solomon. and ilan berman looks at how the obama administration can gain leverage over iran in nuclear negotiations. >> not too long ago president obama stood there on that stage and he said the one single pledge of commitment that we ask every elected official he pledged a commitment of fidelity to the united states constitution. [cheers and applause.] >> he lied! he lied! . .

host: the president heads to new york tomorrow where he will talk to wall street investors. our focus for this first half hour, your reaction to what you might have seen yesterday. these tea party protest and its overall impact in the debate. what happens next?

we will also take your e-mails or send us a message by twitter. we will look at some headlines from the washington, d.c. newspapers. above the fold, concerning the capitol hill tea party. the expected a crowd of about 75,000, it cubudget could be larger. the reporters write that the tens of thousands of conservative protesters who are complaining that the nation is rushing towards socialism and massed outside of capital.

also, this morning if you go to the website the question is that the tea party has angkor, but no dominant leader -- that is on cnn.com. karen is joining us from richmond, virginia. caller: i think it will continue to go on, to be honest. they said after the tax rally that it would drop off earlier, but it did not. it seems to be gaining momentum. they do have a big voice and people are continually turning in. an interesting thing yesterday is that there were police near the cnn reporters as people were

lining up. i found that interesting. host: could you please stay on the line? there's a piece this morning in "the new york daily news" focusing on glenn beck. a couple of samples from beck, he called president obama races to has a deep-seated hatred for white people. he says that the nation is headed towards a fascist state. this piece obviously is in part because of the resignation of those two acorn employees. what role does glenn beck play in the dialogue or debate?

caller: he plays a huge role in his writings cannot be ignored. when i first saw him i thought he was a little bit crazy. i don't agree with him when he says that obama is a racist. i do agree that there is a march towards socialism. if you go back to what obama says in the lead up to the elections, he did not lie. he told america that he wanted to change america. beck against that and so are the millions on the mall yesterday. host: thank you for the call. there are various estimates about the numbers of people gathered anywhere from 75,000 up to 100,000. you are right that it was a huge crowd, no doubt about it. we're joined from new york on

the line for democrats. caller: good morning. you are just beaming. let me talk about the tea party. if you stop and say everyone there yesterday, not everybody -- is paying less taxes today than when obama took office. that is federal taxes because of the income tax reduction he gave everybody. there will have more to say when congress eliminates the bush tax cuts. the 99% of those people are paying less tax. if they really wanted to read the public option bill, and 9.9% of them would probably save

$3,000 per year on their health care. there has got to be something wrong. -- 99.9% of them would pay less. i did not see any minorities there. it does not make sense. they have party got tax cuts coming. then yesterday morning they said there would be two and half billion people there. there were more people at the end zone at the georgia-florida football game. i was there that game, so i know. have a good one. host: some of the video we're showing to you from our coverage and from the small foot cameras as we traveled along the mall.

we'll continue to show that to you as we listen to derrick from atlanta. what is next for these tea party caller: protesters first of all, i would like to make a couple of points. the first is this -- president obama, he won the election by a large majority of the vote. if all these people would have come not to protest it would look like they won, but really they're just sore losers. when judge bush won it was contested. -- when george bush won. people eventually came back and got together again, they did not allowed to protest initially when he got elected. these people are just angry.

they're getting tax cuts. 99% of the people are getting tax cuts in their checks every week. it is not about tax cuts. what i want -- and one of pretax is for these wars. you have a group of people, most of whom are white people of a certain age. -- one of these i do not want to pay taxes for is these wars. host: this is from the philadelphia paper. he also campaigned in minneapolis on health care yesterday. next is chris on the republican line from tampa. caller: good morning. great, i really want to thank c- span for covering the full extent of the rally, beginning at 1:00 p.m. host: is also posted on our

website, c-span.org. caller: it was excellent coverage and none of the other news media covered it at all. i do believe there were far more people than 75,000. i would like to ask one question. i saw that you highlighted an article and i only just turned on your show. it was talking about lynn back -- and glenn beck. host: it was from "the new york post." caller: why is the media attacking him when it is he who expandexposed glenn beck. he exposed acorn, and now four people have been fired.

those are real results from his work. he is not even a journalist, only a commentator. yet the major networks have not even reported on it. host: let me first review from this article. the reporter says that glenn back is the hottest right-wing voice on the air. he argued that powerful sinister voices were trying to destroy america. there is fear among his credits among, conservatives that there could be likely targets. the resignations that you pointed out were there. there's also a quotation from kessler.

caller: you know, i don't believe any threats against obama are the result of any commentator whatsoever. i can turn on msnbc and the threats i hear from them concerning republicans thema pro-lifer was killed on the street? where is the media coverage on that? i have an important question that i think is important. president obama had healthcare town hall yesterday from washington, d.c., and scheduled to coincide directly with the timeframe of the purchase. this protest has been planned for eight months. when was president obama's town

hall scheduled? why do you think it is that he was competing in my mind, said something to compete with these protesters? obviously, the networks will not cover it anyway. don't you think that is a question the media ought to ask? host: it was not in washington, but his town hall was at minneapolis. he was at the target center. you're right that it was about one hour after the tea party moved from its plaza to the rally in front of the of capital. caller: so, msnbc and cnn cover the president, not the rally. host: we cover the whole rally.

we also covered his remarks. cnn and fox cover the rally, not in total, but they did cover it. caller: yes, they cover the march, but not the rally. host: will go next to michele from atlanta. caller: i have no problem with people protesting. this is a free country. my issue is that the last eight years we have seen the federal budget tripled. that is when we cut the deficit. there were no protests. to me i cannot take it seriously when there were no protests them. obama one so many votes, 59 votes against john mccain. we had an election. the more upset -- if you think about it, obama has not done a

lot for these people to be so upset. he has not exploded the federal budget. i wonder about the people who accuse him of being a socialist really understand what a socialist means, understand what hitler did? they are diminishing what hitler did, and what socialism is. that is not what this president is proposing. me being a democrat, i actually think he is quite moderate. i cannot take it seriously when they are protesting the federal budget exploding over eight years after they had a surplus. it is disingenuous. host: here is a message from twitter. they could not get the store because of rude protesters shouting them down -- that is the view of someone who watched the cnn coverage yesterday.

here this reporter writes that medicare is going broke and health care costs are rising faster than the rate of inflation. within years medicare will add billions to the budget deficits. also, this morning, george mcgovern has a piece saying that the plan should be medicare for all. here is part of what he said in his radio and internet address. >> lose your job, changer job, or start your own business, you will be able to get your own coverage. i will not sign a plan that adds

one dime to our deficits, period. this plan will be paid for. they're middle class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. if we can slow the growth of health-care costs by .11% -- .1% each year, it will reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term. this from george mcgovern says -- is simple. medicare for all. the ft one simple healthcare we can achieve it with a simple sentence, congress hereby extends medicare to all americans. meanwhile, from those washington

paper, their view is that it takes guts for democrats to claim that a bill takes health insurance will encourage more people to get private insurance. this fine pint -- at every turn costs are increased with no way for industry to recoup the money. over time this will drive private companies out of business. we're asking you about these tea party protests with hundreds along the mall in washington yesterday. what is next? how is this impact the debate here on the hill? good morning. caller: yes, i am concerned about how the money is being channeled to these two parties

-- tea parties and his wonder if the k-street corporate lawyers who are leading us into corporate international fascism as with united healthcare with the $1.3 billion parachute plan for his retirement, and you think back to 1922 when henry ford wrote a book about the federal reserve, what that was all about, how in 1970 to henry kissinger and richard nixon stood on the great wall of china and talked about how they could use the cheap labor over there -- so, glenn baeck, i think he is an instrument in meeting these people into believing that they need to work against their own best interest. so, it sounds like a ponzi scheme and a disney production all rolled into one. thank you.

host: more opinions this morning on the president's speech. this one from frank rich inside the we can review section. his conclusion -- obama's squandered summer. he left a the silly season run amok. good morning, chicago. caller: good morning. i would like to talk about michael savage who has never been addressed on television. that man is a tv -- and i mean radio host, and he has been banned from great britain. it is strange -- not tv, nor radio, nor is piper's thought about why he was banned. host: i have read about it in a number of publications. caller: wow, because it is

really not getting out much. i appreciate c-span coverage. america coming to washington, d.c., to show the protest against. against -- against government, higher taxes, and health care. host: you're looking at the front page of "the washington post" -- the quotation of someone saying that nobody is standing up for us, so we have to stand up for ourselves. the headline here, washington wall street goes to washington. in the year since the investment bank lehman brothers collapsed, wall street has looked south to forge new business strategies.

it also says that washington has become a dominant player in the financial industry. over the years the fed and the treasury have injected trillions of dollars and to present financial markets. that is this morning from the front page of "the washington post." madison, wisconsin, what does all this mean? caller: it is important to remember that the tea party protest have no inherent meaning. there is meaning given to them. let me address, people were at

the protest yesterday. you just looked at the number, 100,000, host: you said it is hard to gauge. some reports said there were close to 1 million which is probably not accurate. the demonstrators expected between 25,000 and 50,000 in attendance. "the washington times" it said it was between 75,000 and 100,000. it is safe to say that it was larger than expected. caller: i'm trying to say that the media is giving these people more attention than demonstrations in the past that have been much larger. how about the demonstration prior to the invasion of iraq? these are much larger demonstrations then prior to vietnam. they're close to 1 million people in new york city alone.

maybe 70,000 people on the mall with these tea parties? and the media is treating them as if they deserve attention but they are only a small slilver of the u.s. populace. the media is giving the more attention than they deserve. host: do you think we should have covered the event yesterday? caller: yes, that was legitimate for you to cover it. but here at these town hall meetings, a few hundred people -- people who care about health care, these are people against it. they are more vocal about their feelings than those who are for health care. there will be there shouting down people. the media gives them attention because of the drama that these people cause. but the people who are for health care reform will stay at

home, not be out there shouting down other people. thank you. host: things for the call, john. here is another message by twitter. it says that he does not get the teap party end game, and he does not see them helping the president. in advance of obama's visit the minnesota republican party issued this advertisement. >> we will change this country and we would change the world. thank you, minn., i love you. >> but now he is pushing a risky healthcare plan that would cut medicare, raise taxes, ration care, and explode the deficit. mr. president, let's slow down and do healthcare reform the right way. the republican party of minnesota it is responsible for the content of this advertising.

host: here is the story from inside the new york paper, thousands rally in minnesota. the red 15,000 in attendance. the rally was the first in a series of presidential events intended to whip up public support for health-care overhaul. one of his biggest obstacles is winning support from middle- class workers who already have insurance, so he is stepping up his warning that people could lose coverage at any time. we're joined from denmark, wisconsin, on the independent line. caller: i want to comment on the tea party. \ in the one article, the liberal gentleman called these people a mob, when in the 1960's it was people demonstrating in using their first amendment rights.

