i really appreciate the time you all have taken to be in washington for this forum. i know how busy all of you are. we stand in the midst of challenging times for our economy. i don't think that is a surprise. many of you have felt these challenges in your industries and your businesses. some of you have felt them acutely. i also know how you've managed to meet them and managed to them, experimenting and innovating and finding ways to increase productivity to better serve your customers. we are here today because i believe your government should be doing exactly the same thing. when i first started campaigning for this office, i said i wanted to change the way washington works. when i said that, i met talha and works for the american people. i meant making government more responsive to their needs. i meant getting rid of the waste and inefficiencies that both our deficits and squander their savings. i meant finally revamping outdated technologies and

informations systems that undermine our efficiency and threaten our security and interests. i ask all of you to this forum on government modernization today because i believe that bringing our government into the 21st century is critical to achieving all the other objectives. i can say without hesitation that are government employees are some of the hardest working, most dedicated, competent people that i know. .

believe it or not, in our patent office -- this is embarrassing -- this is an institution responsible for protecting and promoting innovation. our patent office receives more than 80% of patent applications electronically and then manually prince the mouth, scans them, and enters them into an outdated case management system -- manually prints them out, scans them, and enters them into an outdated case management system. this is why average time for a patent is three years. even worse, when we have attempted to update or replace outdated technology, we end up

spending exorbitant sums of money on technologies that do not meet our needs or that took so long to implement that they were obsolete before we even started using them. i just met with the department of veterans affairs, eric shinseki, a veteran himself, who cares so deeply that veterans get their claims processed efficiently. we have been talking for 10 years about putting electronic systems in place for veterans affairs to reduce the backlog, and so far, it has not happened. not because people do not want it, but partly because previous purchasing decisions have mismatched what va has with what the department of defense has. they do not speak to each other. they do not emerge. none of this is acceptable. particularly at a time when we are experiencing so much economic difficulty and so many people are struggling. we have to get the best bang for

every single dollar that the government has in its possession. when washington lags a generation behind in how we do business, that has real and serious impact on people's lives. when we waste billions of dollars, in part because our technology is out of date, that is billions of dollars we are not investing in better schools for our children and tax relief for our small businesses and creating jobs in funding research to spur scientific breakthroughs and economic growth of this new century. we know that the tools, the technology, the solutions are out there. you know because you put them in place every day. it is time we started putting them to work for the american people. if you can book dinner on opentable or a flight on southwest or united online, then why should you not be able to make an appointment at your local social security office the same way? if you can track your ups package with your iphone, then why not be able to check the

status of your citizenship application on the website, rather than having to write a letter and wait for a letter back? these are simple, cost-effective steps, ones which we have already taken or at least are in the process of taking, but these are just the beginning. going forward, i want to see solutions like this in every agency. i want to ask ourselves every day -- how are we using technology to make a real difference in people's lives? how are we making it easier for small business owners to get loans and expand operations and create jobs? how are we helping young people get student loans so they can get the education they need to pursue their dreams? hourly ensuring that the brave men and women who serve this country get their benefits as quickly and easily as possible -- how are we insuring? how are we reducing costs and deficits so our children and grandchildren are not saddled with debt? improving the technology the government uses is not about

having the fanciest bells and whistles on our website. it is about using the american worker's tax dollars to make it easy for them. this is something i'm serious about. this is something -- this is why i appointed the very first the government cio and cto. they are both coordinating our efforts and ensuring that we are embracing the best, most effective technologies possible. it is also why we introduced our i.t. dashboard and usaspending.ogv, at website i have personally reviewed were american people can monitor every information technology products in the government. if the project is over budget and behind schedule, the website tells you that and provides the name, e-mail, and a number of the person responsible. today, the site has gotten 78 million hits. we have already terminated a number of projects that were not performing.

going forward, we will cut more and take the money and reinvest it in a place where it will make a difference. here is the reason all of you are here -- we cannot do this all long. many of you are pioneers, harvesting and technologies to build thriving businesses. some of you have revolutionized industries, changed the ways we look at the world. it had any doubt about how much government has to learn from all of you, and the homework assignment you all completed which have certainly convince me otherwise. the debt and bought for less of your responses indicate that all would you spend a real time on preparing for this -- the depth and thoughfultness. i thank you for it. i hope you will continue at the forum today. i want you to tell us not just what we can do to better serve the american people but how we can do it without spending a whole lot of taxpayer dollars. that is especially what i want to hear from you.

i also want to emphasize -- i do not want to just hear your input today. we will need it in months and years ahead as well. a lot of this stuff takes time to implement, even when implemented well. that is why i have charged our federal cheap performance officer to work with all of you to make sure the changes we make have molesting impact. we will need each of you to keep stepping up and sharing your ideas and expertise. we will need your help us build the kind of government the american people expect and the kind of government they deserve. th i spends their money wisely, serves their interests well, and is worthy of their trust and respect. that is the purpose of today's forum. that is the ongoing mission of this administration, and i look forward to hearing what you have to offer us. thank you very much for being here, everybody. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> i am a big believer that the best meetings and on the early side, so we are going to move quickly. what we're going to do here is i am going to call on the people who moderated the session who will introduce the ceo report back person. i want to start with the deputy

secretary from the department of defense. bill. >> thanks, jeff. this is sort of a male version of "the view," is in it -- isn't it? [laughter] we focus on managing large-scale transformation and information technology development. jeff, keeping us all very prepared, gave us a list of maybe 20 written comments that the ceo's had made in order to provoke discussion. i got halfway through the first one, and we then went into a 75- minute discussion, and i never got to the second one, so it was a very lively discussion, and i would like to turn it over to

andrea to describe the results. >> hi, everybody. we had a robust and i think very productive discussion in our group, and i think there was sort of a mutual understanding of the complexities of large- scale process as well as technology transformation, whether in the public or private sector, and i think we got a better understanding of exactly why and how it is difficult to take this on, so, hopefully, we were able to give some lessons learned and some advice, but three thoughts of some of our group, and we could keep going. when we rank ordered what was most important, the group fundamentally on both sides really did feel the whole organizational mandate for change was at the top of the list. in that spot, obviously, that is all about process change. technology is an enabler, but it is not about technology transformation, about an archaic

business transformation. from a leadership point of view, it took -- for many of us, the business leadership, having a mandate and its sponsorship, not the i.t. or cio being the leader in or to guarantee sustainability. that was one of the things we had talked about. other thoughts were really framing revisions that leadership or process leadership really have to find a vision, go out to the consumer. every department has customers, whether in government or in business. what is the endgame for the customer working backwards? the best example we had was alcoa talking about getting an astronaut in to talk about the customer expectations of material and experience and quality from the minute they get inside the spaceship as opposed to trying to design it without understanding the end user. the headline on the thought was you have to engineer the process and know the customer

and a game before you start applying technology. the second thing was there was a lot of good dialogue about private and public sector differences. the government does not necessarily have the compensation and set of systems to go through such a long and lengthy change. how do you drive that change in terms of different kinds of incentives? motivation, recreation. how is that done? we had a lot of discussion about how we felt it could be done. again, leadership focus. every time a leader gets up and talks about it at a staff meeting otherwise, it has to be front and center in order to drive change. we have to drive stock engagement from the bottom up, even though this has to be mandated and light and believe in by the government. that has to be true of agencies and staff at the government.

