to your telephone calls and

welcome your comments about whether or not the schools around the country should show the president's talk, which this network will be carrying and streamed live on the white house website and our website next tuesday afternoon as a back-to-school message with lesson plans. we'll get to your calls in a minute. we'll begin the morning with gregory robb from marketwatch.com. today new numbers are due out on joblessness. what are people expecting? >> morning, susan. >> host: morning. >> guest: unemployment report is the best gauge we have of of the economy and people are expecting that it will be less bad than it has been in approximate previous months. >> host: what does less bad mean? not going up as much as it has or be declining? >> >> guest: declining, but the trend is in the positive direction. the consensus for 250,000 jobs

lost, that's not such a great number. the unemployment rate is supposed to continue to rise and reach about 9.6% in august. you know, the labor market is still in pretty tough shape. we're coming out of of the worst recession we've had had since the great depression and labor market is just really in tatters. >> host: are jobs a leading or trailing indicator of signs of the economy? >> guest: that is is one debate congress has. i think it is -- the new theory i like, it is a coincident indicator. it is a good measure of real-time activity, probably the best we have of the way things are right now. >> host: we often hear talks of the fact this could be a jobless recovery. that phrase is interesting. how can you have recovery without adding jobs? >> guest: well, if businesses won't hire people they have laid

off until they see the whites of the eyes of the expansion. so they will delay and delay and they just won't hire people. this increasing productivity, so that the work force people have are doing more for less. it's just absolutely the economy. the last two recessions have been that way and all signs point to another one of those. >> host: with so much of the economy dependent upon consumer spending, doesn't that affect recovery? >> guest: sure, consumer spending is the wild card in this expansion and consumer ares are facing a lot of headwinds. debt load and the housing crisis. but it's always tough to count out consumers. people are watching closely. >> host: the other topic i would like to have you explain, the

g-20 economic ministers are meeting and the discussion is be ing one that will look at how to unwind some of the measures that the government took to add stimulus and to contain the free fall from last year. can you tell us what the treasury secretary is saying and what is expected to come out of this meeting? >> guest: this is a meet nothing london between the finance ministers of the group of 20 that are preparing the groundwork for president obama, who is going to meet with the leaders of of the g-20 in pittsburgh later this month. this meeting is more -- i don't know how to say this, preparing the way for the leaders. there is not too much supposed to come out of it it, a new initiative. what we have, the governments have poured a ton of money to try and get the global economy to turn around.

and there is at some point, these things will have to be reversed. it it is too early to do it now. i think that will be the message from the finance ministers. but people in the markets are always anticipating things and reversing things is the next step on the agenda and just a matter of time when that starts. but people, the finance ministers, including treasury secretary geithner are saying it is too early to do it now. another topic on the agenda is the europeans are pushing for big restrictions on bank bonuses and the way banks pay their executives. this is going to be a big topic. i don't expect any decisions out of this, but we'll see how the u.s., the u.s. will come under some pressure on this top and i can we'll see how it handles it. >> host: thanks for setting the stage for this weekend's stage on that. gregory robb is with marketwatch.com. thanks for being with us.

>> guest: thank you. >> host: in a few minutes, 7:30 eastern time, we will have at the table here, an economist, dr. carmen reinhart, along with ken rokoff of harvar. they are setting the stage for a book that will soon be released that will look at big economic downturns and what the patterns of them have been so we can learn from the past to project what might happen to the global economy in in this downturn. the question about schools. let me read you briefly, the denver post, and show what you is happen nothing one area with the reaction to the president's tuesday afternoon speech. balancing act. working thursday to balance the desire of of the white house to have the president speak to schoolchildren was the concern of parents, the speech would be more than political theater. internet rumors, talk rad combroe and admitted blunder by the white house in designing the lesson plan, remain hot thursday.

some districts are trying to make it work. one school offered to tape the speech, review and show to kids if barack obama says nothing objectionable. the "wall street journal" is favorable to the white house on this. it is called "a teachable moment," and here is what they said. president obama's plan to speak to schoolchildren has republican necessary an uproar. they write, this is overwrought to say the least. according to the website, mr. obama will challenge students to work hard and take responsibility for their learning, hardly the stuff of a communist or democratic party platform. america's children are not so vulnerable we need to slap a rating on presidential speeches. given how many minority children struggle in school, a pep talk from the first african american president could do good. the department of education goes too far.

this seems to cross the line between respecting the office and grandizing the president. speech writers and the president prepare for school on tuesday. that is about the lesson plan. in favor of the speech, they think the lesson plan has gone too far, but the debate is overwrought. what do you think? we'll begin with a call from maryland. this is aubry, on the democrat line g. ahead, please. >> caller: yes, i don't believe an uproar when george h.w. bush had a similar program to speak with students on these issues back then. there was no mention of it. some of of you remember george h.w. bush did something similar to what is going to happen next week. however, if the families of the children who go to the school don't think it is reasonable for the children to wash it. let the schools review it it and show it later for students who

may not have any means to see it, or otherwise, just don't show it. one more quick thing about your first guest f. he talks about economy like economists sit around and have cocktails, i can see why we're in so much trouble. >> host: next telephone call, plano, texas, dan. some stories suggest discussion about this in your state, dan, what are your thoughts? >> caller: my thoughts are it is a profoundly bad idea to let this textbook marxist talk to our children. i believe they are not vulnerable. i come at this from a singular point of view because some years ago i while i was between jobs did some substitute teaching in the dallas independent school district and i can tell you that the vast majority of our teachers are socialists at heart. they are fiercely liberal and they have been grooming our children for decades to be

prepared to accept and embrace socialism. so having obama speak to these same children will only amplify that point of view to a whole new level. i think it is a very, very bad idea. that goes to your guest speaking about unemploy sxment so forth. i can tell you from what i witness here in texas that the only people who's jobs seem to be relatively secure are those held down by illegal aliens. something is profundally wrong when americans are losing their jobs left and right and our so-called shovel-ready jobs find at the other end of the shovel an illegal alien. thanks. >> host: dan, before you go, as someone who was a teacher, what was your reaction to president bush's 1999 adjusted school?

>> caller: i don't recall, frankly, not only not hearing, but i was really not remembering that event at all. >> host: well, take it from a theoretical perspective, any president or this president that you object to? >> caller: i think that if a president is going to address our children, he need not have a rabie d agenda politically and i think that unfortunately, our current president does have a rabied socialist, marxist agenda and i don'tment him speaking to my kids. >> host: lexington, kentucky is next. angela, you are on the air. >> caller: yes, i cannot believe what i'm hearing on this program this morning. number one to the previous caller, a president of the united states is not a marxist. he is a decent man who is working his tail off to do his best for the american people. he was left and came into office

with the awfulest mess of problems any president could ever have to contend with. this very idea that people think that our president is going to go on nationalized television and say or do anything to harm our children when all he wants to do is to lift them up, encourage them to get their education, to make the most of their educational experience. how dare any of you call this man a marxist. this is the problem going on across the nation. all this rhetoric, this hate rhetoric that is dping on. this is only going to lead to something that we don't want to see. something horrible is going to happen in our country if we don't stop this hate talk and rhetoric that is just nonsense. thank you very much. >> host: next comment comes from reno, nevada, this is tim on the independent line. >> caller: good morning, susan.

>> host: morning, chris. >> caller: you have been on vacation. >> host: little bit. >> caller: we've missed you. i think it is an excellent idea. show the speech and then turn it into a civics lesson. you could do that with all the presidents of all -- of any party and turn it into a civics lesson. let the students analyze it it, what is this opinion about and track it. set up a flow chart and see if he actually follows through. let the kids see. it it would be a great idea. do it all the time, should be mandated actually. you know, i have an idea, i missed the i.t. guy from the hospital the other day. >> host: do you have access to the internet? >> caller: yeah, but i wanted to

call in, i missed three minutes and they said, "the show is over." >> host: you missed calling in. >> caller: yeah. we are spending billions of dollars on getting the online records thing set up. the guy was talking about getting money out of of the stimulus to do that and it is such a waste of money and going to lead to comparative effect of the studys and that is not going to be good. we see what is going on in california. they're cutting services. the people who are most want universal care will get shut out first sign of trouble. we are running at trouble with healthcare, no doubt about it. >> host: next up is washington, d.c., steve on the republican line. good morning, steve, what is your opinion on this? >> caller: good morning, susan, i think the lady before the last caller said, the president is not a marxist. i think we need to get down to the truth.

all these people calling president obama a communist or dictator, do you think their opinion should be heard? i think people have forgotten what dictator, communist rhetoric means. we need to be truthful. unless they have been lying to their children and they are afraid what they said will be contradicteded after hearing the president, they need to change. tony brown and kathy hughes, the republican party has gone out of control. what is the man talking about socialist, liberal? if you accept someone from another race, somehow you are not conservative? this is completely out of balance, just like with the whole issue with the healthcare. i mean, right now kiaser, united healthcare, they are rationing

healthcare. we need something to be balanced. even if you are conservative, too many people are without service. >> host: steve, let me stop you because you will start a healthcare debate here. >> caller: i know. >> host: steve. >> caller: just when you can't have a president make a speech without trying to make the notion some secret thing will come out. that is a joke f. our president for any reason is out of control, you can remove them from office. this other thing is a notion of racial hate. >> host: thank you, steve, from washington, d.c. employment the white house admitted it made a mistake on the lesson plan. here is from "u.s.a. today." lesson plan sent to schools originally suggested students write letters to themselves about what to do to help the president. that prompted glen beck to say it is indoctrination of children. this week the wording was

changed to make sure they focus on achieving educational goals. the speech will be postodline. the department of education website has more information lesson plans will be there. our network will carry the speech on tuesday afternoon. you will have an opportunity to see it and judge for yourself what it is about. washington, d.c. is next. our caller is chip on the democrat line. >> caller: hi. i'm calling because this is so outrageous. we had george bush. this president sat on his hand for eight years. this is a president, george w. bush, who sat on his hands for eight years and what the republicans are doing, they think it is not, it is stupid.

but why? -- evil and this is coming from this guy. look at the background, you will be surprised that these people are taking advice from people like this. you know. the republican party used to be a good thing and has become so white wing to the senate you don't have any intellectuals left. you are vulnerable because they know barack obama is a very intelligent guy and any time this guy has any -- barack obama could take a republican and something that republicans can put before congress and as soon as obama put his name on it they won't go for it because it is not about the bill.

it is about barack obama. >> host: that is chip in washington, d.c. next week is going to be a very busy week in washington in addition to the president's speech, he's got the healthcare address to the congress and to the supreme court. they are coming back before their traditional first monday in october to rehear an argument on a compain finance case. later on they will be back to tell us about the unaushl glft anticipation of that and sonia sotomayor first oral argument c-span released some of the transcript and video from the interviews with the supreme court justices that are all part of our october special of the supreme court. here is what the "washington post" did with it this morning. justices discussed interviews and revealed deep positions. this story is available at