as for the article on glenn beck, people who have not watched him -- he is also very critical of the bush administration. he is not for one party or the other. this is the same with these tea parties -- it is people from across the spectrum who want government out of our lives. these i have heard earlier talking about race -- it has nothing to do with that. it has to do with government control. we're tired of government control from whatever party. host: we will go to youtom, from florida. -- we will go to tom. here's some sense of what people were doing and saying from inside "the washington post." caller: it is a battle -- in 80

years old, and i go back to bob taft. about every 80 years we have a resurgence of the people who are manipulated by media that was bought by the money controlled in the early 1900's. people need to remember that mortar owns fox and fox is now in a big battle -- murdoch owns fox, and they're in a big battle over advertising money. glenn beck was fired. he is an entertaining clown, but as recently, a little over one year ago he was downing the conservative movement -- he thought the $700 billion bailout was the right thing of the right time.

if they were credited of having created any of it -- c-span is the only one who covered any of it. fox was not even there. that should show people where the control is. i agree with the people in who were there, saying the estimates were more like 1 million, 1 million and a half. i have watched nearly every demonstration ever held up there. it is unbelievable. host: so, where does all of this go? where -- the store this morning on cnn.com, there were these demonstrations yesterday, there is no clear leader with these protests -- how would you answer where it goes next? caller: as the old preacher

says, we do not good to have an ad roatarians, or presbyterians -- we go individually. there is no such thing as society. there are individuals. the beautiful thing about the tea party movement is that it is made up of individuals made up at the local level. the fact they began this from a conference call with 22 gross -- girls -- they hit 17 cities in 22 days. that is the way those fire of individualism has swept across the country. you can give credit to ron paul. tate spoke yesterday.

there were 50 organizations, all colors. the best slogan that came out yesterday was -- i can remember who said it -- but anyway, the best expression -- it is the constitution, stupid. host: that is what the former congressmen dick armey was talking about. caller: yes, it is the constitution, stupid. an interesting question this morning ca morning callers, how many have recently read the constitution, or even have a copy in their home? host: do you? caller: i carry it in my pocket

and read it every morning with my devotional. the founders were smart enough to put in the declaration, rights come from men, and you change the men, you change the reds. our individual rights come from our creator. only god can change them. host: we appreciate your call. one of the photographs, stop the socialism, is a picture of one of the thousands on the mall. here in this news analysis, in the campaign mr. obama said the public plan would compete with private insurers on the price and quality of care. it would benefit consumers. mr. obama did not foresee that some people would think it was the most important issue end the debate, touching off a battle over the role of government in one of the nation's biggest,

fastest-growing industries. our guest will join us in just a few minutes. next, christine, from kalamazoo. caller: good morning. i found the whole situation confusing. all the different groups who were there certainly do not agree with each other about what is going on, especially as far as president obama is concerned. i'm a democrat, an active democrat. i feel the group that was there are filled with anger and hate. i didn't feel there was anyone really spending anything based on any particular -- spouting

anything based on the constitution other than we have the freedom of speech and freedom to gather to protest. that was the only thing they seemed to have in common with each other. it is kind of confusing when what you get out of it is hate. i am a regular viewer, good morning, steve -- anyway, it seems that what we are looking at in this country now is a lot of hatred towards the president. it has gotten to the point that it has begun to frighten me. i'm not the only one who feels that way. i have spoken to a lot of people in church and to my friends. church does not really have anything to do with it, yet the church seems to be having a lot

to do with it among some churches. yet i'm sitting here as a regular citizen who votes. i tried to stay well-informed, and find myself in a country that does not seem to be the same country i grew up in. i don't just mean violence, but people do not seem to understand that all of us have for them. the president is trying to do something for everyone. he said he would. the one thing he has managed to do for a lot of people is make them angry. host: thank you for the call. five committees are dealing with healthcare, three in the house, two in the senate. four have passed health care bills. they're now moving to the mark of process. -- the market up process. jeff bingaman will be our guest

at 6:00 p.m. as well as 10:00 a.m. >> i do think it is important that we go ahead and expand coverage to some, most of those folks who are uninsured now in order to reduce the cost- shifting. people who have insurance now pay over $1,000 per year on the average family policy to cover costs incurred by those without. >> through a public option kna? >> not necessarily, although i voted for a public option. the way it is

contemplated is that you would expand coverage and implementing these reforms. one additional way to try to bring competition to the market is to provide a public option. that would be another seller of health insurance that would be set up as a non-profit. it would be good, encourage competition, and help keep down the growth of premiums in the future. host: senator jeff bingaman is our guest on "newsmakers" in about two and a half hours. peter baker is joining us, a

contributor to "the new york times" weekend review. you said a couple weeks ago that in this summer of discontent for mr. obama as the early days give way to the grinding battle for a list of goals, the president looks ahead to an uncertain future, not only for his legislative agenda, but for what has indisputably become his war, that could not help but remind us of mr. johnson struggles to build a great society while fighting vietnam. the parallels between health care and other initiatives now on the agenda, and what he is dealing with in iraq and afghanistan -- and parallels to lyndon b. johnson -- can you elaborate? guest: president obama himself is concerned about this. he had a dinner earlier this summer with some historians. this came up in the composition. how to avoid mistakes that johnson made. how to balance a vigorous and

overseas agenda -- two wars in this case. the continued fight with terrorism. balance that with an expensive domestic agenda. president bush found recently that changing social security the way he wanted was somewhat impaired by the unpopularity of the iraq war he was leading. it is something on his mind. it is not an exact parallel. we ought not to over-simplify complicated issues, but this is something that haunts the thinking at the white house. host: you said at its peak the u.s. had about 500,000 troops in vietnam. guest: absolutely, the idea is can you win a war in a

difficult location like afghanistan? it has resisted influence for so many centuries. there are differences. the commitment for vietnam was far greater. we are largely in afghanistan because america was attacked directly. it was not the case for vietnam. the argument is that we stay in afghanistan to avoid allowing the haven for those who would continue to attack if it were allowed. the enormous difference. it was morbid geopolitical struggle with communism for vietnam, and the so-called domino theory in play at the time. host: at the speech on wednesday the president brought up the war and vietnam, saying that we can find healthcare unlike my

predecessor and move us into iraq without the money to pay for it. is that a fair comparison? guest: his point is turned to look at iraq and afghanistan in a financial way because it touches on something people are very upset about. both conservatives and liberals have been exasperated by the spending of the last eight years. he is trying to say he will do differently even though he also has big ambitions, those involving health-care here at home. host: your paper describes what happened over the weekend. 39 afghan soldiers killed. also u.s. soldiers. guest: you will see more of these stories. the number of ied attacks and casualties are up substantially.

it is the highest total since the war began eight years ago. some say it is because we're taking the fight more to the taliban with more troops and more offensive and, aggressive actions. the data as it may, there is clearly a more aggressive enemy there. -- be that as it may. host: your pieces available online. in that piece you referred to a speech made by obama in phoenix at the dfw concerning the war in afghanistan. here's part of it. >> as i said when i announced the strategy, there will be more difficult days ahead. the insurgency in afghanistan

did not happen overnight, and we will not defeat it overnight. it will not be quick or easy. we must never forget that this is not a war of choice. this is a war of necessity. those who attacked america on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. if left unchecked the taliban insurgency will make an even larger safe haven to plot to kill americans. this war is not only worth fighting, but it is fundamental to the defense of our people. going ahead we will constantly adapt to new tactics, to stay ahead and give troops the tools and equipment needed to succeed. at every step we will assess efforts to defeat al qaeda and its most extreme allies and to help the afghan and pakistani people build a future. host: did he lay it out in clear terms? guest: he did.

president bush was up there all the time for different reasons, talking about the need to be there. this has not been a major topic for this president who has a different agenda. his main topic is health care. there is concern about whether this public erosion of support for afghanistan should prompt the president to be more vigorous and his explanations of what he is trying to accomplish. that clip was one month ago. he has not talked about it since. host: who is a ronald newman? guest: he was the ambassador to of afghanistan and is now the american head of diplomacy.

host: in your piece, he said to you, it could all go belly up and we could run out of public support. guest: he is making this point we're talking about, to keep public support high or at least moderate is difficult. you need to explain what you expect. the president did announce a new strategy in the spring and sent more troops back in february. this is september and violence seems worse than ever. ambassador neumann makes the point that they need to be out there explain is needed to be accomplished and what it will take.

host: most recently, the backdrop with the tea party express -- what does all of that mean to the president, his agenda, the republican party, and congress? guest: it is an interesting political dynamic worth those on the right, the most active, vocal are very upset about spending in healthcare. you have those on the left increasingly vocal about afghanistan, uncertain about our presence there, just as they did rise in strength about iraq. it is making it harder to drive an agenda through. host: rich in the piece this morning says the president failed to respond effectively to demonstrations over the summer. guest: some in the white house

feel they may have lost a little ground in august because they did not anticipate what would happen. they believe his speech to congress this past week, the joint session, got back some of august. it put him back where he was prior to this town hall protest. to rally the democratic caucus in the house and senate, and to give the president more assertiveness on that issue. host: our guest is a peter baker, white house correspondent for "the new york times. " he has written about the kremlin, as well. caller: good morning. the thing is that we're spending money and printing it so fast that our dollar is dropping.

the democrats when bush was asking for money to support the troops said they did not have it and did not want to give a. it as far as "the new york times guy" frank rich assumed we did not have any money. the fact is that we're spending money and printing it so fast that the dollar will. will -- the dollar will collapse. everyone will be in trouble. jeff immel is president of ge, an advisor to the president, the parent company of msnbc. that is why you never hear anything bad about msnbc. guest: [laughter] i think i will leave it to

domsnbc to answer for themselve. they have different programming. they have news programming and they have an opinion program. they tend to be more on the left side just as fox is more on the right side. host: this morning, it says thatbeck's right wing rance go too far according to some critics, but he he has brought up the issues. guest: he was the prime instigator over van jones, this zero-called green jobs czar. he resigned one week ago because it was discovered he had said and participated in a number of controversial things, including a petition that suggested the government had something to do

with 9/11. that is part of the conversation these days. in our media environment there are many different voices from different points of view which can push ideas and issues into the stream of conversation that might otherwise be ignored either for good or bad. host: he has two and a half million viewers. guest: he is clearly an increasing force for that side of the argument. host: next, maryland. caller: good morning, three things. it baffles me -- gop leaders and people that president bush and office to fight a war that cost