there was an example of we really wanted to go paperless. we have millions of sales representatives, and attendeds andindepen -- independents, who had been using paper invoices. the compelling way we move them was not economic. it was to understand the green aspect of this, what they were contributing as citizens if they were to lose this piece of paper they have been used to for years and years. the examples were given that it does not always have to be economic. there can be a prime factor, engagement factor that can move a project with that kind of scary -- there can be a pride factor, engagement factor that can move a project with that kind of scale. when you put your large scale in front of a transformation, it is not usually a one-year thing.

it can take years, and particularly in government or the continuity of leadership and staff is an issue, so we talked about how you chop it down. was there a possibility and a vice we are able to give some folks in the room about take a large-scale project and putting shorter time frames on it. year-long phases so there could be early winds -- wins and successes. we talked about phases as opposed to pilot test. people thinking a lot of things would not come to the department, that the concept is to eliminate the word "pilot" and "test" because by definition, it meant it was not going to scare out, so the thought that you could have early successes on a long-term project if you use the phasing

start to make sure that you can deliver a longer-term. >> thank you. you covered a lot of terrain. the second group on streamlining operations led by the deputy secretary of the veterans administration. scott. >> i wanna grab the microphone and held jeff achieve his performance measure of, of getting him beginning as out of year earlier. a lot of rapid distillation of some of the core ideas here. i want to share with you one thing i saw today, and that is citizenship is alive and well at the ceo level in america, and i thank you for all of your effort to be here today and the ideas you have generated. it is my pleasure to introduce the chairman and ceo of whirlpool. >> i will try not to repeat it. we had a lot of similar comments that you heard earlier, but i want to speak to assemble

statements. one, the color and diversity of ideas was pretty amazing and pretty powerful to generate support and encouragement around what it is trying to do. the other thing that i think was really are-opening -- eye- opening was the difference in private-sector organizations and the governmental differ department agencies, but that was not bad. i think the conclusion was that we need to recognize the differences in how what you do to get there may be different, but it does not change the opportunity we have before us, so when we start talking about streamlining our operations, we concluded early on that we probably had not defined the problem correctly and what we are trying to achieve. this is, in fact, not a technology problem. i think many of the members shared their personal experiences.

transaction activities, process outcomes, things about customer service levels, things about costs, things about time -- those are well known sciences. they are down all the time. they are how most of us stay in business every day. and i think in the private business sector, those tools and capabilities are readily available and can be applied to any organization -- private, governmental, services, so on. we kind of move very quickly of the technology issue or process issue. there's a lot of different ways that we got to the circle, an area we think that perhaps is the beginning of getting at the issue is -- how do we define the problem and the challenges? there are many symptoms, but the challenge is something like how we get at in enterprise meeting system for a very large government organization that is very distinct and different?

that is, to me, and organizational issue. many people would start up companies are changing big companies. we have to do that, but it is very small to the challenge of the size and scope and adversity of our government -- diversity of our government. defining what that problem is -- not a problem, that challenge or opportunity of how we are going to change became a core issue. the other one i would say is that there was very large agreement that the opportunity is very large. people shared ideas of step change. we talked about a three-year patent. one of about one week. we talked about 3% budget efficiency. others talked about getting 20% or 40%. generally, the burning car form of my the crisis, the mandate for change, that is a critical

part of making this happen -- the burning platform, the crisis, the mandate for change. we ended up toward 34 points. one, the need for a really bullish inspiration -- we ended up on three or four points. one, the need for really bold inspiration, defining the problem, going out and bringing in the right tools from wherever we need to get them, to help execute this. but we need to be able to do it in a government enterprise management system that needs to go execute, and then, with that, what is the government puts a process to help this -- the government's process to help those over one year, two years, five years? it was more about getting organizational accountability and deployment because we think

the tools are available. >> thank you. let's transition to transforming the customer experience. tony miller from the department of education. >> thank you, jack -- jeff. like all that we have heard from a very engaging discussion, it started with it is all about the customer. i think was recognition that while government clearly has many unique characteristics, the reality was some of the first principles and some of the lessons learned are applicable nonetheless, and that was kind of the key take away. not to dwell on that, let me turn it over to andy 6 -- angie hicks. >> thank you. when we talk in our group, it was all about the culture of service, and that was in a company, in a department, not just something that is stated on a wall for people to see as they

walked by. you need to know your customer. not just the citizens that are out there in gauging your department. some of the people in your department our customers to your department, so everybody has to be thinking about customer service in their job. not just those that are out with facing. and the culture is critical. it cannot just be stated. it has to be incorporated in everything you do. you have to set goals and measure against them. it has to be lead by example. it cannot be a department head that says we need to think about customer service. they need to think about customer service. one person in our group -- he will take calls from customers. he can uncover things in his organization that might need to be improved. also, reading blogs. the great thing about technology

today -- you can be out there reading about your organization or your department way easier than we could 10 years ago. and then, collecting customer feedback. we need to have tools in place that we collect customer feedback and do something with it and make it transparent. it should not be just held over here and look over 90%. that is great, but on the same problems, sometimes the best customer service is shown in a problem area, not necessarily when you did things right the first time. also, be transparent about that customer service information. share internally. we talked about creating incentives for employees. whether it be the praise or ways of making and how we are improving and reaching our customer service goals. and then benchmarks. we talk about the government is a monopoly. we do not have competitors when it comes to customer service,

and we certainly have other departments. there is no reason the department of education cannot benchmark against the department of agriculture and how they are doing when it comes to customer service. and then thinking about ways to incorporate technology. we agreed that technology is a tool for helping us think about the customer. thank you. >> thank you. second group on transforming the customer experience. the secretary of the interior, david. >> we had a terrific discussion. the most important thing i'm going to take home to my dinner table is i have some cred with my teenagers. i have the founders of facebook and craig's list in our group. i hope all of you have something to share with your families. we had a terrific discussion. i want to get straight to gary kelly, the ceo of southwest airlines, who will give the results of our discussion. >> thank you.

thank you all. we are also going to start with the culture of customer service. having that established we agreed was at the top of our list. i will not repeat everything you said, but we completely agree with that approach. we felt like it started with hiring the right employees, giving them the proper support, making sure that we listen to them and help them, obviously, meet their needs, and then collect a tremendous amount of feedback from all sources, from customers, as to what their needs are. as a component to having real commitment to a culture of customer service, we discussed the need to have a strategy that would then include the need to consider transformation in terms of processes and then also have a way to embed technological change in that strategy.

not having it disconnected. the second point we talked about was just the opportunity for government to embrace self- service in the way that the private sector has. i think there is a tremendous opportunity -- we thought there was a tremendous opportunity in that regard. i think, to make that successful, that suggests that once again, there needs to be a very clear strategy. we need to do as best we can to take the hassle factor out of dealing with the government, simplify things. that would be a tremendous productivity and customer service enhancement if we could pull that off. >> thank you. last group is on maximizing return on investment on technology, led by the deputy secretary of department of state. >> thanks.