"washington post" website around the country. we want to show you just one clip from the justices to give you a flavor of of what a new member is like. >> i see everyday in my job, which amaze me, the first day and continues to amaze me. sitting up in the bench. i see in front of me people of every race, religion, every point of view imagined and we have 300 million people. probably have 900 million points. people don't agree about a lot of things and despite enormous disagreement they've decided to resolve their differences under law. >> host: that is justice briear talking about life on the supreme court and the importance of the court. the featured documentary will be october 4 at 9:00 p.m. and each night we will air in their

entirety the interviews with the justices. we have so far interviewed all of the current and retired justices. justice sotomayor, we have a request in to her and hope we will include her view in this unusual access we've been given by the court to the justices and to the building in which they work. we look forward to showing that to you next month. next telephone call is from clarksville, maryland. we are talking about president obama's speech next tuesday to schools. chris, what do you think about the controversy that seems to be developing? >> caller: at first i had no issue with it. the content of what he's talking about, he's talking to students about taking personal responsibility, which i am all for, especially when it comes to education. however, to hear that the work, one of the questions was basically what can you do for

the president and they recanted that, it is a subtle different. we're not talking about personal responsibility, we are talking about how can young people serve the president of the united stat states? you know, it's so subtle that you know if you don't pay attention to the kind of glossed over. let me say to my friend out in silver spring, maryland, when george bush had his talk in 1992 with the students there wasn't a work book attached to it. just consider this. within three years, the high school students that president obama is talking to, they'll make up the voting populous. a smart portion, granted, but nonetheless, a portion. i really don't like it. the workbook i don't like, talking to our students, i'm absolutely --

>> host: thanks for your comment. next call comes from nanita. >> caller: yes. reid republican line and in champagne, illinois. what are are your thoughts on this? >> caller: i think it is a great idea. i am a single parent and my daughter in school is learning things that are just so absurd and crazy it is not going to be help envelope my personal opinion. she's in eighth grade and they are just pushing them through without any homework or it is not even legible where i can understand it nor she. it is ridiculous. when families are being broken apart and you have nothing to look forward to. so sometimes you have to step outside the box. and things aren't being taught

because if you don't know it, you can't give it away and you won't be able to think further in life even if you go to college or whatever. you still it is how people talk to you and want to put evilness in my personal opinion and just why. i'm trying to teach as best i can, but sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in and who you are and take time out to learn words that they are speaking about on television and what the presidents are speaking about because these are things that aren't taught. >> host: thank you for your call. next up is mary in michigan. democrat, you are on the air. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning. >> caller: i would like to say, i think the president is trying to approach this specific lesson and on the extent republicans

are so partisan now that almost anything we do as democrats is going to be -- so i would like my president to ignore completely the other side and in fact focus on the value that we have been brought up with since the '60s and push forward on anything that is going to be so helpful to our communities. one of the problems in education is that george bush has left a legacy with "no child left behind," which is very hurtful to education and his focus is on the administration and teachers who are struggling so hard and in fact the focus needs to be back on families that are unfortunately economically so disadvantaged after eight years at war and nonsense that the in

order to shift focus, you know, the teaching is education and it should be on the health facing welfare and families that can support it. >> host: mary in michigan. from the twitter comments monte says the objection against the president is a disinvest nment our future. next is virginia, bobby on the independent line. hello, bobby. >> caller: hi, hello? >> host: you are on. >> caller: i am not on the air. >> host: you are on the air. >> caller: oh, my name is tailor and i'm an independent and i'm calling to make a few points about the president's speech. thank you. i think the republican party needs to deal with the fact that they have lost the election. i'm not a democrat, but the right wing of the republican

party is causing the country to be torn apart. i think it ironic the people that say they fear the loss of democracy to socialism are trying to act like our elected by the majority president just doesn't matter. they seem to be determined that it is impossible for free society to exist when a large populati population has grown so ignorant. they have lost this election and they were unsuccess envelope stealing it like they have done previously there is not a judge that will save them this time and if they don't want to participate in democracy, that is cool, go to their room, have their tantrum there and let us clean up ronald reagan, george bush and w. in response to the right winger who claimed he is a substitute teacher, i guarantee you there are plenty of conservative teachers who do not fit into the

right wing because there is no room for education there, but they are conservative and generally moderate. our children are not being brainwashed to become socialist and i'd like to thank c-span for continuing to try to educate disgustingly sup lly stupid ame. >> host: where is is your home town? >> caller: dayton, ohio. >> host: -- it is insult to intelligence, teach. cleveland, elise, republican line, what do you think about the president's speech next tuesday. should schools show it? >> caller: i don't have a problem with obama giving a speech to our children as long as the subjects are about encouraging the kids to do their best and aim for higher education. you know, i hate to see it ends up talking about climate change or, you know, something like that, that has nothing to do

with education. i feel that not so much him, but his advisors who put the the material together for them, that was passed out to teachers had alternative motives. they want posters with most notable quoteos them and want them to write what they can do to help the president reach his goals. they change that part, but i mean i find it a little suspicious that was his advisors that put that together. maybe he needs to look at who he is appointing like zan jones and some of the other sars advising him and i don't think he would have trouble with people. i think he should have vetted the people a little bit better. >> host: that is elise in cleveland. we will have open calls if approximate you would like to continue the conversation. we will talk about what history

teaches about global economic turndowns tochlt set the stage for that here is a clip for interview and discussion on bloomberg news that caught our attention and as we view that we will set the stage for our next guest. we'll tell you about that in a minute. >> i think new historical danger now rears its head. the danger that arising after major financial crisis. you only need to read ken, my colleague at the harvard -- all the problems of the banks get transferred to the public sector, to the balance sheet of the federal government. when i look at the fiscal projection over the next five to 10 years, i must say my blood runls rather cold. there are some people like my old antagonist paul crewman who think its is fine to double the federal debt in relation to gdp.

i don't think that can be justified. we are on the road to major fiscal crisis in the united states as direct consequence of avoiding great -- >> host: on your screen is carmen reinhart, she has been pairing with the kenneth from harvard as you heard in the clip, for the series of studys that give economic downturns historical perspective and she's here to tell us about what the studies have produced. thanks for being with us this morning. in reading some of the papers that you and ken have produced, you went back and looked at global economic downturns as far back as 1800. what got you started on this path? >> guest: well, we started first looking several years ago when we were at the imf, at debt crisis. and crisis or not your everyday occurrence tochlt get a real flavor of of what a crisis looks

like you have to have enough of them and live through enough of them. since we don't live through enough of them, you have to look further back into is the past. that is useful for looking at the current crisis. this is the first global crisis that we have had since world war ii. >> host: how often on average do economic, major economic crisis occur? >> guest: major as in global? since the 1930s in terms of the frequency it depends what countries you are looking at in emerging markets. they turn to me a lot more frequent. some countries have had crisis every 10 years, but as a general rule, they're quite rare events. >> host: are the roots similar? >> guest: the roots are similar. >> host: what are they? >> guest: the roots are generally to be found in great availability of credit so that

baroing, household consist borrow a lot, business consist borrow a lot. when there is a lot of of credit to be had you typically have bubbles, be it in the stock market, real estate market or both. but ample credit bubbles are usually side by side very good economic growth and the title of our book is "this time is differe differe different." each time we think the old rules don't apply and crisis will continue to go up and that dominant psychology is been there for time and memorial. >> host: the title is some believe it is different, but it is not. >> guest: it is meant to be ironic. >> host: the g-20 is meeting and part of of the conversation is

how to unwind the major stimulus package that various governments put into play. how dangerous is this time right now when people are beginning to see signs of economic recovery and they're looking for ways to back out of what they put in place? >> guest: it is a really dangerous time and by that specifically i mean that some of the mistakes that we should be learning from during policy management of of the great depression are calling victory too soon. so unwinding should in my video view, be a gradual, steady process, not a stop-go. that is one of the lessons that in my view we should be taking from the great depression, which we provided, we the united states provided great stimulus, fiscal stimulus. was done in a haphazard way. that should be, i think, a

lesson that should be in the policymakers' mind going forward. >> host: we would like to invite your participation in our discussion with carmen reinhart, of the university of maryland. we welcome your telephone calls. our lines are open. we're looking at the lessons from history of economic downturns and what we can apply to the situation that we're in right now. when you have looked at the trajectory of major global economic turndowns, where are we in the process right now by comparison? >> guest: we are let me device the full episode into two parts. one is the contraction part and then there's the recovery part. we are touching bottom. how quickly their recovery is, if you look at the average post-war, how long does it take

to get back to where you were before the crisis? on average two years. it means that from around where we are by historic benchmarks. another two years before we get back to the income levels we had before the crisis. >> host: since this crisis had at its root the housing bubble, it is interesting to learn the past crisis did involve real estate. >> guest: yes, they did. >> host: it it is high in some cases 65% of valuation. what is the current national drop in housing values and again the question is: what has history taught us about the recovery of of the housing market? >> guest: housing prices in the united states peeked at the end of 2005 so they've been declining for a while well into the housing cycle. i'm not expecting a 60% drop.

each crisis has its own features, but the correction that we see in the states over 30% correction depending on what index you look at you get a slightly -- it is certainly a -- not a typical at all and i would again stress one of the messages from the study is that recovering from financial crisis takes time. it is a protracted process. it will be a while before we see a return to a normal housing sector. >> host: the banking industry has been, of course, connected to every one of the crisis that you have studied. i recall language that you suggest that we always think as regulators, the country thinks they have solved the problem. i want to share with you and the

audience a headline leading into this g-20 conversation. "europe leaders call for binding rules to reign in bankers." britain, france and germany yesterday issued a joint call for binding rules to range in bonuses as finance ministers of the g-20 prepare to meet in london this weekend. the three leaders came out in declaring clawbacks in case of negative -- running high and designed to put pressure on the u.s. and other big nations to come up with workable proposals. >> guest: none of this is surprising after a financial crisis of this order of magnitude. the tendency has been to reregulate, so i would be surprised if this turned out to be an exception and re-regulation, that is one manifestation. but more broadly what concerns me as a true solution to

avoiding future crisis is to be very nimble on its feet so we don't regulate the last crisis, rather than the next one, which has bye-bye a problem in most cases. >> host: well, picking up on that, could a layperson take the lesson away, no matter what the regulators do, the finance and banking industry will find a way around it because there have been subsequent crisis, even though the regulators have come in and tried to fix the problem. >> guest: i think it is safe to say that, which is why our theme this time is different, human nature can and does find ways of, creative ways of circumventing regulation through innovation, for instance. the subprime itself was financial innovation.

the future profit and rewards are so great, that doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye and say, well, we can't do it it, therefore we shouldn't try. i think it does highlight that as i repeating myself you have to be nimble and take stock of new instruments as they arise in new markets so that you don't regulate the last crisis. >> host: the core of your message seems to be about the fiscal crisis that could occur with the mounting government debt, not just here in the united states, but also with other major economies. this will be my last question and we will get calls in because the lines are lighted up. in the washington times, they are familiar with the senator of of new mexico who was the chairman or the senior republican of the u.s. senate budget committee longer than any

other senator in history. his piece is called "looking behind the curtain," and he writes it seems clear geithner and assistant to the president on economic policy has peaked behind the curtain o. august 2, mr. geithner acknowledged he know what is is coming when he said the administration do whatever is necessary to get the deficit under control. it has been revealed they know what is going on, just don't know what could be done politically about it. it goos to worry about what could happen, deficits could rise, not decline frshgs forecast. total indebtedness would continue to surpass any previous estimates if we don't get control of this and the united states is nearing a level of indebtedness that could undermine the economy and security. he writes, america will spend more than on education, the environment, scientific research, national -- our debt

is on an unsustainable path. >> guest: we have been writing about the issue of debt which is quickly accumulated after a crisis. that is irrespective of whether we have physical stimulus in place or not because the largest source of the debt accumulation and the deficits are coming from the fact that our revenues suffered deeply through the recession that follows a financial crisis. having said that, part of it is inevitable and associated with a crisis. i think we are well poised to be looking forward and seeing what we can do, both on the expenditure and revenue side to ensure that debt remains sustainable. having said that, i think my earlier note of caution that we cannot be too quick to jump the

gun, that calling an early victory and focusing on the debt situation imnebtly should be at the forefront of our policy positions. >> host: for doctor carmen reinhart, economics professor at university of maryland, and a person studying with ken, the history of economic crisis globally and regionally, we'd like to hear your comments and questions by phone, e-mail and twitter. let's go to a call from san francisco. jane on the republican line, you are on the air. >> caller: good morning. i have one time a month call so i want to quickly mention on healthcare in russia, what they ended up doing is put protesters into insane asylums because they didn't agree with the government under socialism. but anyway, getting back to the problem. we started with the community

reinvestment act and then under president clinton, clinton rewrote fannie mae and freddie mac rules and so then the people in the bank his to loan money to people who had no money. so we have the same people for example lots of money was given to the democrats in fannie mae and freddy and we have the same people running our country now and it seems to me nothing will change. there are still trillions of dollars owed out there because the democrats repackaged all the loans and sold them abroad as bonds. so i just don't know how this is going to be cleared up that quickly and and i just fear for my country because i see our people protesting and the government nopt wanting them to say anything. please let me know where you see us going with this kind of an administration, with democrats

in control and thank you. >> guest: i think the issue of managing the debt, which over -- if we look forward, what should be the cause of concern for u.s. policymakers, democrat or republican, how do you manage the debt? that is critical and that basically means you have to look at rather unpleasant alternatives down the road, meaning tax increases, meaning not having the kind of expenditure programs one would like to see and cannot afford at this going forward. i think the issue of civil libertys that we have seen clamp downs, you are right, in many countries after financial crisis and civil libertys is hopefully one that we will not see here.