$0 on the budget. second, and disappointed -- i am disappointed at the democratic leaders. they're protesting against george bush. all the democratic senators and representatives went out of town, but yesterday i saw them on c-span, gop leaders on-camera shaking hands with those lunatics. lastly, i have a deep concern over this bair that rush limbaugh and sean hannity and these others are fanning and when it burns, it will burn america. i don't believe america can

fight a war on the streets of america. host: banking. we'll get a different view from both cretonne, florida. -- thank you. caller: -- boca raton. caller: there is definitely a need for social reform in the country in terms of reforming medical systems. there is no doubt about it. yes, president obama has to deal with the economic situation. it is one of the worst economic situations we have had since the great depression. host: jeremy, your point is also a limited by david kennedy. let me sure what you wrote in late august. -- let me share it.

guest: absolutely, look, a bad overseas war ultimately poisons a president's. it has the cascading effect in terms of leading a country, to be a moral force, to push the system to do things he wants. that is on this president's mind and on the minds of his people. right now they have an interesting dilemma because general mcchrystal, the new commander installed by this administration is preparing to submit a report to increased troops, send more even on top of

the 21,000 sent earlier this year. that will confront this president with a big choice. how committed is heat to this war? is that just another escalation like vietnam? host: in this piece, maybe obama will win his domestic battles, maybe the economy will bounce back, but his presidency might ultimately be defined by the rugged terrain of afghanistan. good morning, new york. hostcaller: if that was not 1 million people it was one person class. --less. that is a new party out there in my opinion. peter, can i ask you, why do folks in the media keep trying

to judge this president by other presidents and their situations? we are in the 21st century. things are totally different. you have to stop doing that. all you folks at the new york times put too much pressure on this president. he just began. take the heat off this guy and let him be the president. give him a chance. the left wing is doing too much to this guy. the right wing is the right wing. don't judge him against history. this man is about the future. guest: well, that is fair. i completely agree that every presidency is different. we often get to casual in our comparisons to previous presidents. having said that, there's a reason. there are lessons to be drawn

from previous presidencies, and there are parallels worth noting. this is my third president to cover. steve has been in washington long enough to know that many of the rhythms and cycles we see with this president we have seen with others. there is oftentimes nothing new in washington, just a new face. just a new set of dishes. this is not the first time we have fought this battle with healthcare. teddy roosevelt wanted to increase -- to have a government health care. franklin roosevelt, harry truman, even richard nixon. it is the 21st century and we ought to recognize that things are different, but some things are the same. host: this is also in your paper concerning wisconsin and early signs of rebound. there is an uptick in

replenishing inventories. the question is whether it is a resurgence or just replenishing shelves. guest: it is a great question and i don't think anyone can answer it. the question of whether the economy will do a u or a w. will find as many opinions about that as economists you speak to. host: we're joined fromreno. caller: it is gerald. where were all these conservative voices when we were beginning to deploy to iraq? i did not hear any word about the cost of the iraq war. that is what is running as broke, that and the war that

reagan created with the working class when he took the side of corporations. this is one condition that regan made that i would change little -- are we better off now than we were a generation ago? guest: there were conservative voices against the iraq war if i remember correctly, people like pat buchanan, robert novak. but not most. most did rally around a republican president. even those who had his doubts in many cases of came in to try to stand by a republican president. they look at it differently with a democratic president. host: the next call comes from california. caller: to continue from an independent view point, when tom

delay passed the prescription drug benefit, the pharmaceutical endowment act -- that will go down in history as an interesting tidbit of american politics. the war funding is always supplementary. we will never actually just find it appropriately. the tax cuts -- ok? that is why think that tea party is so disingenuous. when were -- where were they then when these events were going on that made me leave the republican party? the republican party used to stand on his bedrock of financial stability. that we will be financially prudent. then the financial things and the derivatives and all this going on under the republican

watch. it is enough to drive a man crazy. another thing about the war in afghanistan, the president is not convincing our alliles why they have a fight. -- not convincing our allies. host: the goes your earlier point about expanding the war in afghanistan. guest: he makes a good point. the president has good will among allies around the world. he promised he would when he came into office. president bush was so disliked in europe and other places. obama said he would come in to change relationships. it is clear there is better well, but there's not really a policy difference. europe has not come forth with new troops, not responded to his pressure to be more active.

. . one of the things that made iraq difficult was there was not a consensus about and afghanistan was there was. president obama said the problem with the iraq war is it distracted the from the war we should be fighting, which is in afghanistan. now, if that is changes, if he's losing that support that

the democrats had for that war as a good war, per se, that's going to be very, very interesting tore next couple of years'. >> let's go back to what the president said and some of your quotes from the piece in the "new york times." this is the president in phoenix at the annual convention of the v.f.w. on august 17. >> by moving forward in iraq, we're able to refocus on the war against al qaeda and its extremist allies in afghanistan and pakistan. that's why i announced a new comprehensive strategy in march, a strategy that recognizes that al qaeda and its allies had moved their base from the remote tribal areas -- to the remote tribal areas of pakistan. this strategy acknowledges that military power eye lone will not win this war, that we also need diplomacy and development and good governance. our new strategy has a defined mission to disrupt, dismantle

and defeat al qaeda and its extremist allies. in the months since we have begun to put this comprehensive strategy into action, in recent weeks we've seen our troops do their part. they've gone into new years, taking the fight to the taliban in villages and towns where residents have been terrorized for years. they're adapting new tactics. knowing that it's not enough to kill extremists and terrorists. we also need to protect the afghan people and improve their daily lives. and today our troops are helping to secure polling places for this week's election so that afghans can choose the future that they want. host: and we've seen some of those new tactics just in the last 24 hours. guest: absolutely. this is an evolving war and it's evolving on the enemy side and we're trying to evolve it on our side as well. it's interesting because there is now an argument about whether or not rather than

increasing the number of troops there we should go the other direction. george will wrote about that. senator levin oven friday saying he does not want to see new troops. that would be involved in this. guest: head of the armed services committee. that's an interesting debate we haven't had about afghan. the debate was whether we are not doing enough because of iraq. the debate is maybe we're doing too much. should we have benchmarks should we have a timetable for withdrawal? rather than increase, we should decrease the troops and rely more on these predator strikes that have hit targets in pakistan in particular in the tribal areas. use special forces and do more to simply train the afghan army wrath than having our troops there. this is a debate that had not been engaged in a number of years.

caller: good morning. i'd like to refer back to the article that you read about what the government paid out to a.i.g., $180 billion. and the entire value of every share of stock for a.i.g. was less than $25 billion. so only congress can come up with a deal where we pay a company six, seven times its value and we only own 35% of it. and you trust these people to come up with a deal that's going to save us money on health care while the federal reserve is printing money like it's going out of style and the inflation that's sky rokts from that will totally oblit rate any savings they could possibly come up with. host: and jim's point is your former employer the "washington

post" saying washington, d.c. the new financial capital of the world. guest: this is part of what's driving the people on the streets yesterday and driving the concern in the government. the government seems to be so involved in so many aspects of american society. it's running in effect the auto industry, it's now with the ig it's got a huge hand in the insurance instri. the banks are still involved with the tarp. and now health care. and that's why i think people look at this and say are we heading torledse socialism now. that may be pibeably but it also may be an understanding of a very activity government role that we're seeing that we haven't seen in a number of years. this democratic president is not afraid of an active got hand in the economy and an active government hand in society. bill clinton was much more retiscent to do that. the era of big government is over, he said. well, it's not.

in fact, we're back in that same fight that we had for so many years and decades before clinton came along. host: one of the close observers and presidents and politicians are saying, bill adair, he's joining us on the phone on this sunday morning. thanks for being with us. caller: good morning. host: a lot has been said on the issue of health care over the last couple of months and last couple of days. two of the points i want to mention. what the said on wednesday where he said this plan ink rates ideas from democrats and republicans. you say that's only barely true. caller: we think that's wishful thinking on the president's part. when we examined the amendments that had been passed his point was the bills that have been considered and passed by the committees have many republican amendments. but when you look at those republican amendments, they are not the major policy proposeles

that are important to the republicans. indeed, right now in the house particularly the bill probably has no republican votes. and so we rated that barely true after our fact checking because we just felt that was an exaggeration. host: congressman joe wilson who is appearing on fox news sunday this morning. his comment, his outburst on wednesday that continues to get a lot of attention, was he telling the truth or was he lying? caller: we gave him a false. his statement responding to the president's claim that health reform would not insure illegal immigrants. if you look at the bill, there is a provision in the bill that says that the health care affordability credits that would be used -- that would be in effect the government subsidy in the plan, there's a provision that says that they cannot be used for illegal

immigrants. and so we found that wilson was incorrect to describe them that way. so we rate his claim false on our truth meter. guest: hi, bill. what about the illegal immigrant question though? is there, i think you rated the republican response to that half true. caller: and there is a nuance there and i think it just gets to how far down the road you go when you look at how the law would be implemented. the republican response after we and others found that wilson's statement was not true was, but there's nothing in the bill that requires immigrants to verify their citizenship. and they are right that there is no explicit language in the bill. but there are some aspects of the bill that would allow that

to happen and it sort of gets, when you write legislation, how much do you have to spell out like that? presumably, the health care choices commissioner i believe is the person's name who would run the health care exchange would in carrying out the law would do whatever was necessary to fulfill the -- what the specifics are in the legislation. and so we felt they were correct that it's not explicit in the legislation, but that there was a provision in the bill that would allow that, allow that verification to occur. so we rated that one a half truth. host: as you've been talking about these terms we have a tweet from george. why not use these words? caller: well, we rated a couple of times when there have been specific claims about socialism and found that the things that

they were referring to that we didn't believe in our fact checking that it was accurate to describe them as socialism. now, there are lots of opinions out there and we don't rate opinions. so if somebody says, obama is leading us to socialism, we're not going to fact check that. but when there's a specific context for that, as there was back in the joe the plumber debate which is really when the socialism claim really began, we have fact checked that. and, you know, it's important obviously people are have lots of strong opinions about this president just as they did the last one. and we don't try to mess with that. host: bill adairor, who is the editor of plit fact, and doing live brogging. and the site that viewers can go to plit fact.com. thanks for joining us.