our group, i think, had a great amount of engagement. i was very struck by respect for the complexity of government and the goodwill of the people to try to do the right thing. having been in the government business for a long time, it is not always sitting around a table with people who started out with the notion that they are good people trying to do the right thing. i was struck by that. -- also, there was almost uniform advice given to not think about the core. it is just too big to take on the whole thing. we have to think about breaking it down into things we can get down and where we can get victories out there. i think many of us are driven to try to do more, and it may be that what we have to think about

is what we can actually get that done. i thought that was a very important lesson to take back. that is something we can report back and tell our group. >> thanks. you have already done have the report for me. i was selected to make the presentation because i am the least tech savvy member of our group. we had some very high power professionals in our group. a real summary of -- a quick summary of our conclusions, number one, start with a clear purpose. that is absolutely aligned with the needs of the end user. second, the strategy is the key to all of this, and i.t. is simply a tool of executing the strategy. there was a surprising consensus around breaking big projects into smaller, bite- sized chunks. a lot of coal lessons around 18 months, surprisingly, which was the number of months that my

chief investment officer -- chief technology officer suggested to me in thinking about this meeting. but we heard that a lot, 18 months. so you can take a project, get through it, learn your lesson, celebrate your success. that was another common theme. celebrates smaller successes. the other idea is that you could get one of ownership of the project in that time. in my own company's example, there were similarities with those offered by the other participants in the group. it allotted a ride your business process before you undertake the -- get aligned around your business process before you undertake the i.t. process. they stressed sticking with symbol of sell software that customization is really a

dangerous path to good and -- sticking with simple, off-shelf software, that customization is a really dangerous path to go down. also, i would say, a lot of respect for the complexity of the challenge that our government administrators have as they deal, not just within their own departments, but trying to deal with systems that cross over a variety of departments. so we appreciate the challenge that you have got, and i think, everyone in our group is willing to continue to be available to you to consult and provide feedback and input as much as you want. thank you. >> 18 must be the magic number today in that i counted 18 ideas across the five groups, and if you add that to what we saw in

homework and break up a group, i think we have close to 100 ideas. i think all of us would agree that in business, the ideas are just the beginning. it is really all about execution. all of you are here because your company's executes so well, and i think that is our challenge in government -- execution. the ideas are fabulous and get us off to a fast start, but everyone in the room is committed to execution, implementation, getting tangible results to the american people. we need your continued help on that. i see not 18 next steps, but i for your immediate next steps. first, we are going to take the best ideas and get them on line so we can follow-up with other private sector leaders and the public, expand those ideas and refine them so you can really hone in on the best and most applicable ones.

second, and implementation plan. within 30 days, we'll get out to all of your and also get online implementation plans where we have clear milestones, accountability and ownership, and highlight what we think our key challenges will be to get these ideas implemented. third -- you just mentioned it -- is implementation assistance. we will need help. by mapping out those key challenges and asking all of you and others to match your interests and expertise to where we have challenges, we can create informal networks where we'll talk to you to get ongoing counsel and advice. and lastly, i would hope that by the end of next week, each of you would take a call to do a debrief. what did we miss? what did you think about over the weekend? what should we be doing on

implementation? i really appreciate what you're doing today, and i hope you continue to work with us to really drive these results and have a tangible impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of our government services. it is now my pleasure to introduce one of the president's closest friend and closest advisers, and she is the senior point person for the administration to the business community, senior adviser to the president. [applause] >> you guys are leaving now that a woman comes up here? i do not know about that. thanks for the introduction, and more importantly, thanks to all of you for being here today. we know how challenging your lives are, and for you to give up a big part of your day and join us here at the white house, we deeply appreciated. i also appreciate the planning,

and we appreciate your willingness, in addition to everything else you are doing, to make sure this day went off as well as i think it did. i had a chance to observe a couple of break up groups, and i'm not going to repeat what i observed because i think it was captured by the report, but one of the observations i would share with you is the tone really started at the top, and the reason why it was so important for the president to be here with you -- you can imagine what his day has been like with everything going on in haiti and health care and the normal demands of being the president -- is that he wanted to signal to you how much he values your input. we really do want to make our government better. we want to make it efficient and make sure we can capture the best practices that you guys have mastered each and every day, and we want to listen and incorporate and make sure your time spent vote today and when we follow-up, one of the things

that once you are in our clutches, we will never let you go. we are not going to be excessive, but we do want you to know the execution will be important, and in order to do that in a most effective way is going to require having an ongoing relationship with many of you, so we thank you in advance for what we know you -- what we know we will get from here and we appreciate your commitment not to our administration but to our country because we believe the government is here to serve you, and we want to make sure that it is the best it can be. during the course of the campaign, we met so many extraordinary people around the country, many of whom joined the administration, and one of the observations the president assured early on is that we will never keep these extraordinarily talented people if we do not change what it means to work in government. that is from the bottom up. we have to listen to the people out there everyday working in the trenches who have terrific ideas.

we want this to be a partnership with you. it is part of our ongoing effort to improve the business community, and whether it is council on the economy or health care or energy reform or public education or social innovation, we want to have a partnership with you, and we wanted to be an engagement and a two-way street, so we count on you for that. several of you have asked for information it you want to help with the relief effort going on in haiti. we appreciate your generosity. many of you have done this before with other catastrophes around the world, so you know exactly what you're doing, but for those of you who would like to coordinate with us, this is something that the president is absolutely committed to doing efficiently and effectively as possible and leveraging all the possible resources, not just from business but from every day americans who want to volunteer and help, but we want to do it

in an efficient and effective way. we do not want to get in a way of what right now is a critical asset to save lives. either you can go on our website, whitehouse.gov where we will be putting up ways where you can be hopeful, or you can call me. i think all of you received a letter from me on the e-mail inviting you here today, so feel free to send an e-mail. we appreciate your concern and your help in that as well. once again, except our appreciation for being here today. safe travels home, and you are going to be hearing from us. thank you. [applause]

>> a picture of union station on capitol hill, not too far from c-span's offices, also where many staffers commute to work. congress is not in session, due to the presidents' day holiday, but announcements are still being made. associated press announcing that senator bayh will not be seeking reelection. the 54-year-old democrat will hold a news conference in indiana to reveal his plans. he is serving his second six- year term in the planet, a centrist democrat from a republican-leaning states. we're hoping to bring you that announcement this afternoon. former secretary of state madeleine albright recently joined academic leaders talking about developing the next generation of leaders for international affairs and diplomacy. you can see that conversation beginning at 4:40 eastern here on c-span.