i think the concrete major problem that either party faces is dealing with a soaring u.s. government debt that shows the u.s. in financial markets is an undermined by a huge debt burden. >> host: we have linked a couple of the economic papers to our website at cspanwashington journal. tell people how they can get to your book, eight centuries of financial folly. >> guest: well, our book is due to be available on all bookstores within the next two weeks. >> host: it is available. next telephone call for carmen reinhart is john in hamppton, virginia. what is your question or comment? >> caller: from georgia. >> host: thank you. >> caller: ms. reinhart, when

you say we haven't experienced recession, i mean, who are you talking about hasn't? what specific grum aoup are you talking about? i'm 66 years old and i've seen recession all my life. have you ever heard of dr dr. claude anderson? >> host: why do you ask, caller? >> caller: well, he explains what has happened as far as different groups of people in america and how they have been living since this country has been here and there's a group of people here that has been in recession forever and i mean i think that's a statement that, you know, we haven't experienced. there's a group of people that has experienced it and i'm not talking about no racial thing. i mean there is people here that

have been in recession since they have been in this world because i have seen it with my own eyes. >> host: thanks, caller. >> guest: sir, let me be clear, i said we haven't experienced a recession of this magnitude, of this magnitude in the first world war ii period. we've had plenty of recession, your typical recession in the united states since world war ii has lasted the rest of the year. we're here in our two-year mark. that was the nature of my remark, not to imply that we had had no recession or different groups are more particularly damaged or hit by the upturns and downturns in the business conditions. >> host: have you taken a position on the proposal to

extend the powers of of the fed? >> guest: no, i have not. i have not. >> host: why not? >> guest: i really -- i really have had my hands full trying to think about other regulatory issues and i have at this stage seen that the fed hasn't been particularly curtailed in what it can and has been able to do during this crisis to start thinking about revamping its scope of activities. the fed has been -- has acted in an unprecedented manner in terms of aggressiveness in dealing with the crisis and its had a lot of variety of of resources, new facilities.

so expanding certain activities, that is not something i've been thinking a great deal about. north kor >> host: nancy in new hampshire wants to hear about the crash of the '20s. she says it was the housing market collapse, as well. >> guest: well, i would like to reiterate that the theme of the book, "this time is different," dwells very much on the example she has pointed out and indeed you did have stock market booms, you did have housing booms, you did have easy credit and living beyond your means, but that isn't only the roaring '20s in the runuph of up to the '29 crash. it actually characterizes most

of the major financial crisis, not just in the united states, but in europe and in emerging markets, as well. >> host: birmingham, alabama, glen on the democrats line. good morning. thanks for the call. >> caller: i was calling to say, first of all, it is refreshing to see someone that is not bias on this situation on c-span this morning. because we are sick and tired of republicans and democrats, i'm a democrat, playing politics with this issue. ms. reinhart, i would like to ask you, first of all, when did this recession start and also, we have the fair and equal housing act and i'm so sick of republicans and some people saying, they don't have money, they lend it it to people that didn't have enough credit.

we have equal housing act in this country and some people asked americans that had good credit watch the housing because of certain issues. i would also like to ask you another question. please explain to the american public that are being very ignorant what socialism is because president obama is not socialist. he's for america and we need to start respecting that. i am sick and tired of all this, this ignorance and this hate going around in america. i was born in alabama. this is hurting to african americans to see this type going on in 2009. please, america, let's get beyond this and explain to me, ms. reinhart when did this recession start? are we seeing a little something showing light to us and explain to america what socialism is. thank you and you all be

blessed. >> your very important question, when did this recession start? well, without circumventing your question at all, the seeds of the crisis are during the feast years and we had feast years in the 2000s. we were borrowing from abroad from the rest of the world a great deal. and this fueled the boom in the housing market and the fuel in the housing market in different degrees hit every region in this country. so when did the recession start its origins were during the feast years. do we see -- the second part of your question, do we see light at the end of the tunnel? this goes back to my earlier remarks that it it is consistent with everything that i understand from past historical crisis and what we are seeing the indicators that we are

seeing in this one is that the economy is approaching a bottom. this is consistent with the economy going from a peak to a bottom in roughly almost two years, which is what the mark where we're at. however, i don't like the idea of providing a false basis for optimism and to reiterate my earlier remarks even though we are touching bottom, i think full recovery is still a ways off meaning we're looking at a couple years. >> host: this comes from twitter, wall street numbers keep going up, where is the money coming from, banks said we were broke five months ago. >> guest: one question is are

stock markets getting ahead of themselves? it certainly has happened before. as regards fundamental question you are asking, are the banks broke? well, the banks and more broadly the financial industry has received massive assistance in terms also of the stance of monetary policy. we have almost zero interest rates. there are interest rates and so conditions are very favorable for banks to be able to recover. have they recovered? are they broke? have they recovered fully? no. the answer is no. there are still a lot of problems in the banking industry. there's a lot of deadweight loans being carried around. so i wouldn't go as far as they're broke, but they're certainly not fixed yet and hence my sense that the recovery

process is not going to be very sharp and quick one. >> host: u.s. treasury secretary has a piece published "stability depends on more capital." he writes at the core of our endeavor must be making capital standards for financial institutions stronger. he's got a five-point program he emphasizes on what that definition of stronger is. do you agree with him? >> guest: i'd really have to see exactly what he's saying to agree or disagree. >> host: can i tell you a couple. capital standards for banks must be higher across the board. the regulatory framework should put emphasis on higher quality forms of cap that best enable financial groups to absorb losses. capital requirement rules should be forward-looking and reduce i

cyclicality. banks should have standards in the face of running by creditors and build-up of creditors rest in the system as a whole. we need to improve rules we use to measure risk and the capital required to protect against them. >> guest: it is hard to disagree with any of that, but the real proof of these things is in the implementation. on paper our rules look a lot better, so it is hard to disagree with that, but the real challenge is in returns those into practice. >> host: next voice is walter and butler, indian. good morning, walter. kukt good morning. thank you for taking my call. i believe the approach to spending our way out of recession has failed every time. i believe like you inside your book, this is different, i think it is quite different. i think when you have trillions

of dollars in debts, i believe that when you turn around and spend money you don't have and america always used to be able to bail itself out because we had tremendous infrastructure of making things, making clothes, automobiles, making widgets, we were the kings of making widgets and could rely on the base of american productivity to rebound and get us out of trouble. this way i don't see it it happening. i see what we're doing is getting ourselves way into debt. the politicians and the democrats that are in charge now are doing things that are absolutely against getting us out of recession by capping trade, by owning the banks, by owning the automobile industries and then they'll get into healthcare where we're going to become a bankrupt country. what i try to teach my daughter now and my family is we stay tight, we don't spend much and instead of taking the money and investing it into wall street,

which is going to double, i'm telling you, wall street is bases all this on, you listen to them, we're not as bad as we were, but we're still losing jobs. we're not as bad as we were, but we are still not making profit. when this double dip hits i really believe we are going into a terrible spiral and we are going into a great recession, the ones that we haven't seen since the '20s, because our country is tilted the wrong way. we don't make the widgets anymore, trade is ruinning us. the question i want to ask the caller, do you believe we're going to hit a double dip and if so, what is this america going to look like in 30 year? thank you for your time and have a great day. >> guest: thank you. i hope that you are wrong about a double dip and a prolonged -- the last time we had such an

experience was the '30s and it was -- it took 10 years, not four years, to recover the income that we had lost between from the crash in '29 onward. it took 10 years for full recovery. i hope that is not the situation here. let me say that the road to recovery is not going even if we don't have a double dip, the road to recovery is not likely to be a very swift one and that is i mentioned earlier because banks are still not -- banks are still in the red. i think as regards the debt, you are right to point out there are concerns. we have been very concerned highlighting the issue of debt

for a while. let me say, however, that some of that debt pileup is not a direct consequence of policy loan. we are facing the worst recession post-war, which means our revenues are down. we have to be realistic as to what kinds of deficit numbers, what kind of debt numbers we can expect in the face of a substantial decline in revenues. let me highlight that, everyone is very in which tune to the fact housing prices in the united states have come down in largest historical decline. this means lower property tax. so the hit on taxes has been hit from every angle and that is just a reality that we have to face when we look forward to what we can expect on fiscal policy and on debt. >> host: you probably saw yesterday vice president biden made a major address on what the

economy and the state of the effect of of the stimulus. here is historical reference the vice president made yesterday. >> i believe it will be the three steps forward, one step back. that is the way recoveries work, particularly the last four decades. but we know, we are absolutely

confident we are on the right road to recovery. gl comments on how he sets the sta stage. i think it is very wise to hedge, first of all. i think that pointing to too rosy a picture would be a danger. it would also be fairly unrealistic. so, i do agree with the tone that there will be good news and there will be bad news. let us hope that the bad news doesn't outweigh the good news. host: we are talking with carmen reinhart ph.d. has been involved in multi-year multi-level study of history of global declines and we are learning what her work has produced and trying to understand more about our

situation. next is dan on the independent line from alexandria, virginia. caller: let me voice my pleasure with spc-span having someone wh seems to have the faculty and seems objective. i happen to believe a paradigm shift is necessary as in the 1901, right wing financiers shifted, the media coverage of the issue and the people who support certain things that might not be to their benefit, most revolutions in the past come from the bottom up. but i think we are in a special time and place now where we are at a level of being dumbed down as problems that are incredible. so i think what is needed is true journalism to combat this, stop giving credit to people who

have been discredited and from that point we can begin to learn from the issues and make proper policy decisions feel as it stands the politicians in place are merely just going to tread water and not upset big business interests, meanwhile having people believe their best interests are in mind and it just about maintaining a status level. but i like what you said about false hope because there have been no structural changes that will bring true progress. we will see these slight upticks then a drop, a slight george w. bush tick then a drop. i want to know, do you think -- what do you think of the economic policies of ronald reagan which then were just repetitive in the h.w.