caller: good morning. i just wanted to make a comment that this growing tea party sentiment is pretty interesting to me just because i actually supported ron paul and his campaign along with dennis cuse niche in the last election. so a very weird combination there. but what i did see was this ron paul got nearly 10% in many of the republican primaries. you take that fact along with the $70 bailout happened, the auto bailout, the tea parties in august protest on health care and now this huge, huge protest yesterday, and i think what president obama does, i actually voted for president obama, but i think what he needs to do is he needs to address this sentiment that is legitimate, i think. it's among independents,

republicans, conservatives, and some of the fringes. and host: and as the viewer points out and as you write in the "new york times," that consoytivesgaptsdzering in washington on saturday to vent frustration. it's a day of dissent. but the next question is, where does this go from here? guest: one of the things i find fascinating about this protest movement in effect is that -- and maybe i'm wrong. but with the exception of abortion i don't think you see a lot of examples of mass street protest actions on the conservative part of the political spectrum. usually that's something we associate with the liberal side of the political spectrum, whether it be -- host: did richard nixon call them the silent majority? guest: exactly. they're out there on the streets and adopting tactics that the political side of the equation has used for a long time, whether it be issues like the war or apartheid in the 80's, or civil rights, women's rights and so forth.

if you see protests in the streets in washington fipically you have been accustomed to the idea that would normally represent a liberal protest. and now to see them come out in a powerful fashion, large numbers, whatever they might be on the conservetive end of the spectrum i think of the change in the political dynamic, and we'll have to see how that progress gresses. host: our next call. guest: good morning. i was following the obama during his campaign and i believe he is very much following his campaign script. if anything, he has been reaching out to the republicans and the republican side. he has filled many cabinet positions. the secretary of defense, the secretary of transportation. and i am really confused at why

this extreme hate from the right side, they don't seem to be contributing anything but hate and anger and i happen to believe that this is actually a racially driven motive. guest: i think there is something to be said about that. president obama has made an effort to bring some republicans into his administration. more than most presidents have done with the other party. and i think he made an effort at the beginning, because i think he thought that he could in fact reach out to republicans and form bipartisan coalitions on some issues. that's pretty much over. i think that they'll continue to reach out to republicans, but they don't think they're ever going to actually get significant republican support for initiatives like health care. and to the extent that they do that today, it's mainly to make independents feel comfortable with the idea that they at least tried.

the white house view is they don't have to be bipartisan. they don't have to get republican votes to get bipartisan. they have to look like they're trying to get republican votes and the public will give them credit for trying even if the other side doesn't want to cooperate, because in fact the situation is pretty importantlyized. host: chris ford from maryland saying, i think that most of our problems can be traced to the mistake of going into iraq. iraq has been much more expense yi, internationally unpopular and develop our enemies to develop effective techniques to combat our war fare. >> some of the techniques have migrated to afghanistan. i spent eight months in afghanistan and pakistan in the early part of this war and you didn't see suicide bombings, you didn't see the sofffissication that you're beginning to see now in terms of tactics by the taliban and their associated friends.

how much that's a result of iraq would that have happened anyway without iraq? it's a good question. but it's something that was imported in effect. host: the president tomorrow is traveling to new york. what is he going to say to wall street veragetted i think he is going to talk about a year after the fall of lamen brothers. and they're going to try to take credit for the fact that things seem to be at least somewhat better, talk about the program he's put in place, defend it and talk about going forward with the financial regulations that he has posed to congress that are sitting there sitting there waiting for conversation. host: peter baker, "new york times," thanks for being with us. hope you'll come back again. guest: any time. host: it is sunday morning. when we come back we're going to introduce you to the editor of a new publication called national affairs. later, norm solomon of the

institute for public accuracy to talk about afghanistan and elan bermen, the vice president of policy. that's still ahead on the washington journal for this sunday morning. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> i don't think it's an understatement to say this building would not be here if it weren't for chief justice taft. >> he believed that when he was president and when he became chief justice it became almost an obsession. >> supreme court week with insights from his attorneys and the justices starting on c-span. and go on line now with a virtual tour of the court at crn span.org. >> washington journal continues. host: we want to introduce our audience with eval la vin and now the editor of this publication. guest: good morning. thanks for having me.

national affairs is a quarterly journal. it's about the range of domestic policy challenges, everything from questions of economics and public policy to broader questions of culture and society to deeper questions of american ideas and political thoughts. our hope is to help our readers understand a little better the kinds of challenges we face to propose some solutions and to assess what's working, or generally to help americans think a little more clearly about public life these days. so each issue will have eight to ten longer essays than you would see in a weekly or monthly magazine of opinion. and our hope is to clarify the kinds of issues that the country confronts in this complicated time. host: what we've done is gone through a couple of the esace and they vary from the migration of the united states to what's happening in california. who is william shom bra guest: a scholar at the hudson institute here in washington and a political scientist by training.

his essay in our first issue, which is just now out and you can read at national affairs.com is about the obama administration's approach to public policy. he argues that president obama is informed by a way of thinking that reaches back to the progressive movement of the early 20th century and that tries to formulate holes stick policies, that tries to do a lot at once thinking that society has to be thought of as a whole system, and that this has often been a problem in american life and runs into conflicts with our democracy and he thinks he's seeing early signs of that. host: the essay is titled, obama and the policy approach. here is what william shomber writes.

guest: well, part of what he's pointing to there is a way of approaching policy that tries to think again of whole systems as having to be fixed. and in a way it tries to think of society as a whole as a problem to be fixed rather than beginning from what is right and best about american society and trying to fix problems by building on the strengths of american life. and he points to this as a fundamental difference between right and left. and tries to show the way that obama's personal develop dwrmt, professional, intellectual development and that the way that liberals and progressives in america have developed intellectually points in that direction, and again concludes by arguing that he is going to run into some problems when it comes time to turn all this into legislation as i think we're starting to see. host: and that is, president obama's proposal begin their

journey, they will lose their coherence and uniformity. sooner or later, one way or the another the exquisite workings of policy experts must be subjected to what he calls the brute judgment of elected officials. veragets we're seeing that on health care now where a series of general ideas that were presented by the president this past week in his speech before congress has to be turned into very particular legislation. and what you run into is american democracy, interest groups, members of congress with their own turf concerns and with their own policy curns. and it all has to become a piece of legislation which makes it difficult to think in the kind of big picture social science way that some progressives try to think in. there's a kay for that way of thinking but it's a problem for our democracy. there's also a fundamental conceptual problem with it, which is it thinks again of society as a whole as a problem

to be solved rather than trying to think of ways to sol discreet problems as they arise and let american life flow as it's going to flow. host: our phone lines are op. we'll get to your calls. you can also send us a tweet. what role do you think national affairs in the dialogue here in this town and around the country? guest: our hope is it brings some perspective. a sense of where our ideas and policies come from. that it helps people think a little more seriously and deeply about our public problems. our hope is also that it offers something of a counterweight to what seems to be a kind of technocratic mindset in washington today on the part of the administration and some in congress. this is really the issue we just talked about. the complexity of american life can point you in one of two directions. it can either point you to rule by experts where you try to have academics or intellectuals

or policy experts make decisions from the top in a big way, or it can lead you to try to experiment at the local level, to try to look to federalism, to think about what has worked in the past and how we apply the principles that have always worked for america to today. our approach is much more the latter. to clarify the principles that worked. to think about the problems of the day. and then how to apply the former to the latter. i think if you look at the essays in this journal, every one of them is doing some combination and that's what we hope to bring to the table. it's also our aim to try to bring more depth. to have longer essays. we're in a way probably the opposite of twitter in our public life. we try to take the kind of sound byte or op ed thinking which has it its place and extend it. show how we have to think about our public problems. host: our guest has written for the new atlantic and others.

larry joining us from lakewood, colorado. good morning. caller: good morning. host: if you turn the volume down on your set and go ahead with your question. caller: ok. host: we'll go to nancy. guest: caller: good morning. i have two questions. i would like to tell the people to give the chance to the president. they voted him in and now to give him a chance to do the work that he is trying to do and the things he is trying to do to see that they work. but what i'm trying to make the people understand and the president that are people are coming over here, thousands and thousands every single day, they're taking work away from the american people who have been here for so many years and

they have these people on welfare that they're thaiing them top dollars, they're giving them money saying that they don't have husbands buzz bu they do have husbands. and they are getting money from the people. and we work and work and work, and we don't have nothing. but they don't stop making people come in. host: thank you. veragets first, our constitutional system allows the president to have a chance torks have four years worth of a chance. but it certainly can't shut down the debate as we go and the conversation about whether what he is doing makes sense, is working. and we're certainly having a lively conversation about that these days. we saw a demonstration yesterday from people who think it's not working out. we hear from people who think it is working out. we're at the beginning. we have a long way to go. host: we have a response from dan. one caller yerlier today said

this is the development of a new party in the country is it? guest: i think that there's something very real going on. whether it's the development of a new party is hard to say. there is a pattern of movements being opened up. we've seen it even in fairly recent history. ross perot represented a certain kind of populous strand. one in every five votes in the 1992 elections for president. i think what we're seeing today is something of that sort, people concerned about overspending, the growth of government, the direction of the country and looking for ways to express that. and the question is, is the republican party the opposition party of the moment going to be able to find a way to bring these people into its fold, or is this going to remain a strand that's outside the party system for a while. i don't think it points to a new party or that it's organized that way. some of the people who oppose these say it's all organized,

it's all being done by the insurance companies or it's being done by the republicans. i think it's not. i think it's not organized in that way. i think it is a grass roots movement. and the question is whether it can fold into one of the organized parties. i think it probably will and i think we'll probably see it in effect in the next congressional election but it's hard to say. host: you wrote that obama care is not dead. they have some serious political muscle to flex. conservatives should not grow confident or careless at the sight of public opposition to liberal health care reform. guest: the system works in a particular way. you have a vote. and the democrats have a lot of votes in congress. and if they were united and really wanted to push something through, they could. but they're politicians. and if the public is really opposed or concerned or worried, i think it's less likely that will happen. but certainly republicans should not think they have

defeated the obama health care plan. far from it. i think the democrats still have a lot of muscle to flex and we're going to see them try. host: john, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking me my call. i used just have a couple comments. one is about talking about the c.e.o.s making millions of dollars and the competition they've got to give them millions of dollars or they'll go someplace else. i firmly believe, and i know it happens in other countries. no person in this country should make over three times what our president makes. and i have a little comment on, one, on the debate over health care. i can't understand if these people are watching c-span or any other span, how they can say the public option is a government run program.