also tonight at 8:00 eastern, the future of guantanamo bay. army intelligence corps lt. stephen abraham joins member of september 11 families here also, brad smith of microsoft on the future of what is called cloud computing, dealing with how."iu instead a local computer servers. >> it is the only collection of american presidential portraits painted by one artist. see the entire collection on- line at c-span's web sites, americanpresident's board -- americapresidents.org. people who run the historic mount vernon estate, the va home of the nation's first president, say the day belongs only to him,

and the government website knows that the legal designation is washington's birthday. his actual birthday is next monday. this morning, "washington journal" talked to a presidential historian for about an hour. host: we are joined from boston from presidential historian, rice university history professor and no stranger to the audience at c-span2, douglas bernanke -- douglas brinkley. thank you for joining us this morning. guest: good morning. thanks for having me. host: if president stay were a holiday celebrating just one president, it there or one president to honor, who would it be for you and why? guest: i think the original, george washington. remember presidents day began as washington's birthday in 1880 and subsequently evolved, 1971 was started getting this concept of presidents day morphing of washington and

lincoln's birthday and then the idea of just celebrating the institute of the president and having school children learn each president and what they look like and memorize the names. but washington is, in my view, the person we need to be celebrating on presidents' day. he did something very extraordinary as our first president, he stepped down. he showed you could relinquish power. that we were not going to become a market. he could have stayed in for life terms because he was that popular but i think it was the beginning of the tradition -- of the presence in beginning with washington. and out of any of our so-called founding fathers, washington was really the giant. if you walk into a room that had taught -- john adams or thomas jefferson or james madison, when washington came in he imposed intimidating security. many of the founding fathers were lawyers, and instead, washington was really a survey.

and somebody who knew the land, who knew the people, who got rid of a lot of the pomp and circumstance of the presidency. fort( example, there is a çówonderful article in today's open "new york times" from a professor of the university of california berkeley talking about washington being the one çthat insists civilians are in charge of the military and why this is so important for our republic. so washington for me really stand out as the key person this time of year. host: you mentioned the founders but how the think they would you how the role of the executive has changed in of last 225 + years? guest: i think they would be a little surprised. the big surprise came in 1800 when we had a very vicious presidential election. we suddenly had thomas jefferson pitted against john adams and they went at each other, just the names being called and ferocious attack going on in

1800. the founding fathers had not anticipated this sort of a vibrant and some might even say mean-spirited two-party system. and they did not recognize how powerful the present and what ultimately become. obviously there is a hamiltonion influence, but at the end of the civil war when you see abraham lincoln being able to deliver the emancipation -- emancipation proclamation commercial power, often rising building of the transcontinental railroad, connecting east and west while north was fighting south, you see a build up of presidential executive power and the doors got blown open by theodore result -- rose about. he changed the name of the executive mansion to the white house. he said the president had to use the white house as a bully pulpit and he starts doing massive federal initiatives like building of the panama canal, reclamation axe all over the

american west, meaning the building of dams, putting aside 234 million acres of wild america for conservation. it is theodore roosevelt who really starts defining the modern presidency of today. now we judge the president, are they using executive power a lot or not. president bush certainly was using executive power quite a bit. barack obama was saying he wasn't but after the failure of the health-care debate or health care legislation in 2009, i saw an article the other day that uc president obama saying i have been applying some ways to operate as an -- a stronger executive and not just working with congress. there have been worries about what is called the imperial presidency. arthur/ginger jr. wrote a marvelous book on it, gary wills has a book and now -- our third schelinger, jr..

i think the founding fathers would be startled. host: you got a chance to weigh in with otherç historians. giving a great to the first year of the obama presidency. readingç from "business week" e gave him an overall grade of be based on a foreign-policy and being the most on turn as political figure. with his relationship with congress you gave obama açç dr in the coming year, how the sea and prove that d to a b, professor? guest: it is going to be tough. remember, lyndon johnson won his landslide in 1964 and ushered in great society programs which gave as medicaid and medicare, voting rights and civil rights, wilderness axe. i could go on and on what the listç of great society accomplishments. çokççokçor if you are a cri he had 67 senators, i believe,

meaning he had a democratic rubber-stamp. the obama administration went with their 60. it was tentative. i think they thought they would be able to arm twist democrats to go for their health care. they eventually did. they got married landrieu and senator nelson and conrad and others -- mary landrieu. but it was too late. you know the massachusetts election, scott brown taking over ted kennedy's old seat. there went that possibility of playing with that 60. now with 59 i did not see how president obama will be able to in a midterm election year, particularly one and -- as shrill and nasty as this one is shaping up to be, i do not think there will be much effective legislation on capitol hill this year, hence we will have to look at new ways to use presidential power to push his agenda forward. host: one quick question.

who is the last president in your view to add to the work well in tandem with congress? çguest:ç lyndon johnson was a phenom, almost and a leg of his own. but ronald reagan did a good job considering he came in in 1981, seen as a conservativeç ideologue and famously made a lot of of overtures to democrats, including liberals like tip o'neill and ted kennedy and was able toç getç some important bipartisan legislation through. bill clinton use all evans and able to work wit jongress, only after the gingrichç revolution in 1994 he was a bit t(of a wounded animal dueç to e impeachment proceedings, thatç is when hisç triangulation approach took holdç when he started working on welfare ãoreform and balanced budget and other issues effectively with the opposition. çyou have to get away from -- t is very hard, though, for a

president who has an ideological bent to moveç into a center zoe because of their base will always think they are abandoning principle for political expediency. host: we have calls waitingç fç t(çyou, douglas brinkley. ryan, queens, new york. çcaller:ç good morning. çççpresident washingtonç i e çwasçç -- he was notç electe was appointed. what was the process for himço be chosen to be president of first time? i guess he was chosen to be president the second time. ç çi did not believe there was an election. maybe you can correct me. the other thing -- was there anyone else who was considered toç be president? thank you. host: george washington -- guest: george washington was first among men in the new

american nation. he, after all, was theç general who beat the british, a guerrilla fighter who won such extraordinary battles culminating in yorktown. washington was the obvious person who could bring together all parties. he was a man of the south, virginia, the slave part of the country, but was able to work in such close tandem with the more fiery revolutionaries like john adams or samuel adams in massachusetts. also -- and there is a wonderful story, if i could indulge in just a second. i did not want to eat up caller's time -- there was an interesting man -- remember, he was president of constitution congress -- the secretary of the constitutional inconsonant of congress and he kept the physicals signed declaration of independence on him, he was a beer maker from philadelphia, he

was the head of the sons of liberty in philadelphia. thompson and of being the one to go to mount vernon, virginia, washington's home along the potomac, and tell him you've got to be president. we have all talked and you are going to be the first president of the united states. and thompson road from mount vernon to new york city, the first inauguration took place in the wall street area of new york, and he ended up standing by washington when he was sworn in as our first president. it was thought -- and i think accurately so -- that we were very lucky to have a man of washington's stature, almost university -- universally loved, with the former colonies, and even the people who were loyal to the british crown admired his cunning and his heroism and guts and bravery on the battlefield. he was a very judicial man who was able to take the best of all the difference leading lights in