administration and clinton and george w. bush and obama. they are pretty much all the same caliber. do you disagree with that? guest: well, you are covering a lot of ground and during all of those years, all of those administrations, we had -- we are covering a lot of ground, but i think what is very important is that you say here is that we have to be on our toes to be forward-looking in terms of the paradigm as you phrased it that we adopt. to go back to the earlier question on the g-20 is a very dangerous point in that not just in the u.s. but abroad we can call too early a victory and

what i want to reiterate and leave with all of you behind is that this is a global crisis and none of the policy makers in place -- none of them in the united states or abroad -- have dealt with a global crisis because we haven't had one since the 1930's. so, we do face a lot of challenges and i think -- let me leave it at that. host: next question is from thomas republican line from michigan. caller: good morning. mrs. reinhart, i think the basic problem that we face here is that we live in a fiat currency environment and we have established no limitations on congress's ability to either incur additional debt or take

down additional guarantees. federal reserve is doing the same thing. the debt to equity has gone from 26 to 1 to 50 to 1. the basic problem is that the politicians discovered that they could spend and borrow without any political penalties. they used to spend and tax. they learned they could spend and borrow without any political penalty and without any kind of limitation whatsoever. my own feeling is that we need to establish a value base for our fiat currency and debt. i think it ought to be the gross revenues of the federal government. but first of all we need to establish limitations on what amounts congress can borrow and amounts they can guarantee. until we do that, they will never stop. they must pay a political

penalty for the excesses or they will never stop. it is too easy. do you address this issue of establishing limits on congress in borrowing and the fed, borrowing and guaranteeing, which are absolutely astro knowledge confidential at this point? -- astro knowledge confidential at this point? guest: i think you are right on the mark that the level of guarantees has skyrocketed to use a mild term in the very recent past. i think, however, one thing i would like to address directly in your thought about setting limitations, what is critical is limitations have to be credible. you can set limitations on paper, but when circumstances ari arise those limitations are rethought or removed, re-april corresponded, whatever you -- reanchored, then setting the limitation won't solve the major problem. in effect, a lot of the -- i

make that point because a lot of the debts that governments assume -- and this is not just this government, around the world when you have a financial crisis guarantees go up right, left and center -- there is a real, always the real moral hazard problem. astro n ast you say i'm not guaranteeing this but when the bad occurrence arises you guarantee it. it do not do anything to curb borrowing. so the limits have to be credible, they have to have teeth. which i don't view it as likely. fwl next is from philadelphia, muhammad, independent line. caller: good morning, mrs. reinhart. thanks for everything you are doing today.

i have a comment actually and a question. my comment is this. why are we so worried when we are going through a recession and every month we have employment news and other news and everybody loses their mind like it is something new? and these are things we don't know what is going in the recession, the markets will be going through expireles up and -- spirals but every month the market does something crazy and news that just came out of -- and we are not expecting it. my question is, one way to avoid mother recession is how -- another recession is how the government regulates the banks or different financial sectors. and just like you said, they are

going to try to prevent the past crisis. what do you think they should do defendly to regular -- differently to regulate the financial institutions going forward? guest: that is a very tough questi question, because one of the key problems with regulation is markets always getting ahead of the regulators. and i have to say that it is not only the regular ration on paper that -- not only the regulation on paper but the ability of regulators to stay abreast of market developments. and i have to say that i'm not terror ibly optimistic that evef we revamp regulation that, yes, it will work for 10 years, 15 years, maybe 20 years.

but i am not confident that 40 years down the road we would not be -- i hate to sound so negative about this but this is a truthful answer to your question -- that regulation could actually prevent altogether something like this from happening again. host: manchester, new hampshire, steve, democrats line. caller: good morning. with the s&l crisis we were stuck and our bank got taken over, caused us a lot of problems. then when they reregulated and allowed banks to go over state lines and tao involve themselve in the risk businesses they thought that was a good idea. because we were stuck in a regional thing and they said let's spread it out and they can

absorb it better. i look at what they did now and what i thought was a good idea then and it just seems that the farther you let things spread out the farther the crisis spreads when it does. it made it much more difficult. but what i really wanted to discuss is three calls ago i believe it was michael from san francis francisco, he asked how he -- how he gets through so often he has a fast dialer but he has four hours a night to spread his venom and the misconception of what the world is going to do and i wish you will screen these guys. he has plenty of time of his own. it takes me years to get that you.

michael salvage has his own hoe. gl do you have a question to close? caller: no, thank you. host: this is a question from a viewer by twitter. guest: well, i think looking at the problem in the eye and continuing to do so, not taking a very optimistic but a realistic view, i think, there are more problems in the banking industry than we are willing to adm admit. i think not forgetting that the problems originated in the financial industry an keeping our focus on the financial indust industry. stimulus paneckages anding else deal with symptoms but dealing with the cause and looking critically still at what

policies are doing for the ba s banks, with the banks, should remain our number one priority. we do not want to replicate japan in the 1990's in which it took 10 years to deal with the banks because the banks were sick and the economy never really recovered it full growth potential. that is a very important lesson. host: in two weeks you can go to bock stores and buy carmen reinhart's book called "this time is different, eight centuries of financial folly." thank you for being here to share some of your scholarship on the history of global economic crises. our next topic of morning will be the increase of troop presence and goals in afghanistan following the defense secretary briefing on this yesterday. we will be be joined from the senior fellow of council on foreign realizes. in the interim we have time for open phones. we will first go to our

colleague that we have not seen for a while, john. nice to see you again. >> good morning. host: looks natural to have you in that side biocide. i want to talk about the "new york times" head lien massachusetts waits for kennedy to decide on race. yesterday we saw the first formal announcement by martha copely. can you bring us up to date. >> massachusetts may be waiting for joe kennedy but martha coakl everyone y is the attorney general of the state and talked yesterday to one of our staff writers about that race. she says she has a number of assets in the mat race but time is not one of them and for that reason she is not waiting for joe kennedy to get into the race. she decided she needed to get in. she is the first candidate officially to get in the senate race that was created when nor

ted kennedy died. it elected she would be the first female senator. she understands how sensitive this is, her jumping in just a few days after senator kennedy passed away but she said her entry into the race was based on necessity due to the incredibly short time line of the campaign and she says she plans to stay in regardless of what joe kennedy decides to do. that full interview is on hotline's blog on call. there are a few other candidates that might get in. congressman steven lynch told reporters last night he is very strongly considering taking out nomination papers and congressman john tyranny said it -- tyrancontinu tierney said he poppedering a rub. former pitcher curt schilling had been mulling a race i guess or been mentioned. he said yesterday the chances he will run are slim to none.

it looks at this point that the legislature will hold a hearing i think it is next week to consider the legislation or consider again giving governor patrick the authority to appoint an interim successor. that would take over immediately and serve out the remainder of the term. it looks as though that person probably would be more of a caretaker, not one that would end up running. and vicky reggie kennedy the late senator's widow has already said she is not interested in that post. the virginia governors race heating up, republican candidate bob mcdonald is up with his first television ads since his 1989 college thesis surfaced in the "washington post" on august 30 and perhaps not too surprisingly this ad features his wife and his three daughters. it is called leadership and it

will air in downstate virginia. on screen he is talking broadly about his biography, some policy proposals but the message that the campaign wants viewers to see the unmistakable message is the images much his three daughters. the campaign is hoping to persuade voters that he is a family man. raising three successful daughters and two sons and is a far cry from the antiwoman and anti-gay stereotype the democrats are trying to accuse him of being on the kevin testify thiev conservative thesis. this is not the first time he has used his family in the ads. the first one he ran featured all five of his children and his wi wife, an effort throughout the race to sort of soften his image and make him appeal more to northern virginia voters and moderate and independent voters.

one more story we are looking t at, in new jersey the new jersey governor's race taking place this year, a new poll in new jersey shows president obama's approval is sliding and the poll actually could be a bigger problem not for obama but governor jon corzine who is in a tough battle. while obama support among democrats is relatively strong republicans and independents are running away from him being more wary of the president and healthcare reform efforts. 56% overall in new jersey say they approve of the job he is doing down 5 points since june and down 10 point since fairleigh dickinson did a similar poll in april. the disapproval numbers up seven point since june. jon corzine not mentioned in the poll but in a very tough re-election bid he is trailing his republican challenger at this point by self points. in a very tough re-election bid

he is relying on obama to motivate voters, independents, republicans, democrats, and generate excitement to get lem to the poll for jon corzine and that is something that is much more difficult for obama to do when his own poll numbers are sliding. that is a little bit of the news here. back to you. host: thank you, john. we will have an opportunity to come back with our cameras one more time and i would like to ask you to help our viewers understand perhaps the changing politics as house members and members of the senate come back next week after a summer of town hall meetings on the healthcare debate. >> we will have that for you when you come back. host: time for open phones. we have about seven minutes to take calls on any topics. if you want to talk about economics and the situation with u.s. and global economy wore happy to listen. one caller had referenced the fiat currency. i want to tell you about a piece

in "new york times" this morning. talks about that saying that it is one reason it is appropriate to pause to celebrate an unheralded bicentennial the father of the green back who was born 200 years ago was that rarest of creatures who succeeded in business and politics, a congressman so hau a problem coming and had a solution ready. at the end of 1861 figured out the american government needed to print money to pay for the civil war. it was economic hersey then but without it the country might not have survived it was then dismissed by some as fiat money that is money not because it is back bid gold or silver but some government says it is money. that such currencies can fail to work is obvious as those who lived in germany have found out but notwithstanding that the last 20 years deserve to be remembered as the age of fiat money. that is from "new york times."

now to the telephone calls. we will hear from chicago, doris, democratic line. caller: first i want to say the media is crap. they don't seem that realize there are not two sides to the tru truth. ronald reagan spoke to the children in 1988 and went off on a tan scent about tax -- tangent about tax cuts. bush one and two spoke to the school children. now all of a sudden it is not ok. i want to give you a little history lesson about a person called jealousy owens and -- jealou jealou jealous -- jessie owens. lit her was about creating a superior white race. was outraged when jesse owens surpassed all of his white runners. that is where the republicans are now. they are outraged that an african-american beat their

freight white hope -- great white hope and became president of the united states. thank you. host: both of the presidential addresses to students ronald reagan in 1988 and george w. bush in 1991 are available in the c-span video library. go to c-span.org and you can find them. next is from washington, gene on the independent line. caller: hello. you are a marvelous hostest and i think we should clone you. you are just fantastic. i love c-span. at any rate, the previous caller, it is hard to top. but i would like to talk about the president's visit to the schools or the film that will be made and distributed. and i think it entirely appropriate and i recall the

callers that were addressing this issue, there was a gentleman who is a teacher from plano, texas, and he sounded very paranoid about the president's going to talk to the children. then there was a caller from akron or dayton, ohio, and his thought was so clear and he articulated himself so well. i hope that that young man will pursue a future in politics. he had remarkable comments. at any rate, i think we have to start behaving as americans, as a single country. very frankly, i'm more afraid of the neocons than the taliban. host: next up is joy from california. republican line. caller: hi.