it is not. common sense, common sense is all people need. and yet they'll watch c-span and they'll come back right on and say it's ran by the government. and of course you've got a few people that are pushing that. so that's my comment. and i thank you for taking my call. host: thank you for your comment. you fwrauth us medicare and i want to follow up with you on this piece called obama's easier path. he's saying that he the president knows that he can fundamentally reform medicare but he can't achieved his goals. he outlined the fact that medicare is growing broke. guest: well, i think that's right and there's an irony in the health care debate that we're having, a very significant part of the problem of rising costs, of exploding costs, is a function of bad federal government policy, especially the way that medicare is run, also the way medicaid is run, and the way

that we exempt employer based health insurance from the income tax. and we're talking about solving that problem by creating a new entimet program. i think that it's a peculiar iranny of the debate. and the caller talks to the public plan. the public plan is the one element of what the democrats are proposing that would be government run health care and is being sold that way as a way to compete with the private sector. i think that's why it's been such an important part of what's united the opposition to obama's approach. host: the "washington post" has been generally supportive of his mfings -- administration. it is saying. . guest: it's very peculiar. the president in his speech this week laid out what he wants to achieve through health

care reform and what he wants to achieve would be extremely expensive. he did not lay out how he's going to pay for it. he only said that he will not add a dime to the deficit. it's hard to see where we get to where he wants to be without adding a lot to the deaf sit. the way the congressional office budget has scored the various bills suggest that we're going to be spending $1 trillion or more over the next ten years on health care reform and it's very hard to see how that's going to be paid for without growing the deficit. host: the editor of national affairs and a fellow, former domestic adviser to president george w. bush. harry, joining us from wails in the uk. go ahead. caller: good morning. a lot of people in america say that our system in regard to national health standards.

the people in america may not realize it that [inaudible] parliament for about 51 years. and besides of what underground in the coal mine, the experiences of the coal mine [inaudible] when people say that we are a social system are they aware that it's neither a question closely and that all of these principles for the health care are based on christian principles? and our idea that surely the christian consensus would like? guest: well, i'm not sure if the term socialist is the way to describe the british system. but certainly the term government run is the right way to describe the british system. even more than health care programs in industrialized countries, the system is owned by the government, run by the government, doctors work for the government. and it has the many

disadvantages and advantages of a government run system. the direct cost to individuals is low, is often zero. but they're funded through their taxes. and it's a horrendously inefficient system. it has its benefits and it's also popular, which is very important in a democracy. but i think in looking abroad, the british system is probably the most extreme example of a government run system in a developed democracy. host: you also asked the question, who killed california? written by troy seneck. he says, can you elaborate?

guest: well, california is just in an astonishing amount of trouble at the moment and it's fallen into it, it seems, all of a sudden. but as he argues in the article you cite, in fact this has been coming for a long time. and he lays out a few reasons that involve some familiar kinds of special interests and union pressures, environmentalist policies that have hampered economic growth in the state. but california also has a special problem that it relies to an extraordinary degree on direct democracy, on referenda and on questions that go directly before the public on ballot. and he argues that this has tended to debilitate the state's law makers to make it difficult bodes to spend and to tax, to make it difficult to restrain both spending and taxing. and the state has gone downhill without any brakes for a while and is beginning to face the consequences. host: national affairs.com.

renee is joining us. good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling because i'm very, very concerned at the way the situation is going, the fright that you can see in people's face that's what's going to happen. we do not know what is the future. and this, the most greatest and the best country in the world. and all of a sudden we are churning through this turmoil of changes and decisions made without our consent or whether we like it or not. and my question is, what's going to happen to the democrats? senators and congressmen, if they don't go along and they decide to go with the health

care plan? guest: well, i think that's a set of concerns you hear a lot now. of course we're in a very bewildering situation after the past year or so. the economic crisis left us with a federal government making decisions and policies that would have been just unthinkable just a depue months before the crisis began. we have the government now owning general motors and chrysler effectively. we have the government playing a huge role in the insurance industry. it's a very different situation. i think we haven't really fully appreciated how much has gone on. part of what we are planning to do is offer some perspective on what is happening and where it's going. but it's also important to recognize that we do have a system of checks and balances in this country and as the caller suggests, there is a congressional election coming up. and if the public is concerned as he is and if moves on health care prove to be unpopular, there would be consequences. and certainly there are a lot of politicians down the street from here in the capital trying

to make those judgments now and seeing whether in fact they're going against a grain of public opinion. we've seen something like this in fact on this question of health care at the beginning of the clinton administration. and that did have some grave consequences for the democrats then. the republicans took over the congress. but it's much too early to say whether we're in that situation now. host: what's the difference between being an adviser of the president and being a czar? is this something that's media driven versus just another adviser on whether it's green economy or jobs or health care or the environment? guest: it's an interesting question. so, a czar is a bit of an ugly term historically. it's a term that's been used in our country to describe people who are charged with a broad portfolio on behalf of the president that cuts across the usual lines of authority in the president's cabinet. a czar is usually a person who is not confirmed by the senate but has an enormous amount of

policy authority, of decision making power or at least of coordinating power. now, the president's advisers are also not confirmed. the role that i had as a member of the staff of the domes stiction policy council is not confirmed by the senate. but it's an advisory role within a system that gives a lot of power to cabinet officials and to other whose are confirmed by the senate. so what you see with the czars is an attempt to wrestle control over a system that seems the obama administration is thinks is out of control and attempts to organize the federal government in a different way. there's been some members of congress who have had some problems and concerns with the system of zars precisely because they're not answerable to the senate, can't be brought before a committee to testify, don't have to be approved. and that's led to some worry. it's a little early to say whether the obama administration is using these folks in a way that in fact overrides our system of check's and balances. but that's been a worry.

host: going back to your earier point. you were saying that the tea party movement is an extension of the libertarian national committee. guest: well, there's something to that and certainly the concerns they express are concerns that we often identify with libertarians, concerns about personal liberty, about the size of government, government spending. but it is not form ally an extension of the libertarian party and it is not formly an extension of much. it's quite striking how many people turned out here and elsewhere because there is not a huge organization at the heart of this. it shows you there's some passion there. it doesn't tell us just how large a movement this is. host: john joining us. good morning. welcome to the washington journal. caller: good morning. i would like to say something here regarding the tea party yesterday. and most of those people i think were the people who

supported president bush and the iraq war and the prescription drug situation where no money was allocated to pay for them and the bankruptcy laws. all these things that had detrimental effect on the economy. now they're mad. they're mad with themselves. but they're trying to project this on the american people as something we did. they're the reason why the country is in a bad financial situation. but let's get some facts to the american people. the health care dollar is $2.5 trillion a year. insurance companies take their percentage. what do they do with $750? they don't give any care. they obstruct care. that $750 billion could pay for health insurance in this country. now, put that in your pipe and smoke it. guest: well, there a couple of points there. you began by extra dicting your

earlier tweeter. libertarians on the whole did not support the iraq war, did not support the prescription drug plan and other things. i think there's a mix of people who are worried about the direction of the country. some of them are probably libertarians, some probably voted for president bush. some probably voted for president obama. and i think what matters is their reaction to what's going on at the moment. they're certainly not explicitly blaming themselves for the situation we're in but it certainly could be that they blame the republicans no less than the democrats for failing to stand up for limited government and other thing that is they care about host: and unlike national affairs, if you can keep it to 140 characters or less, you can send us a tweet. we have a couple thousand right now and we welcome your comments as part of the conversation. our guest is evol la vene. and kathleen wright, who is one of our regular tweeters, although these new terms that have come up. but her point is, whose idea

was it to let china bank roll the debt? i want him up on the counts of high treason. go back to the point about china bank rolling the u.s. debt. guest: the way it works is it was no one's idea in particular. you put that up object market and whoever is willing to buy it will buy it. but it's true they own an enormous amount of the public debt. and the more we borrow, looking at the judget outlook, we're going to borrow quite a lot more, the more we end up owing chinese and others. it presents a huge problem. and of course as our borrowing increases and as the prospects of a balanced budget fade out of view, the terms we get from them are also getting worse. the interest rates we can get for our debt and therefore the value of our currency and the stability of our currency and the stability of our economy are all in trouble. and this is certainly a situation that gives the chinese and others an enormous amount of power over the united states. host: back to your publication,

the view of charles murray, he writes intelligence in college. in an age when everyone from parents to presidents urge every child to go to cleng, a simple truth is almost universally ignored. only a small minority of high school grad yuts have the intelligence to succeed in college. the refusal to confront the challenges has produced a cascade of harms, too many students who try to go to college, to those who do not, and to a nation as a whole. what's his message? guest: what he's getting at there is our system with higher education. it's not certainly an assault on those students. he's arguing that we have what he calls a cult of the bachelor's degree in america. for too many jobs there's a requirement for a four year degree. and it's a degree that demands too much but actually signifies too little for many students. he argues that for a great number of the professions that now require the ba there's

simply no need for a four-year degree. there's a need for more protegsal training, certification programs. getting a bachelor's degree is enormously expensive and very difficult demand on the finances of many families. and he argues that we have a system that makes that the only way forward and that it's simply unfair to a great many students who may not be up to it and on the other hand may not need it for the careers they have in mibed. host: the caller was wrong. the tea party was for all parties. they wanted what was best for the u.s.a. let's go to debbie. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of comments i would like to make. a couple that might be a little bit different than what you've heard before. number one, i refer to myself as middle income, not middle class, because that congressman the other day when the

president was speaking and he called him a liar, he is not high -- he is not high class, he is low class. income and class are two different things. and another thing is i do work and i do get insurance from where i work. and it's private. well, i just got another letter in the mail the other day telling me that they no longer are going to co-pay for a medicine i've been taking and need for about ten years and they gave me four different choices i could take. so those people who are saying we shouldn't go to a national health care program or whatever, i can't even get the medicines i need right now. guest: well, a couple of points, but it's true that our private system of health insurance does place limits on what can be paid for and what can be covered. the question is whether a system in which the government makes those kinds of decisions would be better for people like this caller and others. and a part of the problem with our system and part of the reason that we see the kinds of limits we do is the escalating

costs of health care which has to do with a number of factors that arise from federal government policy swms just the increasing cost and complexity of modern medicine. no one says the current system is perfect. everybody in washington wants to reform it. the question is whether we reform it in the direction of a genuine market or a more government run system that would take over from private insurers. and as the democrats claim, would contain the costs and help people afford it. guest: from health care and the economy to who killed california and who should go to college, the conversation reflecting what's in national affairs. and james berry putting another issue on the table with regard to the tea party ral liz yesterday. his view was that racism was clearly on display at yesterday's demonstration. ask your guest to what extent does he believe racism directed

gens a black president presents a problem for the conservative movement, the tea party members and their allies? guest: first, i don't think so. if you look at the republican party and what its public officials and what others have to say, i don't see racism playing a part. the republican party of course has a chairman who is himself an african american today. if the e-mailer can point to something then it's something we can talk about. but i have to say it doesn't seem that way to me. host: our next call is daniel from michigan. welcome to the program. caller: good morning. i did vote republican in the last election. but once president obama was elected i decided to support him because he is the leader of the country however, i think the biggest problem this country faces right now is i watch many debates and i listen to the radio and watch tv. it's not about right and wrong any more, everything is rellti.