the area -- era and listen to the ideas and incorporate them. finally, washington was a man without pretense. he spoke the american tongue. he was not trying to be a british swell. he tried to dress in a characteristic american clothing. he ate american foodstuffs and was -- celebrated what our new country was going to be. but it was only by 1800 when that same man, charles thompson, who kept the minutes of the continental congress diaries, he burned them and he wrote john j. and jefferson and said, i am burning these diaries because i think we need to have a strong president. i don't want people -- if jefferson gets in and adam gets in, if people see they are real people, we will not be able to keep 13 and then growing colonies turning into states and

more together. we have to have a unifying president. once we slug it out on the campaign trail, we all have to get behind that figure. and you start getting the cult of washington growing, which culminates in the city of washington, the washington monument, washington on the dollar bill, washington on the quarter, tales of washington tossing his coin across the rappahannock river, his tale of the tear -- cherry tree. a mythological figure. guest: it is better the diaries were burned? host: better the diaries were burned? guest: i don't have a view because things happen. but that is what charles thompson thought. but the civil war would happen a couple of generations earlier if we did not rally behind a small -- strong chief executive post cut back on our democrats line. guest: i'm glad you mentioned

lyndon johnson, my favorite, because his social issues and his ability to pass legislation but of course, franklin roosevelt. i have a question. in what ways do you find richard 4/ present republicans? how do you find difference in their ideology? guest: a good question. he was much different. richard nixon was the last of the new deal presidents. the shadow that franklin was about half of this country from 1930 to -- in 1932, really want all the way to jimmy carter, let's call in 1976. carter became a fiscalç democrat, a grover cleveland democrat and ended the new deal and nixon came in and simply dec çcongress liberalism. great society programs. qit is richard nixon who gives s things likeç the endangered species act, clean air and water

act, vastly expanded civil rights legislation. i could go on and on. he was almost as a bold about government expenditures, having a government interference, if you like, in america, as lyndon johnson was. not quite. i don't think philosophically he was there but as a practical politician, nixon continued fdr liberalism so you have -- in history, it goes from franklin roosevelt to nixon at this time when you have big government spending, huge government spending and then you had carter trying to be a fiscal conservative, only serving one term and ronald reagan comes in and it is called the reagan revolution because he is rolling back the great society and nixonism. host: michigan on independent line. caller: i would like to know what mr. brinkley's thoughts

about a recent book -- i believe the author is james bradley -- he was responsible for the film "flags of our fathers." he wrote some veryç shocking, i would say, even excoriating things about teddy roosevelt and the war in the pacific, thatt( basically --w3 host:ç 4 fdr? çcaller: in theçó 1900's in tes of letters that went back and forth between the governmentsçf japan and russia, and there was a whole lot of skulduggery, i guess, for lack of a battered -- better term that in my mind took teddy roosevelt than a few notches in terms of being an admiral historical figure. first of all, is mr. brinkley familiar with bradley's book and what are his thoughts on what bradley has to say about teddy

roosevelt and the leading up to the world war ii. guest: mr. bradley's book is called "imperial cruz." and i don't think very highly of it. ççi am an admirer of mr. bra's previous work, particularly dealing with the second world war, but what i object to in this book is a thesis thatç hes insistent upon that somehow theodore roosevelt was responsible for the bombing of pearl harbor because he, in 1898, was promoting imperialism in the spanish-american war and by the time he became president hç cut a deal,w3 theater rose above, with japan and said leave usç alone in hawaii, leave us alone in the philippines, and we will turn a blind eye and you could do what you want in correa, and hence japan --

korea, and hence japan had ugly imperial adventurism in korea that got them in a mood for conquest and eventually turned theirç fangs to america. çit is a very overdrawn faces that leaps overçç decades, tht doesn't properly attributed the fact of how weak america's navy was on the west coast, how old were extended we were in hawaii and the philippines, how desperately we needed to have a defense perimeter. he disputes the account thatç theodore roosevelt -- theodore rooseveltç deserve a nobel peae prize forw3 stopping russia and japan that was a brilliant piece of diplomacy. incidently, russia at that point of was a bastion of horrible anti-semitism, almost pre- german nazi anti-semitism going on in russian society. japan was already a huge

industrial power. so i think he cut president roosevelt's diplomacy at portsmouth that gave him the nobel peace prize terribly short. what he does is set up a strong man and not down. tr -- what he is right about, what mr. bradley is right about is imperialism has an ugly side would come a very ugly side, and he pointed out in the book. i enjoyed it, but it is not a book i would recommend or trust xdor footnote in any work i do. host: national, tommy on the democrats' line. -- national -- nashville. caller: the last story and i got to talk to is the late howard vince -- what i say about the current government. do you not see reflection in today's government in what he wrote about the late 1800's,

like 1870 through the time of roosevelt and how we have become monopolized and corporatized and we are becoming the best nation that money can buy? and in a recent article in, i think it is "the wall street journal" yesterday, the article about james capel as being the best one-term president -- james k. polk. he was a man who kept his office open to the people. he worked like a true officer of the people and kept the office open to suggestion from everybody. host: thank you, we will get a response. guest: of course, howard zinn -- i am here in massachusetts where howard zinn lives, and his death

was a great loss. he died in santa monica a few weeks ago. he bowed the people's history of the united states. really shook up the historic profession, his insistence of not just looking at presidents or tycoons, senators, famous people to get away from them and look at the street and look how real people, middle-class people, lower income people worked during different eras. he is a great loss. i think all times are different. i hear the of caller's frustration about america today. it is really a global sua/g@@@ ,

can feel cold and indifferent to people. and i believe we are living in an age of great anxiety because there is a feeling if the market classes here people would not know what to do because we are not even farmers anymore, but buying everything quickly. we are a credit card society. a lot of things to worry about. on the other hand, if you travel -- the country -- and last week, was in florida, alaska, texas, georgia, the american people are strong and there is so much good will and you look at the job the troops are doing in afghanistan. i would not get too disheartened about the united states. we have not seen our best days yet. there is a lot in us -- and as for mr. polk.

excellent 1-term president. he is ranked as one of the near greats. the greater use leave lincoln followed by washington and fdr, and the next with fear or roosevelt and jefferson and woodrow wilson, andrew jackson and a few others. he did a couple of things smart. he saw the border problem with canada, with great britain peacefully up in the pacific northwest and then of course had the device of war with mexico but he won it quickly -- divisive war with mexico but he won it quickly. he was a man of zeal, manifest destiny helped fuel the movement westward to california in the 19th century. host: if any of our viewers want to find the colorado -- the myth -- fine but column -- find the ñ ççi want to play you a bit oft

he had to say about serving as a one-term or two-term president and get your response. them ever in the middle of all of this, do you think maybe one term is enough? [laughter] çç>>çi]i] you know, i would t the one thing i am clear about is i would rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. and i believe that. there is a tendency in washington to think that our job officials is to get reelected. that is not our job description. our job description is to solve problems and to help people. t(ñrççthati]ç isç notñ3çtf elected officials themselves, but that is the filter through which the media reflects. the reason why i can say this with confidence is i have gone through this before, went

through the campaign. when your poll numbers drop, you are an idiot. when your poll numbers are high, you are a genius. if my poll numbers are low, then i am cool answerable and cold and detached. if my poll numbers are high, he is calm and reason to -- so that is the filter through which a lot of this stuff is interpreted. host: your thoughts on this comment about one-term presidency. guest: the lead into this was about james k. polk, and wanted tell the viewers that he kept these elaborate diaries, and they were edited into one volume and they are worth looking at. and a tremendous book on james k. polki] and one by siegenthal.