i hear this administration constantly referring to 47 million people uninsured when the truth is there are only about six million. the rest, which we can take of easily, the rest are illegal and people who can afford to buy insurance but choose not to. i want to tell you what has happened to my dear father in a toronto hospital. three days after i put him on a plane in california to visit family in toronto he is in an emergency room with nothing but a comatose human vegetable and i spent five years in their legal system up there. the reason he was put aside, he went in with severe head pains where he had a minor hematoma in his head and he was delivered by emergency ambulance from one emergency room to another at 8:30 at night. there was no doctor in this

major hospital to take care of him so had he called a physician at his home and it was as if the surgeon at his home instructed them to put my father down as demented and waited until the next day. his brain was crushed. he had no medication, no one to help him. the legal system, three careers with that, came out that my father was 89 years old and was going to die anyway. i'm still suffering with that. this is how my poor father suffered under this medical care. this administration wants to gives that in this country. that is what i wanted to pass along. i think the main thing with this administration is they are not looking for the rest of us who have medical care. we already have it. host: we have one last caller, mary, democrat from silver

spring. caller: hi. i am story i didn't get in early. the real issue on obama and the pe speaking issue is the commercial use he is making. there was a complaint from a town in massachusetts of all of a sudden his book appears on reading lists and the use of or promotion of his book that obama and his wife is marketing a line of clothing from a private women's clothing store and i would like to know if the house of representatives can open an investigation into that. i thought this was a law against sitting presidents promoting himself on commercial ventures on the side. i had like to ask that. but that is the real issue

behind the scenes. host: that is mary from silver spring. let me introduce you to our next guest quickly. he is joining us from new york city. senior fellow for council on foreign relations. as we start i want to show you and our viewers a clip from the briefing yesterday with defense secretary gates and we will learn what you think of what he had to say. >> the president's decisions were only made on this strategy at the very end of march. our new commander appeared on the scene in june. we still do not have all of the forces the president has authorized in afghanistan yet, and we still do not have all the civili civilians that the president has authorized and insisted upon in afghanistan yet. so, we are only now beginning to be in a position to have the assets in place that -- and the

strategy, or the military approach -- in place to begin to implement the strategy. and this is going to take some time. by the same time, no one is more aware than general mcchrystal and the two of us that there is a limited time for us to show that this approach is working. host: your response to what secretary gates had to say? guest: i think secretary gates makes a very valuable point that we are only now beginning to make a serious effort to prevail in afghanistan, which is why it is so ridiculous you see so many people saying we are failing, we can't possibly win. we haven't really tried to win yet. we have been underresourcing the war since 2001 and it is only now in the last year we are starting to flow in reasonable resources to allow our troops on

the ground to carry out the insurgency tragedy thstrategy t in iraq. we have to give it a chance and not short circuit as so many in washington seem to be intent on doing. host: what are the appropriate objectives in afghanistan? guest: thinger i think they a create stability so terrorists can't use afghan soil so that they do not have free run on afghan territory which is not the case today because there are places in afghanistan that are in effect controlled by the taliban, allies of chaal qaeda. that is a very dangerous situation. we can stand up a representative reasonably democratic government in afghanistan that has security forces at its command to control its own soil and prevent its soil from being used as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. the only way to achieve that is

increasing our commitment and carrying out a population centered counterinsurgency strategy. host: looking to history, people always point to other great powers in the 20th century who attempted to have military success in afghanistan and failed. what would you say to them? guest: i think a lot of people misread the lessons of history. a hear a lot of analogies being drawn between our experience and that of the soviet in afghanistan in the 1980's and there is really no comparison. the soviets were intensely unpopular. they were fighting against the sentiments of 99.9% of the afghan people whereas we have public opinion on our side. only 4% of the people of afghanistan want to be ruled by the taliban. the united states is much more popular among the people of afghanistan than the taliban. they don't want these guys. they have tried their rule and hate t. they want something

different. the only reason the taliban are making inroads is because there's a security vacuum in the provinces. that is something we can change. another point i would make is in terms of if you are looking for differences between our experience and the soviet union, they didn't try a counterinsurgency strategy. they were out to kill the population. they were practicing bombing tack techniques, killing children. they were acting like genghis khan. that turned the people against them. our troops, even though there have been incidents where civilian casualties occurred our troops have been extraordinarily careful to avoid civilian casualty. that is a big reason why most of the people are relatively friendly to us and hostile to the taliban. so, i wouldn't listen to a lot of simple-minded comparisons saying we are going to go the

way of the red army. host: max boot 's area of study is a contributing editor to the weekly standard, "l.a. times." you see his warfare frequently in the waushl. i also have -- "wall street journal." you are a member of the u.s. joint forces command transfer advisory group. what is that? >> a group of civilians that advise one of the u.s. armed forces military commands on how to do the mission. that is a group that a number of people far more distinguished than me have been included hillary clinton when she was a senator. host: you have been on the ground in afghanistan how many times? guest: i have been there a couple of times and going back in october. host: what have you observed when you have been there in guest: there is a tough fight going on but the situation is not as bad as a lot of people seem to perceive. you read headlines about kabul

under siege because the taliban managed to hit the city with a few random rockets which killed hardly anybody. when you visit kabul and baghdad as many times ace has i have yow what a city under siege is and large chunks of afghanistan are relatively peaceful. one thing that struck me visiting afghanistan after visiting iraq so many times is for all the problems in afghanistan the level of violence is much lower than in iraq at the height of the fighting this and actually the surprising thing is even today in most months there are more civilians dying in iraq than informati afghanistan. so i want to minimize the problem because i have found the taliban are a tough foe who put up real fights which was not always the case with insurgents in iraq but we should not think it is mission impossible in afghanistan. i don't think it is. based on what we have achieved in iraq that was a much harder war than afghanistan.

there are challenges but i think it is also eminently doable. host: your former home base the "wall street journal" has two stories. one has the head lien clock ticks for white house to show gains in afghanistan. right below that a story "obama urged to rally support for the war." what are your observations of the kind of job the president has done so far in making the case for afghanistan? >> i think that president obama has done a pretty good job of setting policy for afghanistan. i think he did the right thing by sending 21,000 more troops there this year to beef up the effort. i think he did a great thing by appointing general mcchrystal to be the command are of the u.s. effort. there are other decisions he maed on the money. i don't think he has done a good job of communicating what he is doing or why. that is surprising but he has been so focused on healthcare

and other domestic concerns and hasn't really made the case to the public in terms of what we are doing. when he has made the case he has made it in minimalist terms in terms of countering al qaeda and fighting terrorism. he hasn't laid out the larger case which is we have to create an afghan state capable of sustaining itself and policing its own terror tore. that means we have to engage in nation building but there is no alternative because nation building means -- that is our exit strategy from afghanistan. it is a way to allow the people there to take charge of their own fate. that is what we are doing. we will place a big emphasis on building up the afghan security forces, building up the government. that what we have to be doing. but president obama is not communicating the urgency or need to do that to the american people. i think a lot of people are confused and understandably so. i think he needs to get out front and explain what our troops are up to there and why it is so important.

host: let's take some calls. round rock, texas, amin, republican line. caller: sir, i'm a disabled vietnam vet and i fought in an occupied land and they swore when we left vietnam the communists would take over, this would happen, nothing happened. you can go to vietnam now and buy a big mac. how are you going to say you are doing something to help afghanistan when the war is not even afghanistan in it in pakistan. that is where bin laden is and how are we going to defeat afghans when we are not doing nothing in pakistan? when the wall went up our country promised us we would never occupy another land again. that is one promise we have not kept. i'm sufg from post-traumatic stress almost 40 years after the vietnam war and i only did one tour. what do you think will happen --

and i can't get help from the government? what will happen to the troops going over there tour after tour when they get back? they will be in the same s&p i'm in. -- they will be in the same shape i'm in. i love president obama and i voted for him but he is wrong trying to continue this war. they have been fitting for centuries and there nothing we are going to do to change the situation over there. host: mr. boot? guest: well, i thank the caller for his service in vietnam but i respectfully disagree with his characterization that nothing happened in vietnam after the u.s. left. a lot of things happened including the cambodian jn know side in which over a mechanical were killed. the exodus of boat people from vietnam, hundreds of thousands taking the rafts to flee communist tyranny. a lot of things happened in the role of the world where we were a wounded titan in the 1970's. our enemies were on the march from nicaragua to iran.

a lot of bad things happened we a superpower loses a war and the consequences of losing in afghanistan would be equally serious and devastating. the caller talks about how we have this huge take in pakistan and he is right. it is a nuclear armed power which is riddled with islamic insurgency. but what are we going to do about pakistan ? if we leave afghanistan we will lose our leverage in pakistan. we use afghanistan as base with which to hit terrorists who are operating in pakistan. if we leave afghanistan we are not going to have those bases any more and the taliban will be on the march in afghanistan and pakistan and they will target kabul and islamabad and we will have limited resources to counter this terrorist insurgency one of which is going to be happening in a country with nuclear weapons. that is one of the most frightening scenarios you can

imagine and our troops in afghanistan by trying to stabilize afghanistan is the best thing we can do to try to stabilize pakistan and to prevent those countries from falling under the sway of facts of al qaeda. host: augusta, georgia sh, republicans line. caller: president bush dropped the ball and when he sent troops to iraq and continuing is time for us to continue that war in afghanistan and we are the most powell country in the world, we can do it and i think it is time. thank you. host: i will move on to another cool since that was a comment. tampa, florida, joan, independent line. caller: good morning. i want to go back to a few callers ago. you talked about you don't feel things are near as bad as they were, they are not that bad. every day almost i hear of us

losing more of our troops. where is the regard for even within life any more? i just don't understand. we were warned not to get involved by eisenhower with this military complex and it keeps growing and growing. and even rush limbaugh years ago said will was no such thing as the council on foreign relations. then all of a sudden you start coming on the luncheons and here on c-span. i have known that and it is all plotting and planning and scare tack technique tactics. god bless america when we pay attention to our own country and leave others to their own destiny. guest: that is the voice of

isolati isolationism. unfortunately we don't have the luxury of ignoring other countries and paying attention only to ourselves. when we ignore regions like afghanistan or pakistan we see what can happen. we saw the consequences on 9/11 and essentially our troops are right now fighting in afghanistan to prevent something like that from happening in the future. the caller seems to think we are in afghanistan because of some nefarious plot by the military industrial complex and council on foreign relations and others. but the reality is all you have to do is think to 2001 when we got in afghanistan in the first place. the war had virtually unanimous support from the american public. almost everybody supported -- it is hard for me to think of another war other than world war ii that was as popular with the american people. unfortunately what has happened in the yours since then is -- in the years since then we've seen declining support because it has turned out to be tougher and longer than anticipated. but we need to keep sight of

where we were there and the reasons haven't changed since 2001. what we are trying to do is stabilize a country that was a launching pad for the most devasta devastating terror attacks over launched against anybody and certainly the most devastating against american soil. that is why unfortunately our soldiers are being called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice in some situations because they are fighting to defend us. and we don't have the luxury of only fighting on our shores. we have to pursue a forward strategy that engages enemies before had he show up in new york or washington or other metropolitan centers of the united states. host: next is southampton, pennsylvania. john, republican liene. caller: this gentleman is delusional. he has been discredited. he should not be part of the public discussion. he has been wrong on every sim issue. he has been a participant in. he was wrong on iraq. he wants to attack iran.

the iraq disaster they are telling us it was successful. it will cost over $3 trillion. that is three thousand billion dollars and they are saying it is successful. it is a wasteland. the only place it is successful is for israel and iran. iran has their ally now in the shia government. we handed it to the shia. it is a disaster. this guy is a neocon and everything he has advocated has been incorrect. he wasn't even born in this country. host: we have gotten your point. mr. boot? guest: it is not much of a critique. it is spewing hate and vilification. but what can i say. i'm willing to stack up my record as an analyst of military

and national defense affairs against anybody and i think i certainly have been wrong about some things. as have everybody else. i was also right about a lot of things. when you look at the war in iraq, for example, again that was not a war that was foisted upon us by some shadow y group. it was undertaken by 70% of the american people and i would say we should be careful about launching wars but when we get in one it is important to win it. unfortunately in iraq and afghanistan what we saw is a lot of people in favor of the war to begin with bailed out when the going got tough and the results of that could have been a disaster. it would have had serious consequences for us and our allies. but i think president bush did the right thing in the case of iraq with the surge. that was something i supported early on when a lot of people were opposed to it. i think that really turned around the situation and has allowed us to hopefully have an acceptable outcome in iraq, a

place where u.s. troop levels are declining and number of american casual iiti -- casualt are declining and stability setting in although tenuous. i think we can attain similar things in afghanistan. that is something i was in favor of iraq and in afghanistan. i think that the events have shown that that is the right strategy. host: george will has become a vocal critic of the war in iraq. his column deals with the topic. i wanted to read one paragraph to you because that caller did say that he thought that iran was a winner of the policy we have taken in iraq. there is a reference in iran.