that's why nothing gets solved. it just goes back and forth. people get elected. they do whatever they want. i think it's time to get back to the basics because we threw common sense out the door. we wrote laws and regulations that even we cannot follow. you have congressmen showing up and they cannot even explain or have a direct answer to direct questions. they just beat around the bush. so maybe it's time to get some wisdom in the white house. and basically the whole country. thank you. guest: thank you. our hope is to inject some of that kind of perspective into this public life through this new magazines. but of course politicians have always disappointed voters in just that way. it's always been a genuine problem that our public officials are not themselves particularly steeped in the details of public policy very often. it's something we see now. and it's no less a pron than it's ever beep and we hope to address. host: more from the fall issue

of national affairs. guest: he is a scholar at the brookings institute. he is also one of the people who is most responsible for the welfare reform of the 1990s. he was then working as a member of the staff of the house ways and means committee and had a lot to do with the design of welfare reform passed by republican congress and signed by president clint nt in the 1990's. he writes about the question of social mobility and how it's different from the question of economic equality. he argues that to talk about inequality is to miss the point. the problem is not that some people are rich and others are poor. it's that some people are poor and need help moving up in our society. and think to focus on equality instead of mobility is a distraction from the real issue. and then he offers ideas. host: in fact, the first line in his piece is that great wealth is not a social problem. great poverty is. guest: there's a way about the argument of inequality in our

country too often suggests that the problem is some people are just too rich. and what he suggestses in this piece is that that in itself is not a problem. the problem is that some people are just too poor. and the question is how can they be helped and he args that there is a limit to what government can do directly to help people. but a lot of the problems are cultural problems and social problems and that certainly social policy can make a different. but we have to think less in terms of pure economics and more in terms of the underlying causes of poverty. host: called getting ahead in america. how many essays guest: we have 11. each will have between eight and 12 of these essays. host: and besides on line, where can people pick it up? guest: in book stores, in borders. this is just out this week. the best way to get it is on line, go to our website and there you can read some of the essays. others are only available to subscribers but you can subscribe there, which will let

you read them on line and get the paper copy in the mail. host: next caller. guest: good morning. the republican party and the tea party they are racist. if you look at their first bank bail out was by this guy's boss george bush. the first war, this guy's boss borrowed money from china. that is a deficit that put our grand children and our children in debt. so with him saying that they're not racist, they are. because if that's the case they would have been protesting when george bush was making all of these laws. guest: a lot of these people did. certainly most who were at these demonstrations did oppose the bailout when the bush administration did it and i'm sure many opposed the iraq war. so again i just don't think that race is the issue here but it's hard to say. host: laura who also follow it is program on twitter asking the question, is national affairs owned by rupert

murdock? guest: no. it's a stand-alone institution. it's a 501(c)(3) meaning it's a nonprofit corporation on its own without any other corporate ownership. scombl and our next call is from stockbridge, georgia. good morning. caller: yes. good morning. the guest obviously has a lot of conservative views about things and a lot of conservative views about how the economy works and the criticism to the president, fine, criticize the president if you want to. but if you worked for george w. bush you can't stand here and criticize the presidents. pu but what i really wanted to talk about was health care and i work in the it department here at a local community hospital. i just wanted to take the time to educate people who are listening to this debate and listening to the lies throne

back and forth. and i don't have a problem saying they're lies because i work specifically in it and specifically with building a product. and it's going to be just like this. you can either pay for what you're going to pay for up front or either you're going to get in on the back end. they're going to tax you for it. because here at our hospital, they have problems, people just show up at the emergency room. and i want to say showing up at the emergency room when you get hurt is not health care. guest: well, i think the caller makes a number oivent resting points about health care. it's true that moving costs around is not a way to deal with health care costs so that change whog pays, which is basically the lodgic of making the government a bigger player in health care isn't by itself going to change the cost of health care. and that's why i believe and others believe that a market in health care will help control costs more effectively than a government program would. they're basically two ways to mive from the kind of health

care system we have today which is a system that's dominated by employer based health insurance for reasons that are really a function of kind of historical accident. one way is to move towards a more government funded system where instead of paying for insurance through your employer, the government would pay for it through your taxes. another is to move to a genuine individual market where individuals buy their own health insurance. the money that your employer spends on it would go to your salary and you would then spend it yourself buying the kind of insurance you want, which would create more consumer pressure to lower prices. it's not a perfect solution. health care is always going to be exe pencive. but the question is how to bring down costs. host: our next call ser michael from here in washington, d.c. good morning, mike. caller: good morning. i'm a black prin and -- republican. and what i see in the republican party is they're

currently not reaching out to a lot of black republicans like myself. and also, i don't believe in the democrats ant what they're doing. i think they are the immoral dumping grounds. i live in washington, d.c. the city and the general population, high dropout rates, exoffenders get a lot of breaks. they have a lot of programs. people like me work hard, went to school, not on drugs. they can't seem to get no break or anything like that. i think the democratic party is the immoral dumping ground of america. guest: well, i think the republican party has a ways to go to reaching out to black conservatives. there's an essay in this first issue about the development and the evolution of what is called compassionate conservatism. he argues it emerged from efforts in the 1970's and 80's to try to reach out more

effectively to african american voters by dealing with issues that concern them in ways that republicans had always failed to do. and this evolved over time to the kind of compassionate agenda that president bush tried to pursue. host: another is by michael brone. he writes that guest: that essay is an example of one of the things we're trying to do at the magazine, which is to present data in a way that applies itself to problems of the day. there are a couple of essays like that and other on the evolution of divorce. part of what he does in his essay on domestic migration is make the case that historically americans have moved around the country to avoid diversity, to

find places where they can live among people who are more like themselves. and that the enormous explosion of mobility that we have seen over the past 25 years, and he argues, is probably coming to a close now, temporarily, has had to do with exactly that. with people who are culturally liberal moving to cities on the coast, with people who are culturally conservative moving to what he calls the interior boom towns, places like houston and dallas, and some coast al boom towns like atlanta. his basic point is that this has reshaped our politics in a way that makes it less likely that you're going to have states with a genuine mix of political attitudes. he looks at election returns from the past 30 years showing that there are just fewer states where elections are close. that we're seeing more and more states where people vote like other whose live near them. and he argues that people have actually moved around the

country in an effort to make that happen. and the stat cities ticks about mobility in america are quite striking. tens of millions of people move every year and it's a challenge to find the patterns and explain the reasons. i think he does a very interesting job here of trying to argue about the ways this changes our politics. host: to our audience listening to c-span radio, nationwide xm channel 132. our last call is from norma from newport news, virginia. caller: good morning. it's an hontor be the last caller. your guest is very knowledgeable once again. actually, the program thus far has been excellent. compliments to our host as well. i tell you there's so much going ofpblet i too like the last caller was a republican during this election i actually changed and voted with the democratic party not because i was an african american, only because ibbled in what the president obama would -- i

believed in what president obama wanted to do for our country i think watching the rally yesterday that i kept hearing the reference to take back our country. i think, i'm also a 20-year veteran of the army corps and i think it's important that we as a country, as americans come together, it's not about a republican party, it's not about a democrat or independent party. i think in order for us to overcome the obstacles and challenge that is our country is faced today we must come and band together as one. now, while i may be well off, a little bit more than my other brother or sister, i think it's still important that i not forget them. one of the speakers mr. rand i believe at the rally on yesterday mentioned in his closing that we -- they should be able to work and keep what's theirs and that the people there weren't -- you're not your brother's keeper.

. . host: thanks for joining us. please come back again. as we were speaking about michael's comments, tonight we will talk about migration patterns and other patterns. he talked about some of the

differences in immigration patterns compared to those in europe. >> the title of this book has been a little bit controversial. people say it is a big problem, but in what sense is it a revolution? >> it is tempting to look at europe's immigration over the last few decades as being similar to ours of the last few decades. the percentages and population are about the same. the role of the dominant culture, in europe's case the muslim culture, in america's case the last american culture -- that is about the same. the big difference is this that this is our second wave of

massive emigration. we had one in the mid-19th century and it lasted until 1925. that revolutionized the united states. the country we began with at the beginning of the migration was not the same as the country we wound up with several decades later. several decades later we had an idea of ourselves as a nation of immigrants and were much more content with the assumption that the america we known now -- it might be something different in our grandchildren's time. people began to talk about the american experiment. europeans have not yet have that revolution. they are having it now. -- they have not yet have that revolution. they do not think of themselves as having a revolution, but

rather as firmly anchored cultures who have been the same in essence if not outward manifestations for about 1000 years. there really uncomfortable with the idea of becoming a continent of immigrants. that is the rock bottom difference. host: you can watch the entire interview sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. our guest is christopher's caldwell. the entire interview is also available online at c-span.org. host: our guest is an author and filmmaker, among other things. back from afghanistan you just spent five days in late august and early this month. guest: we saw a country, the capital particularly, that is going in a very. negative very

i was able to see many people from governmental organizations, the united nations, refugees, independent journalists. frankly, it was a very disspiriting spectacle. streets filled with a ak-47's. a feeling that the capital itself is increasingly under siege. we spoke earlier this morning with peter baker where he quoted president obama in a piece saying that this is not a war we want or of choice, but a war of necessity. guest: it can be framed in the way people want from washington, but i like to recall what president obama said during his first moments as president for he told leaders around the world that there would be judged not by what they destroy, but by what they create.

using that measure meant what i saw all in kabul -- if we measure u.s. policy we have a dime for development for every dollar for military spending by the u.s. government. that is by design, by policy. i could see refugees left without any assistance, including those made so by u.s. military action. i spoke with different policy officials, multi-national organizations, afghan administrators. they talk the talk. why try to understand the empirical data.