qpresident obama did not say anything that was incorrect, and that it struck me it is a little odd for a president and his first year to have to engage with the press on one-term or two-term, it seems to political, with a country in a fair amount of peril now and i would not do that kind of pundit analysis of one-term, two-term. i don't think just because a reporter asks a question that a president needs to answer it the way that president obama sometimes does. after one year -- you got three more years in office, just don't worry about the one or two-term thing. you don't have to tell people that. people will recognize if you are working hard and tried to do the right thing, and so on. i just thought it was kind of a bad tv moment. host: douglas brinkley with us and took it o'clock 40 5:00 a.m. eastern. -- douglas bernankeokomk>sç y with us until 8:45 a.m. eastern.

caller: do you think -- george bush, do you think he was an effective president and how you think history will look at him actually vis a vis the iraq war? guest: george w. walsh -- george w. bush right now, it is quite unfair but he is clustered in the bottom four or five american presidents, not as low as william henry harrison but he was only president for a month, not as low as harding but harding was wracked with scandal. he is on the bottom and i suppose he could say it is only up from there. but he is absolutely right, caller, i think how things play out in iraq will mean a lot for his reputation. he put all the poker chips in net. it looks like a civil society is starting to take root. if it does, it will be a great enhancer for president bush's

legacy and also the fact that something he could not brag about when he was president, which he can now or his presidential library at southern methodist in texas can, which is after 9/11 he made measures for homeland security to make our safer and there was not anotherç terrorist attack on his watch. host: atlanta, fred, republican. caller: how are you doing? yes, how are you doing? i liked this guy. i moved from providence, rhode island -- i have been a schoolteacher for 12 years, i have seen history change. i want to see if obama will be considered as the first black president, i don't understand it -- not to make it a recent -- racist thing, you come from a mixed race, it the 2000 census it reads mixed.

i want to know in history, in your opinion, will he really be considered 10 years and now the first black president? guest: funny, last evening i arrived in boston from austin, texas, and in myçç hotel room there is the boston magazine with a story by skip gates, professor gates at harvard and he is saying that i am actually a white person, skip gates. doing a lot of look at dna and racial mixtures and starting to be a great redefining of what is an african-american or a hispanic. a very fertile field of inquiry going on right now. but i think at this moment in time we can say that barack obama is the first african- american present. the fact that he has so much -- has been perceived by the

society he grew up in as african-american, meaning he has had to overcome racism, ostracism, separation. he is the product of an american who sees him as that. so, hence, for the time you have to say he is our first african- american president. i am pretty sure he will be continued to be seen as the first african american president. but i appreciate the caller getting at this idea that sometimes -- no boxes is the way to live. sometimes we are kind of categorizing each -- everybody and racial mixture is a lot more different than a simple check mark. host: in terms of historical president, john f. kennedy being the first catholic president or the other things -- the first president to not have attended college. as the years go by these things become less and less important. guest: i think they do become less and less important. we are in a time where we will

have a woman president soon, a jewish demint -- jewish president, a mormon president. i do not think it matters as much as it used to. it does not mean we did not know about it or they have not had to overcome obstacles. hillary clinton has overcome a lot of bias. mitt romney has had to grapple with being a mormon in a very difficult way at times. it matters, but it seemed to be nattering less and less to younger generations, which is a good thing. host: at this tweet from "the star-ledger." reagan and clinton the most popular president according to a poll. brooklyn, new york, derek, democrats line. caller: i was calling about a comment made earlier. you said she was the best choice amongst men -- wasn't there an

african-american in charge of the country before and the constitution was written and in your humble opinion was not considered because the country was going to be built on slavery, the terrorism of slavery and humanitarian atrocities? guest: it goes without saying the point that goes without saying is that slavery existed and washington was a slave owner, jeffrey was a slave owner. you could go on and on how many of the so-called founders were. and slavery was an issue they did not want to grapple with. i was talking about a man named charles thompson, i said he got sworn in -- one washington became the first president of the was no role for thompson and washington's first administration because thompson wanted to abolish slavery and everybody said, no, no, you want to open up a can of worms. we are keeping the institution

of slavery alive. in that regard, the caller is correct. washington was the best of the people that were possible given the economic and social and political conditions in which people operated under. host: yonkers, new york, tim on the republican line. caller: i just wanted to inquire about andrew jackson. he is on our $20 bill but he is not considered on the wrong of great presidents like george washington or thomas jefferson or lincoln. i know there is a lot of controversy about his presidency and what he did before hand, the trail of tears, everything like that. i'm wondering if your guest could tell us a little bit more about andrew jackson. thank you. guest: first off, in my short time, again, i would recommendj

wouldon meecham wrote a book called "american lion." pulled surprise winning, very readable -- pulitzer prize- winning, very readable. those are scholars and urge you to read if you want to learn more about andrew jackson. the key thing about jackson, we had kind of authentic american heroes before jackson, pike -- pikes peak, great explorer, lewis and clark. but once andrew jackson won the battle of new orleans in the war of 1812, extraordinary hammering of the british with the ragtag band of troops andçok it grew o this mythological moments in the united states that we really were going to make it, that we defeated britain for a second time and jackson was at the helm in the battle of new orleans, he

became old hickory, just a full figure. and i think the appeal of the of jackson is he is seen as a figure who brought in our democracy. he is from tennessee, which was then the western frontier. he represented the common person. he did not have to be -- although he was quite well for himself -- but you did not have to be a harvard, princeton, william and mary train scholar to be president of the united states. he was given high marks for kind of bring in democracy one big step forward. it was a good precedent. it usually on these rankings, which only made so much, heç is put in that near great category. so historians recognize him as certainly being one of the very significant 19th century presidents. he is not a millard fillmore or chester a. arthur. host: our guest douglas brinkley

has offered a number of books -- if you want to look at our website, book tv.orgç and enter the name of the author or book, including mr. brinkman himself who was most recently with us for his book, "wilderness war your." you are also working on a history of the united states"? guest: yes, i'm always doing this. what is to@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @2 >> we are pulling this book together for school classes to help them get some primary documents in one volume that will be an aid for teachers. host: kan., on our independent

line. caller: mr. brinkley is of the age of the american students that probably received very little history in school. two, the one on three generations of americans that have had very little history. his last comment is somewhat exciting because it is frightening how little american history people know. it has been a great void. and the substitution with social studies which tends to be generally being taught as propaganda. so, i hope that we -- he continues to try to provide the schools with true history of the greatness of this country. host: have we forgotten teaching