host: what is your knowledge of that and reaction to it? guest: well, my first reaction is i'm sorry to see george will turning into a neoisolationist. i have had respect for him and somebody who was in favor of the war when it was launched and turned against it and now is oofrg advice which would be bad for the future of iraq and the united states. this notion that maliki is a stooj of the iranian is not borne out. in 2008 he used force against some of the iranian proxies in basra and sadr city. he fought them and he prevailed. so, iraq will have some links with iran because they are neighbors.

but there are good signs that iraq could have a good relationship with the united states, not be a feeding ground for terrorism and be a force for stability in the middle east but only if we don't abandon iraq prematurely. there is still a mission to be done for u.s. forces which are helping the iraqis which are in the lead but vital hope from the u.s. to combat the remnants of al qaeda and other groups. we are performing a vital mission in stabilizing a country that i hope will be an important american ally. so to pull out prematurely as he suggests would be bad advice as was his advice that we should pull out during the surge and not when he claimed that the surge couldn't succeed. i think that the surge succeeded beyond anybody's expectations. but those gains can stilling lost if we leave iraq too soon that. is something we need to keep in mind. host: talking afghan policy with max boot live from new york city. east syracuse, new york, john, democrat line.

caller: hi. your guest mentioned that the war in afghanistan was very popular when it started out and that is true. that is usually true for wars that we start up. and the war could have been won in a sense early on if we had pursued the objective that we supposedly went in there for and just gotten out. but the bush administration bungled the afghan war and then they made a left turn into iraq, which was totally ill-advised. so we are back in afghanistan with a whole new mission involving lots of nation building which george w. bush promised he would never have to do. i do not think that this is do

ab able. your guess says it is doable. well. the russians thought it was doable. the british empire thought it was doable. all the way back to alexander the great thought it was doable. they were all wrong. all that is going to happen to us if we stay in afghanistan is that our treasure and our blood is going to be sucked out. osama bin laden has us right where he wants us right now. all we have to do is give him a victory is to continue what we are doing. thank you. guest: i'm not sure what the caller is talking about because i don't think that osama bin laden wants us in afghanistan are we are fighting his allies, where wore conducting regular bombing strikes on his strong holds in pakistan. that is the last thing he wants and we are supporting a democratically elected relatively secular government in

kabul which is far from what the status quo that osama bin laden would like to see in afghanistan. what he would like to see is for us to leave afghanistan with our tail between our legs the way the soviets left in the 1980's. then the jihadist and islamic extremises would claim a great victory and empowered to step up their attacks against us and our allies in places like pakistan, a nuclear arm state or stage attacks in the west, london, new york, other places. that is what osama bin laden would like to see. he would like to see us beat it. i think that the last thing he would like to see is stabilize afghanistan and creating a relatively peaceful state there that can preserve its own territory against the encroachments of the terrorists as we have more or less succeeding in iraq where we defeated al qaeda and creating a state that is hostile to the

terrorist groups that osama bin laden leads. that is the strategy we are pursuing which is the most effective strategy we could pursue to defeat our terrorist enemies. caller: michael is on next from wilmington, vermont. caller: hi, mr. boot. good morning. guest: good morning. caller: my position is in total agreement with most of the callers. as you can see there is tremendous opposition to what is going on in afghanistan, which i personally consider a lost war. our economy is in shambles. social security is going to be tough the next two years through no cost of living allocation increases. medicare is on the chopping block. over half of the tax moan collected -- money collected we pay interest to foreign countries. because of the military industrial complex, to the

pentagon, to war. the taliban has no army, no navy, no air force. they cannot attack us except through deception. we have to concentrate on beefing up our own economy, taking care of the american people and rebuilding our country. because without it country democracy comes under attack throughout the world. one more thing. you referred to your opposition as delusional, isolationists. perhaps you should consider there are alternate points of view based on sound historical facts and that you as a person who walked into a war philosophy for whatever reason -- perhaps it is profits, perhaps it is royalty -- perhaps it is loyalty to some other position. but you are wrong, sir. guest: seems like every caller has a different conspiracy

theory but i would point out to the caller if he is worried about the american economy, 9/11 was a pretty devastating event not just in sheer loss of life but the american economy. that is something we need to prevent. if you can imagine a 9/11 with nuclear weapons that is a far greater catastrophe and something that could put our future in jeopardy. if you look at where in the world terrorists could possibly acquire nuclear weapons, pakistan has to be at the top of the list so we have to do more to stabilize pacifkistan. but the greatest leverage is from afghanistan where we have substantial troop presence and the more we stabilize them the more pakistan will cooperate but if we are drawing down the presence in afghanistan the government of pakistan will continue cutting deals with terrorists which could possibly lead to the fall of pakistan into the hands of violent islamic extremist he is and fall of afghanistan and we unfortunately don't have the

luxury of ignoring those developments as we saw in 2001. those are the stakes. we can certainly afford to fight an win the war. the greatest cost of course is in the risk of injury and death to young fighting men and women which is a tragedy. but in terms of sheer dollars an cents it is not a huge drain on our large economy. the whole defense budget even with wars in iraq and afghanistan only consumes four cents on the dollar of our economic output. it is only about 4% of g.d.p., much less than it was in the days of the cold war when it was averaging 8% so it is not a huge economic draen. i can see where the caller could be frustrated by social security and other things but don't blame that on the defense budget because if is minute neussculmi. host: to some degree the callers

reflect what the public opinion polls are showing about afghanistan. i wonder how a president can successfully proceed with a policy with the congress holding the purse strings without the public support behind it. guest: we have seen that it is tough to do but it is possible. president bush did it in 2006, 2007, when a far higher percentage of the american public was against the war in iraq and everybody pretty much aside from a few was against the surge. nevertheless president bush went ahead with the surge and it turned around the situation in iraq and once the situation on the ground started turning around public opinion started turning around. you hardly hear anybody talking about iraq any more. it is not that controversial because we have been relatively successful the last couple of years. the reason why the public is so alarmed and upset about afghanistan, i think, is not because we're there in the first place, it is war that almost everybody supported to begin

with. the reason people are unhappy is had he don't see us making progress. that is the biggest problem. the reason we are not makie progress is we haven't had the right tragedy and the reason for that is we haven't had the resources to carry out the right strategy. so i would urge president obama to ignore the short-term public opinion polls and take a look at our long-term interests which is increasing the resources to general mcchris technical and carrying out a counterinsurgency. once he does that, assuming we start to show gains on the ground i predict you will see public opinion turn around and becoming much more support active of the war in afgh afghanistan. .

caller: my other question is this -- guest: what is the implication to draw from that? caller: my uncle serves in the special forces of the army. my brothers served with the strike to repeat in iraq. my uncle is gung-ho. my brother has come home after two tours completely disillusioned. he opted out of the military just so he would not have to go to afghanistan. my question to you is that if he had served, you might understand it in the capacity of the

soldiers. my second question is whether you think the real lesson from vietnam is that we should not be engaged in these conflicts across the globe that could end in an outcome that could be dishonorable to the united states. guest: let me say that i honor the service of the caller's family. if most people are disillusioned and have turned against it, i do not see much evidence of that being the case. the strongest evidence is in the reenlistment rates. they are very high. i have found in visits to afghanistan and iraq that morale is generally very high among the troops that are in the most danger. i would not be advocating something that was opposed by most folks in the military who have to bear the burden of service. i am acutely conscious of the

fact that they are much more exposed than i or others who are opining about these matters from the state. the troops want to be there. they feel like they're doing a good job. they feel like what they're doing is incredibly important. i think that is the majority sentiment that i have heard expressed by our fighting men and women. the second part of the question was whether we should avoid ill- revised foreign adventures that could lead to disasters. unfortunately, every war runs the risk of defeat. we ran that risk in the world wars and in vietnam and in korea. there are very few wars where there is a certainty about the outcomes. you have to risk it if you feel that the objectives are important enough to fight for. i feel the objectives in afghanistan are important enough to fight for. i do not think the probability of defeat is very high if we

make the kind of commitment that we need to make and that we can make in order to secure a better future for afghanistan and secure our own security. host: his master's degree is from yale. his books include "war made it nenew." we have a twitcter comment. she is referring to the stories of allegations of misconduct of contractors in detention duty in afghanistan. i wanted to use that as a segue into the august 3 peaciece in "e weekly standard." what is your point there? guest: are you asking about contractors or retention

policies? host: well, they are connected, are they? guest: the detention facilities are not operated by contractors. i do not think they should be. let me comment on the general issue of contractors first, then i will get to detentions. we are very reliant on contractors in iraq and afghanistan for a single reason. our army is too small. this is one of the biggest mistakes that president bush made, not enlarging the army after 9/11. it was dramatically downsize after the end of the cold war. in the early 1990's, we had an army of more than 700,000 active duty. by the time of the iraq war in 2003, we were down to about 530,000. that has only risen to about 550,000 today. that is not big enough to handle all the challenges we confront in places like afghanistan and iraq. we need to substantially enlarge the size of the army, probably

back to the cold war size force of the least 700,000. if we do that, we will be less reliant on contractors who do have discipline problems and are not as good as the men and women in uniform. you asked about the detention policy. that is another issue we need to address in afghanistan as part of an overall strategy for success. one of the things we did during the surge in iraq in 2007 is that we not only increased the number of troops on the streets, but we also increased the number of terrorism suspects that we were locking up. the number of detainees in a rock increased to 24,000 in 2008. as a result, he saw a dramatic drop in crime on the streets. if there are less criminals, there is less crime. in afghanistan, we have not been locking up nearly enough wrongdoers. we're only detaining about 600 at the facility. the nato forces and allies do

not the detentions at all. they do not want to beat in that business. there are a lot of people running of around with guns and bombs doing a lot of nasty things in afghanistan that desperately need to be locked away for the safety of the population. as we increase the troop numbers, we will also have to increase the number of detainees. we will have to do it in a responsible and humane manner as we have done in iraq since the scandal at of the grapabu ghrai. we need to replicate that policy in afghanistan. the next host: call is from pennsylvania on the independent line. what is your question, dave? caller: i agree on his assessment that the bush administration should have increased the size of the army. i was sitting here listening and cogitating about what i wanted

to ask. i think afghanistan is important enough that we should have implemented a draft back in 2001 and sent more combat troops. what can we do about the backers of al qaeda and the taliban better working against our efforts -- that are working against our efforts? guest: that is a very good question. that is something we need to think about. a lot of the funding for the taliban is coming from the rich individuals in the gulf, from saudi arabia and other countries that our american allies. they're not doing enough to police the activities of their own citizens. their citizens are continuing to provide financial support for terrorist groups. we have had some success in addressing that since 9/11, but i think we need to put more pressure on those governments to work with our treasury department to stop the flow of money that is going into the

hands of these dangerous extremist groups. that goes along with the tensions and other issues we need to address as part of an overall strategy for success in afghanistan. host: max boot is joining us today. washington, d.c., is up next. go ahead. caller: we have been 40 years in afghanistan. you have stated -- we have been in afghanistan for four years. the real reason we do not have a chance of succeeding in afghanistan or rockets because of the geneva convention. there is this politically correct garbage that was put together after 1949 that made it impossible. that is what is happening. we will fail. there is no question in my mind. these people will turn on each

other. that is what is going to happen. that is all i have to say. thank you. guest: i'm not sure how the caller concludes it is impossible for us to win wars involving muslims. i think we have been doing pretty well since 2007. we have been doing it by observing the geneva conventions and the laws of war. it is our enemies that do not observe the laws of war. i think we've done pretty well. when week deviated from the accepted norms of conduct, it was an enormous setback for the american war effort. we are able to fight within of rules and still be successful. we have shown that in iraq. i think we can show that in afghanistan. american restraint and the use of force will pay off by bein bringing more of the population over to our side.