the essence of the war at this stage was symbolized by district no. 5 refugee camp. it was near kabul, the capital, and members of u.s. congress occasionally do go there. frankly, the state department sees to it that they stay within a bubble. they remain within the escort of the u.s. embassy or department of defense. my trip was sponsored by my organization, the institute for public accuracy. that aim was to get outside the bubble. we got to camp no. 5 those who had come from the southern part of afghanistan to the capital city -- i found 700 families displaced from helmand province. i found ditches, torn canvas, mud structures, an occasional

water pump, and that was about it. in human terms, one person was in charge of 100 families as a representative. he had been awakened at 5:00 p.m. by bombs in the province last year and lost members of family. i did meet one member of his family, a 7-year-old pro. near the end of my conversation i realized she had lost an arm. i asked. -- it was a 7-year-old girl. she lost your arm because she was awoken by u.s. bombs that fell on her neighborhood. here one year later i was reading her and she and her family in the 700 other families in the refugee camp were dependent on handouts from afghan businessman. then i return to the obama's

inaugural address. i was a delegate to the national convention. i supported his election. yet we must compare the rhetoric where he spoke a few weeks ago about development, governance, his commitment to humanitarian assistance saying that this war will not be won by military means primarily, yet budgeting has very little help for humanitarian assistance. host: bottom line, you are saying what? should we stay or leave? there's a move for additional troops right now. a couple of representatives from michigan say no. some will ask for more through the secretary gates. >> i am saying that this is a war based on false premises. we're told the war is to stop al qaeda, yet they're not even in

afghanistan. host: who are we fighting? guest: an insurgency which includes the taliban. it includes another network which was built during the 1980's and 1990's. the warlord which the u.s. helped to build their in the prior decades. we now have a rationale in search of a war, and vice versa. the spending ratios should be flipped upside down. the president pushed through 90% supplemental, 10% non- military. that should be reversed. host: our guest, norman solomon, has been a regular blocker on his website. we have a link through our web site -- he is a regular blogger.

good morning, travis. please go ahead. caller: whether we going to stop our love affair with foreign countries in focus on ourselves? we're supposed to be a model for freedom, not to be the world's police and making democracy around the world. guest: well, if it is a love affair has a lot of violence attached. with respect, those are false choices. we need to take on the real enemies at home and abroad -- overcoming the problem. we hear rhetorically about winning hearts and minds. actually, afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. the statistics are very disturbing. if you go to the cia's own fact

vote, the most recent addition, showing a 1000 live births there are 154 infant deaths before the age of one. that is a staggering infant mortality rate. yet after 30 years of war we are encouraged to believe that the united states will help afghanistan by escalating violence there. to send more troops is to add fuel to the fire. the carnegie endowment said nearly one year ago that the greatest deal for the insurgency is the presence of foreign troops. the u.s. is the greatest presence there. host: this message by twitter, the afghan war is nothing more than a bone that obama has turned to his anxious generals. guest: during the vietnam war there was a perception that the generals were dragging the white house and to further escalation. i do not think that is

particularly the case here. you choose advisors. to set up general mcchrystal -- to come back to ask for more troops -- this is a formula, old pattern. it leads to more escalation. host: how many books have you written? guest: i have written 12. host: the next call comes from thomas in connecticut. caller: thank you. i want to comment. i think i agree with the gentleman. i think this is turning into another vietnam war. i'm so happy that this president's myopia will be cured by his own democratic party. the democrats are not going to

bring more money into this war chasing after some bandito running around. i'm happy the democrats finally are doing something and obama will not be able to say anything. guest: as a democrat i would say don't be too sure of that. even though we're hearing from carl levin and nancy pelosi some words of restraint, there is momentum to continue a war once initiated by the president. the rationale is we cannot allow afghanistan to be a staging ground for further attacks. by the same you could justify sending more troops to dozens of countries around the world. i work with congressman john conyers and the california nurses association for group

called health care, not were for. when we go to capitol hill, rahm emanuel twisted arms last spring to induce enough democrats against their better judgment to vote for the supplemental. of this is an echo of the vietnam war era. you cannot depend on any political party to bucket's president. we need to solidify it and push the democrats who are willing to take that risk. in the short term there will get resistance from the white house, but in the long term history will vindicate him. host: this message by twitter says we have been there too long. guest: it is an endless war potentially. there was an op-ed in the paper

the other day about the traditional decision-making process. karzai was selected. that was in 2002. he is corrupt, inept, and now lacks legitimacy. we had an op ed in ""the new york times" -- this does not advance people's understanding. the other alternative to karzai is a warlord himself. when i spoke to people in kabul and ask them what was the worst time they have lived through in the last 30 years they talked about the so-called civil war

period between 1992 and 1996. the u.s. is no hyping one of these two players as -- is now hyping one of these as the answer. the reporter in a piece cite specifically the taliban rule, then afterwards when there had been tremendous violence. he skips over that period when u.s. surrogates and those supported by such money slaughtered all these people. it is as if the only suffering that matters is the one that u.s. can invest its own story line in.

host: good morning john, on the independent line from pennsylvania. caller: i agree with nearly everything you are saying. it has become clearly apparent that it does not matter whether republican or democrat is president. whenever the power of the military folks have, and the think tanks, etc., the military is the biggest entitlement program. we spend $1 trillion of our annual budget per year on military. we accomplish what? just this in this war. it seems so futile that we spend 10 times as much on military expenditures as the next largest

-- i think china has gone up a little, but it is close to 10 times as much as any other country. guest: you look at $2 billion going from the u.s. treasury every day to spend. when the president says health care is not as expensive as these wars, that is cold comfort. we have a tremendous crisis at home. yet we faced this huge military escalation that is very costly. what happens when the troops come home with their bodies and spirits shutter? where is the provision then? host: two points from this reporter.

our policy did not match the sacrifices of our soldiers. in short, president obama has to be as committed to any surge in afghanistan as president bush was in iraq because you have to endure a lot of bad news before things might get better. guest: yes, very valiant behind the word processor. this is boilerplate stuff. from washington to looks cut and dried. on the ground i saw a country that is shattered the desperately needs development funds. i am saying to put your money where your mouth is, president obama. if he said the war cannot be won primarily by military means, when you talk about the need for development and infrastructure

and then give a paltry amount to it -- because even 10% of the spending cycles right back to companies and contractors based in the u.s. or elsewhere. host: are you disappointed in the president? guest: i do find him disappointing on this issue. we will have to press him if we want to get what we and the people of afghanistan we deserve. host: did you expect that? guest: one year ago i said the best way not to be disillusioned is not to have illusions in the first place, but this is surprising. the president has rushed into the arms of the military- industrial complex that we might have expected. this president campaigned saying in terms of iraq is not enough to be against the wars or the

mine said the brought us into it. but he has brought into sole -- he has bought into so many assumptions. host: is there any way you could speak to the president in person -- this is from twitter. now we're joined from the bbc in london. caller: so great to get through. i wanted to get through last week when you're talking about the national health service here. you have only one person calling and she was a brit. i'm an american, have been an ex-pat for 12 years here. i love scotland. the country here is great.

i want to say how wonderful it is to hear mr. solomon. i hope that you are on in the sun because i will stock the libraries your with your boat. people need to know that there is some voice we can listen to. -- i help that you are on amazon because i will stop the libraries with your books. do you ever hear anything about enron.com? -- about n. ron? he says exactly what you'd do, that we are all backwards, bringing down the worst consequences. i'm one of many americans who voted for obama.

i'm a democrat. i voted for obama because i was scared to death of sarah palin. " then i was very disappointed when he appointed pilloryin hil. guest: the policy belongs to the president now matter who he has appointed. these policy corrections need to be made. in the long run this is not only about me or some and the democratic party, but about national policy. i believe we are very near or maybe add a tipping point. the polls and the room went on capitol hill show it. the question is whether the president will keep doubling up by throwing more resources into the fire. host: our guest attended college

in maine and is the author of 12 books. he is just back from afghanistan. caller: i have a comment and a promise. -- premise. first, i totally disagree with mr. solomon. i'm unhappy that he looks into everyone else's motives, but holds his own so sacred. it no pulls out from afghanistan and if the taliban which is the same as al qaeda decides to takeover and would take over afghanistan, then you put pakistan risk. once pakistan is at risk with their nuclear weapons the entire area becomes a potential firebed.

i may agree with some of the stuff mr. solomon says, but i would ask, what is your short term solution? guest: first of all, it is not about impugning anyone's motives, but about talking about the wisdom of policy. you are incorrect when you equate the taliban and al qaeda. the taliban are all over afghanistan. al qaeda is not there at all. but to boone is nationalistic -- the taliban is nationalistic, pashtun. al qaeda has a world agenda. the yen stabilizing effects of u.s. escalation have enormous- implications for pakistan -- the un-stabilizing effects of the u.s.

the idea that we will stabilize pakistan i think is contradicted by the facts. host: good morning. caller: you know, i sit here watching tv and i am ashamed of what you are saying. we know that a some of the not been attacked the world trade center to destroy capitalism and our system of government, but the [unintelligible] is doing the same thing. guest: i don't like to equate any political movement in this country with anyone who did something as horrible as 9/11. i would say we need to seriously examine where the threats are coming from to this country. the reality is if you read the

history of afghanistan you see a thread out of washington -- always thought the enemy of the enemies is my friend. one but "ghost wars" tells you how the u.s. sustained the likes of the some of the modern and others throughout the 1980's. the mind-set can be seen today in that the white house is taking short-term, post-cold war thinking. host: norman solomon is the executive director of the institute for public accuracy. here is a message by twitter -- the democratic base once out and obama would love to comply, but i suspect some of the intelligence has blown some of obama's mind and therefore we stay. guest: if it is, it is not very

intelligent. the in the game is increased suffering and escalation -- though end game. the democratic base is moving against this war. one of the great ironies is that "the most loyal democrats" are republicans. that is not viable for 2010 or 2012 for democrats. host: fall was a like to get to afghanistan? guest: i went with the former u.s. marine who fought in southern afghanistan. we flew from san francisco to the bite and then on to kabul. -- from 7 ciscsan francisco to ,

then to kabul. it is definitely putting this together. it was funded by non-profit donations. i met with all kinds of people from different walks of life. we did not do it from behind u.s. military lines or use taxpayer money. we did not isolate ourselves from the reality on the ground. whenever staffers from the hill are members of congress go they are led around. it is the dog and pony show. there more was about the official line, not about what people are going through there. i went to this refugee camp and returned to washington. i want to say, let's get our priorities straight.

let's and dumping massive amounts of weaponry into afghanistan. talk about development. host: the next call comes from tennessee. caller: those people over there want to kill us and israelis. if we've just left over there, what do you think they will do? they will not just top. guest: frankly, that is a world view shared by many who justify slaughter on behalf of being righteous. it is not so different from those who justify terrorism of many different stripes. from afar, washington, or whatever it may seem simple. kill the bad guys, support the good guys. when you look at the history of afghanistan, the u.s. has backed warlords and human rights abusers to a great extent.

the u.s. has made machiavellian alliances, then wondered why it is difficult to win the hearts and minds of the afghan people. we have heard your argument for a long time, about vietnam, and iraq. it did not work there and will not work here either. host: thank you for stopping by here at c-span. guest: thank you. it is a pleasure. host: our guest tonight was a that islam is a magnificent religion. here's an excerpt. >> you just have to travel around the middle east and look at the tremendous monuments that were constructed in its name. the mosques in turkey, the

library's. the literary culture that resulted. the beautiful calligraphy and designs if you visit in spain. we have to grant the diversity of his loislam. if you go listen to someone singing in cynical or look of the literary culture of egypt -- someone singing in senegal, it is impressive. but there's a tendency -- what i'm criticizing there is this tendency to say that's islam has always been a part of europe.