history in ápá(páqáñ yeah guest:, i agree with theç- yes, i agree with the caller completely. it is startling how many young people don't know when world war i was, has no idea when eisenhower was president, don't know what the battle of the bulge was -- take your choice. i try not to engage in it because at some point it feels of use of like you are picking on 20 year olds, but i believe we need to do a much better job teaching american history and our public schools and start at a very early age becauseç they are worried about a country who does not know themselves. çincidently, american history s not boring or dry, it is so vibrant and exciting and i think we have to continue to champion storytelling in the way ken burns does with film to get people in gauge. oftentimes when i get a stood in a paper, i ask what did they love -- if they love baseball -- baseball i have been the the

paper on roberta doh clementi or babe ruth because i want to see that doozy as giving books from the library, starting to think about some aspect of our country. the key to our history is to make it fun and exciting and relevant to people. we do a pretty good job with movies and some of the television cable channels, pbs, but in the schools themselves as our caller said, they kind of ghettoize history as part of the social studies which she says leads to some propaganda. maybe all history is some sort of propaganda but i think young people need to learn thaksin key moments, be able to have a sense of chronology of our country, which seems pertinent if you are going to be proactive american citizen. host: there was an article in "the new york times" sunday system. have you seen more or less of that in the last 10 years or so?

guest: texas is a unique case. they are still warring against charles darwin down there, as if origin of species should not been written which is sort of anti-science in my view and backwards. one of the great exciting thing -- talking president, but darwin revolution and discovery of dna, findings of some more about origins of man and the role that science plays in our life also needs to be a huge part of any school curriculum. in texas like teaching texas history more than american history. it is charming in a way, but i don't like it when i see state school boards start telling people what to teach. part of what trying -- of trying to do this hyper reform -- we need to open up our narrative, we need to tell stories of

women's history, african american history, latino history on and on. we have a big narrative with all sorts of players. it is not all about presidents and generals or white men. host: carl, liberty city. florida. caller: the old saying about it is coming back to haunt us. when we compare the jeffersonian and hamiltonian type of speaking to this modern day we look at the religious right, we look at the neocons and we look at, what you said earlier, the young people who have a tendency to move the country to much higher levels which is good because the person from kansas mentioned that the history teaching was eradicated and what i wanted to w3eat -- inject is it was

eradicated because integration was coming in and the dixiecrats, those of that level of mentality -- mentality against integration did not want the young blacks to know that they had a heritage of building this country and to be and input to the country so that this is winding up to be now a blessing when we compare the joseph mentality of the bible -- where the devil minted for bad and god meant it for good. you are a historian so you can bring it to a better level and we should go back like the person in kansas city said and bring the enrichment. but the element of surprise is that regardless of, those young people of this day and time tend to lean obama who is going to be the preservation of what jeffersonian and hamiltonian really wanted this country to be about. so, in spite of, we are still

going to forward, and i correct, or not? guest: you are correct in a sense that i think america is going to move forward and i also think we have had great breakthroughs in the historical profession, starting in the 1950's and 1960's. . guest: class on the presidency is considered old-fashioned. i don't think it is. i think it is essential for young people to learn about the president's. i hope this week in schools, even if it is just the act of

memorizing the names of the president in order and starting to get them familiar with some of the stories that people like washington and lincoln and franklin roosevelt and john f. kennedy and ronald reagan, it helps us gird ourselves . or people are getting their thesis is published and there are some that are on their way to go defund almost they're hurting so badly. it is not a great time for historians. we do not treasure our historians, i do not think, as much as perhaps, we should. we need to activate them and find walls for them. during the great depression, fdr did this sort of thing with the new deal programs, getting unemployed writers to work. it feels at times very cold

fish, books being written for 200 people. host: on fdr, michelle, was quoted in the newspaper and was asked why he has not received as much support. she noted that people have been suffering for three years before he took office. at some level, she said, they had seen the counterfactual, what happens when you do not do something. i think there was a relief that someone was doing something and that it keeps them with president roosevelt for a while. were there lessons that the obama administration should have learned from the fdr administration, particularly with the stimulus? guest: absolutely there are. for starters, remember, fdr came in and called it the new deal.

he packaged his programs. what do we call what obama has done so far with the stimulus package? we do not like the word stimulus. it did not have the ring. it needed to be presented as part of a larger package. i know it sounds trite, but it needed to be named and categorized so that working people could understand what the president was trying to do. i also think we have not seen the amount of innovation out of the obama administration that became the stimulus and spread money around and was going to be a health care legislative agenda and then climate care and perhaps immigration reform. i am looking for the boldness. we are in a time where we really leadership. the climate is a problem and we are trying to get ourselves off the internal combustion engine. can we do big federal windfarms or solar farms or nuclear power

or whatever the case may be? what is our new grid for the future? look at what eisenhower did in the 1950's. he built the st. lawrence seaway. he built the state highway system in the 1950's. what is our main project? there is some bullet train action going on, but i am not feeling it as the sort of call for the country to do something great as you got with fdr throughout the 1930's, with john f. kennedy when he got us going with our race to the moon. there's something missing. i do not know what people are being called to do. this was a problem that i felt the bush administration has and it is one that the obama administration is suffering from. we need to package a lot of was going on and presented in a bold way. it is hard to tell young people to get excited, the stimulus

package is here. there's something missing from the equation. host: hear from queens, n.y., james, a republican collar. caller: i would like to ask mr. brinkman -- mr. brinkley, has he read any books about american foreign policy dealing with dictators in the middle east, like the shah of iran, and then going on boy back to vietnam -- and then all the way back to vietnam, our policies have been to support dictators so that we can get cheap oil and what is the consequences? what have these people done to their own people with our support? guest: i have read many of these books and is in major topic in american foreign policy. i would recommend daniel jürgen's book on oil whe)e he

outlines what america will do for oil, very clearly. the united states has a long they are pro-american. it is troublesome. there is literature on eac$ and every one of these. the situation in iran is one of the mark -- more famous ones. you can read some -- evok-- some work by many james that covers this in an astute and vigorous way. host: next caller, independent. caller: i read a book about lincoln the talked about him being a lawyer.

i forget the name of the vote, but it is about a dozen with -- the name of the book, but it is about a jesuit priest. also, gays in the military, [unintelligible] go to jail or join the military. my third point is, i like the attitude of the gentleman who said he agreed, that we have to be positive about this looking at history. we have to rebuild from the bottom up. professor host: brinkley, anything you want -- host: professor brinkley, anything you guest: let me say that lincoln

has ranked the top of all of the american president because no matter how bad a sitting president thinks they had it or have it, lincoln had it worse. he came in without a mandate to washington d.c. he had hostile forces stayed supposedly neutral, but was a hotbed of post slavery sentiment. virginia was a hostile territory for lincoln. in fact, anyone who goes to dulles airport knows how close the battle of bull run is to washington. and yet, lincoln persevered. he persevered through the firing of general mcclellan, finding the right commanders, keeping the union together, the abolition of slavery, the brilliant bits of writing of his, at inaugurals, gettysburg address, the emancipation itself. there is nobody quite like lincoln in that tragic ending where after appomattox he gets