host: this question comes to us by e-mail. guest: the perception that the karzai government is corrupt and inefficient, and the reality, it is very harmful for our efforts in afghanistan. that is something we need to address. we need to strive to make sure that the election results from the last election are perceived as being fair and honest. there have been some legitimate questions raised about those results in recent weeks. we need to strive to create a government that works much better in afghanistan. it is not just a question of karzai. it is down the line. we should not just be focusing on the president and kabul. we should be focusing on the provincial and district level. we should be in betting advisers with the district officials,

governors. we should be pushing for the governors to be elected by the people rather than appointed by the president. we need to push for greater accountability for the government. we need to push for greater resources and efficiency for government. it is easy to bemoan karzai's failings, but nobody would be a perfect canada or miraculously turn around the situation in afghanistan. -- no one would be a perfect candidate or miraculously turn around the situation in afghanistan. it has been devastated by decades of war. we need to focus on the top and on the bottom. we need to rebuild the grassroots capacity that afghanistan needs going forward. host: fran is from washington, d.c., on the democrats' line. caller: if the war in afghanistan is a true war on terror, why did the bush and

administration continued to try to justify diverting the military resources to iraq? what about oil? guest: i do not agree that iraq was a war fought about oil. we went into iraq because we were afraid that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. that was a view shared by all the intelligence services of the world. that war was supported by 70% of the american people. the failure happened even before the war in a lot happened. we tried a light footprint approach in afghanistan. we thought if we put too many troops in there, there would be too much resentment of american occupiers. that backfired. we left a security vacuum in afghanistan. the taliban were able to come in, intimidate the people, and stage a resurgence. i think we should have been able to fight on two fronts at the

same time just as in world war ii. we thought germany and japan. they were far more potent threats. i think if president bush had increased the size of our armed forces after 9/11, we would have had greater capacity to meet both challenges. i do not think we should ignore the potential threat emanating from iraq to focus solely on afghanistan. we needed to deal with both. now that we have iraq and a more stable situation, we cannot divert more resources to afghanistan without jeopardize and the future of iraq. host: we have just a couple of minutes left with max boot. albuquerque is up next. caller: i will give you a simple question. do you favor a draft? then i will make the statement i have been holding for a long time to make. you have danced around the poppy

and drug issue. a large group of people believe that the war afghanistan is all about the heroin. i would not expect you to know at the cia is involved in selling the heroin that comes out of there. i would not expect you to comment on that. but there is a lot of speculation that the war in iraq was about oil and that the war in afghanistan is about the heroin. do you favor a draft? thank you, sir. guest: to some extent, the war in afghanistan does involve heroin or opium. opium production is one of the ways the the taliban finance themselves. i would not make unfounded speculations about the cia being involved in selling heroin. you should have a darn good evidence before you make charges like that. i have not seen any credible evidence to substantiate any charge like that.

i am not in favor of the draft. i think we have a magnificent all-volunteer force that could be enlarged. most folks in uniform will tell you that they love the kind of force that we have. the troops are highly motivated professionals. they do not think it would have the same caliber of troops if they had unwilling civilians drag into uniforms. for that reason, i am not in favor of a draft of this country -- for a draft at this time. host: we have the last call. caller: i think people in academic positions are also project. i have a question about as we build the security forces in afghanistan. do you find a problem that the country has been ravaged by war, poverty, lack of education -- is

there a problem to find a pool to pull from to rebuild? guest: that is a very good question. a lot of afghans are willing and happy to join the afghan army. it is a high-quality force, but it is small. it is very hard to have a cadre of officers. very few people in afghanistan are illiterate. there if you have the experience and skills to be leaders in his professional military. that is a real challenge that we face. -- very few people have the experience and skills to be leader in this professional military. that is a real challenge that we face. one historian has a very good idea. he says we should create new afghan army units were the soldiers are afghans but the officers are americans. we can supply that kind of leadership while making news of

the tremendous fighting potential and spirit of the ordinary afghan people. we have done that before in many conflicts from the philippines to vietnam and many others. i think that is the kind of creative solution we need to think about in the short term in order to build up the afghan security forces to deal with a threat that they face right now. in the long term, we can work to create wholly indigenous security forces. i think that is doable, but it will take some time. we do not have a lot of time given the gravity of the threat we face right now. host: will the details of the mcchrystal report be made public? guest: i do not know. i have heard that the speculations and resources will come down later this month. i do not know when they will make those public. host: thank you very much for joining us the morning after the statement from the defense

secretary and from the joint chiefs and for adding your views on the direction of american policies. we appreciate you being here and expressing your point of view. guest: thank you. host: our final story will be about a court case on campaign financing. it is time to return to the hot line first. amy walter is with us. with congress coming back, are the political stories suggesting that the political landscape has changed for congress as a result of the town hall meetings? >> whether it is the town hall meetings or appalling, i think a lot of democrats are coming back feeling much less confident about their own standing on policy and their political

standing. a number of polls have been released in the last few weeks showing that president obama's approval ratings are starting to slip. other members of congress are starting to see their own numbers slip. i think saying it is directly related to the town halls is stretching it. i think the overall message from august is that the democrats have lost the momentum. the voters are not feeling as enthusiastic in their support for democrats or for president obama. i think the most dangerous number that came out for democrats and one that they are all looking at today as they think about their trip to washington is one that came out from the poll earlier this week that showed the very important number where voters are asked for who they would vote for an upcoming election. it is now tied. the democrats had a 12 point

lead on that in 2007. there is a lot of enthusiasm for republicans. host: thank you for the update. it will prove to be an interesting september. let me introduce you to our final test of the morning, adam liptak from "the new york times." let's start with the investiture process for the supreme court. talk about the court that she is joining. guest: the process is a lovely formality. nothing of substance happens there. it is a way for her friends and colleagues to celebrate her joining. the court she is joining is closely divided. she is coming in to replace david souter.

he was a liberal vote. she is expected to be the same. she does not fundamentally alter the court. host: least something yesterday about the dynamic inside the court when a new justice comes in. i would like to show the clarence thomas clip if we have an available. it is ready. we will come back and discuss what you know about the dynamic in the supreme court. >> you are bringing in a family member. it changes the whole family. it is different today than what it was when i first got here. i have to a net, you wrote very fond of the court that you have spent a long time on. there was a time there with chief justice rehnquist and

justice o'connor when we had a long run together. you get comfortable with that. then it changes. now, it is changing again. the institution, the nine, it is different. you have to start all over. the chemistry is different. host: is the new justice just about the dynamics among the nine? is it larger than that? guest: it does not look like the voting will change fundamentally. many justices will tell you that anytime a new justice arrives, we have a new supreme court. they have to interact with each other every day and work closely together. what you have heard from justice thomas and what you will hear from other justices is that these are older folks were not happy to have changed. they like the way it was. it takes them a little while to integrate a new personality into

the court. host: next week, there is every argument of the case. how often does it we hear a case? -- how often does it rehear a case? guest: it is quite rare. it is usually for a procedural reason. in this case, it seems that they discovered a large issue in what seemed to be a small case. they want to your argument before they make what could be a really important decision. host: the genesis of this case was a video that was made for last year's election by a group called citizens united. we're going to show you a little bit from the trailer. then i will tell us what is at the heart of the case. >> she is driven by the power. she is driven to get the power. that is the driving force in her life. >> she is steeped in

controversy and sleaze. that is why they do not want us to look to her record. >> it is worth remembering that after her health care fiasco, the clinton team put it aside. >> you have to ask whether she has learned a lot from that experience. it was a failure. she knows it was a failure. it was an embarrassing failure for her. >> she is a person who is struggling with figuring out who she is or how she wants to present herself to the american public. >> she is deceitful. she will make up any store, lie about anything, as long as it answers her purpose at the moment. the american people are going to catch on to it. >> a cannot think of any other politician in history of that shown such a disrespect and contempt for the constitution and the rule of law as hillary.

i represented the nixon-- richard nixon's best friend. i knew richard nixon. she is much worse. host: that was a clip from "hillary: the movie." it is widely available on the internet. guest: question is whether this 90-minute documentary to be treated the same way as political advertising. there is a law that says during some campaign periods, certain broadcast communications cannot be shown if they were financed by corporations. you have a 90-minute movie, a documentary that is relentlessly negative about hillary clinton. at the same time, it is a kind of political speech that has been thought to be protected at the core of the first amendment. it can be banned from the

airways under the federal law. the question before the court initially was whether it was really that kind of movie and whether we should treat a documentary the same way as a 30-second ad that you get assaulted by a tribe to which a tv show. there are little questions in the case. instead of deciding the case by june, they set this for argument again to ask a bigger question. the bigger question is whether we should overrule a 20-year presicedent that said that the government can regulate the speech of corporations. all the sudden, this quirky little movie has turned into a big question about whether the government can regulate corporate speech or whether we can allow corporations to flood the market place with all kinds

of ads or documentary's that support or oppose political candidates. host: in addition to the arguments made by the sides of the case, there are briefs that people can file on one side or the other. you have reported that there are over 50 in this case. is that unusual? guest: it is a very large number. it may be a record or close to it. this really engages people. there are very strong views on both sides. people were usually allies managed to think about the case in very different ways. some people think it is up first amendment issue, the public should not be denied the opportunity to hear vigorous political debate, including the relentlessly nasty communication that this movie represents. other people think that allowing corporations to play will make the playing field so uneven that

will drowned out real political discourse and represent a threat to democracy. host: another interesting thing about this case is that a brand new solicitor general will be arguing the case against a former solicitor general. talk about that. guest: it is really a clash of titans. we have the former dean of harvard law school and a first- rate lawyer, but not known yet is a great appellate advocate making her debut at the supreme court. on the other side, you have olson who was the solicitor general in the bush administration. he defended the mccain-fine eingold law. -- he defended the mccain-fein gold law. host: what are you anticipating

that the supreme court plaza will look like on wednesday? guest: there will be a long line of people waiting to get in. they like to take a summer break. for them to come back almost a month early to hear this is interesting in itself. host: our telephones are lighting up. let's get to your calls. john is on the republican line. caller: this is john from palatine know, illinois. -- this is john from illinois. the supreme court is like any other body in the government. there basically it lobbyists -- they are basically lobbyists. i believe the supreme court will go the way that the lobbyists want them to go. that is not in the interest of the american people. that is all i have to say about it. guest: it is an interesting point, but i disagree in this way. lobbyists and a lot more power

over people who have to seek reelection. the justices are appointed for life. it gives them a measure of independence. i think they think of themselves that way as well. host: this is dan. caller: we just had max boot on who made all sorts of declarative statements as if he spoke with some sort of authority. it is the media that makes it that way. it gives people time to present their views. everything is so declare to. nothing is argued or discussed. -- everything is so declar ative. nothing is argued or discussed. the question with this ad is whether the artificial corp oration has the same speech rights as individuals. the basic problem is not with

this program. it is an attack akin to the pro- afghan wars statement made. it was a total exaggeration. the question is, is the real person? he had the right to speak. this is what he did. a bunch of people did the same thing. they put their money in as an artificial individual or corporation to practice free- speech. guest: make an interesting point of whether we should treat corporations differently. i think lots of organizations that we agreed should have free speech rights are organized as corporations. my employer, the "near times -- the "new york times,"is a

corporation. maybe listeners should be allowed to exposed to all points of view and decide for themselves what the right answer is. host: we have a viewer that has sent a twitter message. it has been widely available since last year. guest: has been on the internet. it is available for purchase on dvd. it was shown in some movie theaters. i do not think it did very well. i am not sure it is out of keeping with other documentary's across the political spectrum. it is a-look at political tenets of the sort that we've seen 200 years ago, 100 years ago, and now today. host: is at issue is not the availability but the availability as video-on-demand?