people tend to use these euphemisms to talk about the way islam and europe have been directed over the centuries. islam has for most of the past 1300 years been an enemy of europe. if europe absorber things from islamic culture is not because the two were getting along well -- if europe absorbent things. it was because islam was at the time a superior culture. in the same with the countries that are full of anti- americanism today for most of the people dislike the u.s., they listen to michael jackson and absorbent our culture. so, i'm not saying it is impossible for europe and islam

to get along today. the conditions are different. we have globalization. but you cannot look at this as something inevitable. it is not with the patterns of history tell us is the likely outcome. host: the entire interview tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. ilan berman is joining us. guest: my pleasure. host: let me begin with is a petition from a reporter who is frequently on this network. in the past 30 years the u.s. and iran have been out of sync. what has changed in the last couple of days or weeks? guest: i'm not sure anything has.

the iranian strategy has been remarkably consistent. they have tried to play for time, engaged in diplomatic dialogue. first with great britain, france, and germany, and later with the u.n. currently, iran has the opportunity to do so again. barack obama administration has made a key element of its middle east strategy engagement with iran. the idea that we need to sit down. because of that a host of other issues have been put on the back burner. as a scene from tehran the current environment is rife with the opportunity. they imagine they can engage americans as they did the

europeans a half century ago. they want to continue down the path of nuclear development. host: are the talks unconditional? is everything on the table? guest: that is a good question. the dialogue is limited and will require real benchmarks and we will not allow them to become original hegemony. the iranians have been talking about the grand bargain with americans for a long time. it would elevate themselves in the region. they feel entitled to that. it is proven that if we engage in talks, then there should be a time limit on the talks and clear parameters. we're not giving away the store. host: at what level would these

talks be held? who is at the table? guest: as we have seen, the iranian regime is not a monolith. the foreign ministry and bureaucracy might say one thing about their readiness to engage and the iranian president says something different. we have to understand they're not speaking with one voice. that will dictate who comes to the table. you cannot engage in talks with people who do not want to talk with you. barack obama administration has to look at fault lines within the iranian regime and how to exploit them and identify real negotiators, credible once. host: our guest is with the american foreign policy council. guest: we are non-profit think

tank that those four and defense work for many government and non-government institutions. public diplomacy is our aim. we want to take intermission to those who influence u.s. policy. host: he has written a number of books. he has been a consultant to the cia and an adjunct professor at missouri state. we're joined from grand rapids. caller: good morning. i am so supportive of norman solomon. i admire the man. i will ask you instead. if we can see a president like obama coopted by strategy and influence away from ideas about peace and policies that would

invest in americans for health care and education, and such, why is it that no one names names? who aren't the players? -- who are the players? those from the military- industrial complex. mary landrieu is a ridiculous woman. i'm sorry for the people of louisiana. host: your response? guest: i'm happy to stand in for mr. solomon although i did not hear his whole interview. what is generally remarkable of the last day years about that policy is that it has been a real bipartisan failure. early on the bush administration said it simply

will not tolerate the emergence of a nuclear-armed iran. at the end bush made a stunning reversal in objectives. president obama is discovering the same. the first fallacy the body into during the campaign was that we had not talked to iran. it is not true. the bush administration engaged in about 18 months of track two diplomacy with them. the results were less than stellar. the iranians were not interested in cooperating. the regional perceptions were devastating. it ended up elevating the prestige of iran to the u.s. level the way interested observers in dubai or elsewhere would look at it.

it appeared as if the u.s. had no choice but to pay attention to iran because it would appear that it was so powerful. it was a bipartisan failure. it is perfectly excepits of the will to put diplomacy first in the obama administration. but you must have all components including the carrots and sticks. we have not spent enough time talking about what happens if they do not reciprocate, the punitive or quashed live measures. the president says that a nuclear-arms iran is intolerable. but what are we prepared to do about it? the perception intehran is that the u.s. is focusing on talks. it is hard to talk and

sanctioned at the same time. as long as the dollar keeps going, the iranians are home free. host: good morning, david. caller: good morning, ilan berman. i'm a retired military the merc with 29 years from the u.s. navy and i would like for you to comment on a few things. the u.s. does not have to be engaged in the middle east at all. if we were to explore all of our resources whether oil and nuclear power, hundred-electric, this would save countless lives of uniformed men and women. we could bring everyone back. we can prosper. guest: thank you. thank you for your service. i really appreciate it

personally and nationally. i think the argument is merited that a great deal of our trouble from the middle east comes from an expensive engagement, but i am not sure it is so linear. if we were to withdraw over the horizon that we would not face the same threats. 9/11 happened on u.s. soil. three weeks after word when the u.s. began operations in afghanistan, a sum of then lot and released a video. the first line was one in which he said the tragedy will not be repeated in palestine. he was referring to the spanish expulsion of the moors.

it has little to do with israel or oil. it has to do with in reality. i understand the impulse to say if we were not there there would not be here, but i do not think it is quite that lanier. host: concerning the hostages back from 1981 -- what are the lessons 30 years later after that? guest: it is remarkable that the hostages were released after the 444 days in captivity after ronald reagan took office. there was a perception in tehran that president reagan was not like president carter. they gamed out the carter administration. carter was initially very robust. it had not succeeded.

they have fallen into a cold peace strategy. ronald reagan quietly said during the campaign, had sent a message that his approach would be fundamentally different. there is a great deal of merit to remembering that the iranians, when faced not only with an outstretched hand, but the potential that there is a fist behind it, respond differently than if they only see diplomacy on the horizon. i think the obama administration should be commended for exploring every diplomatic possibility, but there is merit to thinking more deeply and clearly been so far about what happens if the talks fail? just this week in the running president said again that the nuclear program is non-

negotiable. is it is an element of regime stability. what if it is impossible to get the yes? that is a dialogue that has been lost from view over the last year. host: ilan berman is the vice- president at the foreign policy council. we have a link to the website on c-span.org. caller: i come from a military family. both my grandfather and father retired from three wars. i did not join the military. why, especially as we think about iran, can we not ask of these troops going on five tours if they think it is worth it?

they are the ones fighting it. let's let them decide if they think it is worth. guest: that brings up an interesting point. you're talking about iraq and afghanistan more than iran. i don't know anyone who thinks that military action against iran is a good idea. it might be good to have a coercive aspect to diplomacy, but i don't know anyone serious who is talking about military action right now. there is great merit to listening to the troops. but the proper role of the armed forces is to follow the commander-in-chief. investment in iraq on the part of the bush administration and afghanistan on the part of the obama administration is very much a national party.

the troops are to protect and serve. they're there to implement the policies of the commander-in- chief. a great deal of knowledge can be passed from the u.s. military about conditions than is currently passed to the american people. but the military driving political dialogue is probably not the place they'd be comfortable with. host: 1 viewers as war is only good for the military industrial complex, their pocketbooks and wallets. we'll hear from michael from spring valley, caller: illinois good morning. -- from spring valley, illinois. caller: iran, where were they? in 1953 they were overthrown by

the american government. the shah was installed. until 1979 the cia helped the shah to control of political dissent. no opposition was allowed into the people got tired of it and threw him out. that is what we seem to forget about. jingoism -- the american military goes all over the world killing, invading. calls it a war in iraq. only congress can declare war. it invaded and occupied it. it is still there to this day. how many have died there that we have killed? host: do you have a response? guest: obviously, the history is

very complicated. the u.s. was involved and supported the overthrow in 1953. we did support the busshah until 1979. -- we did support the shah until 1979. but there is more to it. the country had a presidential election that pitted two conservatives against two reformists. the consensus of both the iranian people and international observers present was that the election was rigged. it returned to power a man who had no business being there, ahmadinejad. since then you have seen a fundamental alphorn of discontent. we have not said anything.

president obama was judicious when he refrained from commenting. -- we have seen an outpouring of discontent. the white house could do more -- it does not mean that the u.s. does not have an opinion. in my humble estimation the leader of the free world should never be silent when people are seeking freedom. a think we can and should say more about supporting the running people both on a moral and practical level. iran is undergoing a profound demographic transformation. it is a very young population. the matter what about the nuclear issue, it will be in a different place in 20 years. whether the change be incremental, behavioral is

coming down the pike. it will come from the people who are far less religious than their parents. when we signal that we are not interested in hearing what the run and people have to say it sends all kinds of messages about our commitment to their evolution of the long term, and probably not the right message. host: you have a book out concerning this issue. welcome, caller. caller: with all the tensions in the middle east and with netanyahu's surprise visit to negotiate try to get them not to sell weapons to iran,

that'siran can possibly stave off an attack by israel -- what are your ideas about how that will play out? host: the me add this other element. this is diane from new hampshire. why should israel have the ability to have nuclear weapons when iran is forbidden them? guest: the mood began with diane's point first -- two words. regime character. if belgium were to go nuclear tomorrow, very few people would care. it would be a semantic issue, but we would not really be worried about the stability of that nuclear arsenal. we are withiran because we do not trust this regime acquiring

this capability in this fashion at this time. the entire u.n. process of the last half decade has not been to withhold nuclear strategy for iran. it has been a quest for iran to slow down development until we can clear wrote lingering inconsistencies. many of their facilities are located along with military sites. there are also other signs that they are developing designs for spherical modeling -- using uranium. things that provide the overall picture, circumstantial evidence that suggest they are acquiring nuclear capability. iran so far says it does not want to slow down.

israel is not a signatory. there are lots of arguments to suggest they should be. the policy to date has been to either deny or firm a nuclear capability. we do not worry about it falling into the hands of of shi'ite terrace or hezbollah. one of the things that came to the forefront of the last couple weeks in this interesting story about a russian ship that may or may not have been carrying this out capability -- and the russian leadership has disavowed it. there are signs that netanyahu traveled to russia secretly. exactly how much of a devil's

game the permanent members of the u.n. have been playing so far? how much can be implemented by the permanent five to make the iranians to change course? russia and china are the principal enablers of the iranian nuclear program historically. host: john send this by twitter. we have made interfering statements during the iranian protests. president obama decried that government's heavy-handed act. good morning from north carolina. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to ask your guest, but i have many a comment.

this is something the american people should hear. russia has supplied iran with that capability. they are backing afghanistan now. back in the vietnam war -- i am an old war veteran. russia and china have always supported these people. they always will. do you think it is possible to stop them from getting nuclear weapons? guest: that is the $64,000 question. how much leverage do we have over the iranians? the answer is i do not know. those who follow it closely or more closely than i do also do not know. what is clear is that we're not