guest: became law only applies to broadcast satellite and cable transmissions. it does not include all technology like newspapers or new technology like the internet. in the first case, the lawyer asked whether congress could hypothetically ban books. he candidly said yes. if it was financed by corp. and distributed during a certain time. , it could be banned. -- if it was financed by a corporation and distributed during a certain time period, it could be banned. caller: nothing is more important than this issue. if we had real campaign finance reform, the rich and powerful

could not control this country anymore. if democrats have lost momentum, it is because the insurance industry has spent almost $1.5 million per day to brainwash the public's against health care reform. that is spent on advertising in the media and campaign money for the corporate blue dog democrats. it is bribery. the supreme court does not have the guts to do anything that would make a difference on this issue that affects all other issues and the future of our country. that is campaign finance reform. thank you. guest: a thing that is a vigorous articulation of one side of the debate. -- i think that is a vigorous articulation of one side of the debate. the other side of the debate is that free speech issues are very important as well and that people can be trusted to distinguish between good and bad ideas.

host: how many reviews of the mccain-feingold laws has it undertaken? guest: it was upheld in 2003. the roberts course seems to be hostile to campaign finance laws. there have been baby steps. this is the first kind of big one. host: david is on the republican line. caller: i think mr. liptak it away some of his thoughts on the issue. he said that people were assaulted by 30-second commercials. i have never been assaulted by a television show or commercial in my life. i come from the other side. i think there should be unlimited speech. one of the original readings of

the first amendment was to protect political speech. i am amazed that we're coming up on the third mccain-feingold case. i hope the reason they wanted to be argued again was to take a broader look at it and start down more of it. i think that is what they're looking at. i hope that is what they are looking at. unions can put their money into campaigns. corporations can put their money into campaigns. guys like george soros pour millions of dollars into the campaign finance systems. i feel that if they do look at this hard, they will strike down more of it than people thought the originally void.

guest: i think you're quite right. i think they will take a look at it to do something broader. my comment about being assaulted was to draw this distinction. there is the difference between an uninvited ad and a video on demand program. that does strike me as being different in kind. if i care enough to learn about "hillary: the movie,"that is a little bit different from watching a football game and getting political advertising it is a distinction that the supreme court might increase. host: someone has tweeted us. does this case deal with the question of whether corporations have the same speech rights as

people? guest: it certainly does. that could be a ground on which the court decides. it will be a point that the liberals make. a lot of people think that when they buy a share of general motors, they're hoping it makes good cars not that will make interesting political ads. media corp's speak all the time. a part of general electric, nbc news, can say anything it would like. another part of general electric cannot. it is hard to know where to draw the line between the two. caller: i tend to be an anti- marxist in thinking. i tend to think that way myself in politics these days. i think the infusion of money into politics ends up o

influencing our government too much. could you comment on the development in the court or subsequent challenges to restrictions on campaign contributions like davis v. fec. in britain, they have a much shorter campaign season. much shorter truncated amounts of money can be spent by the major parties. i am wondering about the sort of development. you can put this at both ends of the spectrum.

it could be health care, military contractors, republicans. it seems to polarize things because we do not have restrictions that limit us to individual contributions by individual voters. every time there is some reform, there are loopholes that go around. the first thing i can cite is buckley vs. vallejo. guest: you are right in saying other countries would not tolerate this. they have much stricter finance laws. on the other hand, britain has a much less robust commitment to free speech. we have different traditions. the history of the supreme court decisions in this area, even think about two ends of the

spectrum. corporations are allowed to put up campaign advertising supporting ballot initiatives. they have said that they can be stopped putting up ads supporting individual candidates. we do not regulate corporate speech in general, but we do regulate it in terms of specific candidates. on the other end of the spectrum, the supreme court said that contributions to candidates by individuals or corporations can be limited, but that the individual expenditures of people cannot. if george soros wants to put up millions of dollars in ads, he may. but so far, general motors may not. michael more wanted to advertise "fahrenheit 9/11" on

television. there was no question he could show it in theaters. if he wanted to advertise it in mission george bush by name, the legal advice he got was that he could not during the campaign season. there is a similarity that runs through this. some people have said that " hillary" is not inherently different in kind. host: akron, ohio, this is dan. caller: i am a first-time caller. i'm concerned that each person have an equal voice in the election. when it comes down to campaign finance, how does the supreme court looked at thassuring that

all the people have an equal voice to speak and receive information? guest: i think you put a nice way. there is tension between liberty and equality. in a democracy, everyone gets one vote. on the other hand, you want everyone to be able to say what they like. some people have more money, power, access to the airwaves, and might be able to say more. the question then arises about whether the government should step in and try to equalize the volume of these different voices or should we allow everyone to say whatever they like as loudly as possible and trust people to make distinctions among ideas they agree with and ideas they do not agree with. host: regarding the circumstances of this particular movie --

guest: i think that is a fairly powerful argument. that is a distinction that the supreme court may still draw. it is that we do not have to decide the big question today because we can go off on this smaller ground. there is a difference between having to go look for something the you're already inclined to hear and having people provide you with information at times you may not want it. host: sarasota on the independent line. caller: i think it is true that if you go on-line to look for something, you can look at anything you want. when you go to a movie, you pretty much know what you're going to see. if you turn on the tv and our bond added -- and are bombarded by ads, that is different. i think we need to either eliminate private financing altogether, but that is a pipe

dream. or we should get the fec involved in making sure that there is a balance. all the money in the world can buy only an equal amount of time as limited resources could. there has to be some method or technique of doing that. i wonder what your expert feels about the prospects of such a thing. they do. i will take my answer off the air. -- thank you. i will take my answer off the air. guest: a thinking makes an interesting point. i think it happening through the fcc is unlikely. i think it could only reach broadcast communications. so much of what we see on tv these days is on cable. that is generally beyond the purview of the fcc. with the rise of the internet, some of these issues may be of the last century. in short order, all of this activity may be taking place on the internet.

it should be. the law does not draw any distinctions between supporting and opposing candidates. host: santa ana, this is douglas on the republicans line. caller: i want to refer to recent examples of fannie mae and freddie mac giving millions to candidates in both the house and the senate in order to clearly killed government regulation that was proposed to reign in some of the subprime lending that was going on and reign in the government- sponsored enterprises. they're taking what should be used for loans and affecting legislation by giving millions

to candidates that agree with them that they should not be further regulated. i think this is ludicrous. the government sponsored enterprise should be giving money to campaigns. guest: it is hard to disagree with that. i would say that this case does not involve contributions. this case involves so-called independent expenditures where a corporation goes and puts on ads supporting or opposing, or documentary's supporting or opposing, a candidate. host: the next call is from fort wayne on the democrats' line. caller: i want to make a statement and ask a question. i have watched the senate closely.

it is my belief that neither feingold nor mccain to be called an intellectual giant of the senate. if either one had an original thought, it died of loneliness. with that being said, my question is whether you think the supreme court is considering the source? it is not like mccain or feingold are in the lead of john adams or thomas paine. are in the league of john adams or thomas paine. guest: both senators are very serious about this matter. the supreme court does not consider his sponsors a bill. they consider what the law is. host: you talked earlier about the size and how they are lining up. you say the case has deepened a

profound split among liberals. guest: on one side, you have the traditional first amendment absoluteists. you have the aclu along with groups like the nra. on the other side, you have other groups that are much more concerned with what they perceive as a threat to the democratic process. they're more concerned with that and stthan free speech and valu. caller: i have one serious question. why is it that anybody who is not a living, breathing, a registered voter -- why is anybody besides a natural human

being able to contribute to any political campaign at all? if i own shares in any corporation whether they are politically active or not, the money they spend in political speech should go on the bottom line and beat the issue to me as a dividend and a profit. they should not have that right to take my money and use it for a purpose that i never intended. i will take your answers off of the air. thank you. guest: lots of media corporations speak. the "new york times" speaks through its editorial page. we do not send people to check when we do that. you make interesting points about furthering the interests

of the corporation. if the corporation disclosed that they might make ads if they think will help the business, it might take away some of the force of what the caller just suggested. there is quite a lot of argument in this case that corporations should be treated differently from individuals and that the forum matters a lot. host: some people are frustrated by the involvement of ted olson. guest: he had of rola role in te clinton wars way back when. the man who made this documentary with after the clintons are during that administration.

he has in general take a libertarian view on questions like speech and campaign finance. what is a little surprising is that as solicitor general in the bush administration, he did defend the mccain-feingold law. but that was his job. caller: before the democratic party came into being, we just have the republican party. corporations and people that have money ran the country. the little man had no rights. i really think the supreme court should think about that. i think this "hillary" way is just to help the republicans get back in power. guest: the principle involved cuts across political lines.

no distinction could be made between a pro-hillary movie. it would be treated the same way under the law. guest: cigarette ads are restricted, but not because corporations put them up. if an individual put one up, it could be restricted as well. the government has some interest in regulating commercial speech, particularly when questions of how are involved. the fact that several people put their money together and form a corporation to put up an ad is not obviously mean that the ad can be regulated. lots and lots of media corporations generally thought to be entitled to first

amendment protection speak publicly. while it does have an exception for news commentary and reports, it is not obvious where you draw the line between the "near timw york times, nbc, and other corporations. host: what did you learn about sonia sotomayor's involvement? guest: she was a very active questioner who is deeply engaged. it will be interesting to see issues like that right out of the box on wednesday. host: we have five minutes left with adam liptak. we're talking about a special hearing of the supreme court case that deals with campaign finance next week. what happens between then and

the first monday in october? guest: they can issued their opinion when they like. i would expect it fairly soon. the first monday in october, the term starts. this looks like an interesting term. there are a lot of good cases. we're going to have a case about whether juvenile offenders who did not kill anyone can be sentenced to life without parole. we know that juvenile offenders cannot be executed under a recent decision. we're now going to look at life without parole. there is another case about whether congress can get around the separation of church and state by selling a tiny piece of land on which a cross stands. there is a very interesting case about depictions of animal cruelty and whether congress can make a crime to buy and sell those kinds of videos.

host: ocean city, new jersey, and john. go ahead. caller: there was an interesting state case that did not give the attention it was entitled to during the 2004 electorion. there was a very vitriolic anti- kerry video. they sued for libel and were able to suppress the distribution. i wonder if corporations are treated differently in libel law than individuals. perhaps that is the reason why corporations want to be able to produce these vigorous anti- candidate productions, because they are exempt from libel action. i understand that candidates are not protected.

guest: i will try to clear all of that up. i think you are a little bit tangled. a libel suit by itself only entitles you to damages. to be able to suppress a publication or broadcast through a libel suit is all but impossible. there is a common-law principle of no injunction in a libel suit. corporations and individuals are not treated differently if they are dependence. if they have libeled someone, they can be made to pay. host: this is an article by someone who was then fcc commissioner. one of the briefs was filed by a group of former commissioners. how common is that? guest: you see that more and more with cases filed by former prosecutors and legislators.

when you're trying to decide which ones to because the, that is one of those that will be read more closely. host: michael, are you there? sorry about that. with regard to the number of justices that have been involved in the issue before, it is all but three. guest: we have a pretty good sense. we have three of the conservative justices almost sure votes to strike down the precedent and allow corporations to say what they like. the two new justices have also been hostile in smaller steps to campaign finance regulation. this is one of the rare cases where the replacement has really made a difference. you have seen the5- 5-4