shot at ford's theatre. and he becomes "the" american president and story. @@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ á guest: theodore roosevelt used to say that he saw the ghost of lincoln. president obama, and the fact that he is from illinois, has adopted lincoln as his president. all presidents like lincoln because he had the worst and was able to come up with incredible victories to keep our country

united. host: what motivated to you to write a book about teddy roosevelt? -- world war i was one of the most astute things that we did. i read a book by an author who was engaged in natural history who was a hunter and wanted to save the buffalo and elk and antelope of america and he started treating these huge wild life -- creating these huge wildlife refuges. we now have over 500 wildlife refugees in this country. -- refuges in this country. what a place to be without places like the grand canyon or crater lake or the redwood trees, the painted desert. i found th%s accomplishment as being one of the most

meaningful types of love of country and democracy that has ever happened and had never been documented fully. i undertook the task in "the wilderness warrior." host: a couple of more calls, white plains, jerry democrat. caller: a want to know your ideas in the president presiding over the federal government and use of the word pragmatic, which is very logical. where does expectation of the electorate become almost a god like nobility or clergy? this priestly almost exhortation of a very pragmatic position, you probably have more ideas were that developed, in relation to the greek gods, clergy.

guest: a big question and it really covers the sweep of the presidency. i think there is an expectation on character a lot for american presidents. not one of the strength that president obama has is his wife michelle and he has two beautiful kids and he has a mother-in-law's living in the white house and people want to know that personal narrative. -- some wonderful in-laws living in the white house and people want to know the personal narrative. we have these big presidential libraries, shrines for presidents. some people in the rest of the world find it a little odd. they see president as politicians. we see them as something higher

than that. it is a longer conversation and we have time for right now. the climate that not as president obama is having to deal with, it is it -- an t thewith, it is it -- an process. third party if you look at the poll numbers , and president obama is still fairly popular, but look at congress' poll numbers. there is some anger out there right now and there is an opening for a third party movement. it will be interesting to see if it happens in the 2012 election cycle. one more host: call from san francisco, jane on the republican line. caller: good morning, mr. brinkley, are you david's son? guest: no, i'm not.

no relation, actually. caller: i'm always interested. i wanted to make a couple of comments. you mentioned president bush. well, i agree with you. as a senior citizen i would like to add how very important it was when he added medical prescription help for us, which seems to be paying for itself. i think that is important to lead to history. also the fact that during the second world war, we lost millions of men to put out a genocidal leader. and your president bush took out saddam hussein in the middle east and was able to do it with very little loss of life as opposed to second world war when millions died. also fdr, he did not want to protect banks with federal deposit insurance because he

thought that something would happen. and i think history should see that. look what happened when we did do that. it when president clinton did away with glass stiegel, making it possible. host: and, thank you for your thoughts. guest: it is tough to be president of the united states. i think the expectations are so hard. i looked at president obama giving a speech the other day. he visibly has aged over the past year. all presidents aged very quickly, no matter how hard or difficult they think their job is going to be. it is harder. by the time they leave and once they retire, about a decade later our country tends to do an upward revisionism. we have done it with richard nixon in some ways. we have that with gerald ford and jimmy carter and george bush 41. people like to pummel the president, but in the end, people realized what a tough job

was and they did their best to keep our country together. very few presidents do not get an upward bounce later. as tough as it is slugging it out, there will probably be moment in our country 20 years from now, 30 years from now that we are looking at it a bit differently than we are now. it is hard to have historical insight in the thick of things. host: what is on the schedule for a presidential historian on president's day? guest: thanks for asking. i am here in boston and will be speaking at the jfk library today with katherine dalton, who wrote a very good book about the president. it will be taking comments focused on kennedy. i tried to spend every president's day at one of the presidential libraries because those are our great depositories our archives

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> indiana senator evan bayh says he will not be seeking a third term. is expected to make that announcement at 2:00 p.m. eastern today. we'll have live when it happens. "washington journal" also talked about which president they thought did the best job. some more of his opera -- observations. he is writing a book on the president. first up is janet borden at, which is it? caller: genet. my favorite president is barack obama and he has influenced my approach to life every day.

i need a little bit of him every day because i can depend on his intelligence and his gravitas and so forth to just, as all down. in a speech the other day he actually use the word silent. i cannot imagine any other president ever using the word selend. that ties into james alan fox's presentation just now. i'm going to write to him about reentry communities. host: we thank you for your call this morning. carol and alabama is on the line. i'm going to put you on hold for just a second. just a reminder to all our viewers, if you do not turn down your radio you will get feedback. here is paulville, arizona.

caller: i'm a 25-year-old homeowner, currently unemployed, and barack obama is my favorite president. but even though i disagree with his politics lately, i still feel he is the best man for the job. and i just have to say if he really wants to fix this stuff, all he really has to do is outlaw lobbying, lower profit taxes and just make -- you can make a social networking sites where people can be free to pull and it would be coming from one source. host: the views from mclean, va., next on the democrats line. caller: my favorite president without a doubt house to be as well president obama, and for many reasons. one of which is he is one of the most gifted intellectuals.

and when he has a thought, or when he has, you know, an issue, he thoroughly things through eight, not for the current times, but for the future. i want to predict in the next 20, 25 years that statistics will be in his favor nationally. there is research at the university of california in terms of political positions of country. they took from all over the world and put them on a political axe thess and found ot interestingly that the republican party and the democratic party are not far apart. host: back to walter eckman in philadelphia, who is an amateur presidential historian. his knowledge is a result of

extensive reading. his presidential library numbers 400 volumes and a 12,000 mile odyssey several years ago during which he and his wife, joanne, visited more than a dozen presidential libraries as well as numerous birthplaces, homestead and grave sites. grand become a connecticut, republican collar. -- connecticut, republican

collar. todd, go ahead. at todd, i lost you. we're gonna go to massachusetts. is it mark? caller: yes it is. kennedy. i'm from cape cod, so i guess i have somewhat of a bias. host: you sound fairly young. how old are you? caller: i'm 31. host: so, you were not alive during his presidency. what is the one thing that inspires you about president kennedy? caller: i think what he did for civil-rights and his domestic policy in general. i think his foreign policy is great, too, but -- and you know, he is a veteran and what happened in world war ii. a lot of people and i know that his brother was a pilot and was killed in world war ii as well. host: next up, north carolina,

go ahead, terry. caller: my favorite is obama and also, i nixon and eisenhower, and of course, clinton. host: 2 philadelphia, john on the republican line. who is your favorite president? caller: i have two. they would be bill clinton and ronald reagan. the different parties, of course, but they were both able to work together in a way that is called bipartisan, which we do not have any more. and obama, thrall of the non- bipartisanship, as it maybe --ã

host: george washington's net worth fell 50% between the time of being a general and president. james monroe, when he left the white house, he was broke and had to move in with his daughter. william henry harrison attended medical school at the university of pennsylvania. one more trivia note-franklin pierce's presidential campaign plant that's work written by his college classmate nathaniel hawthorne. california on our democrats next up, napa, calif. on the democrats line. go ahead. caller: franklin roosevelt.

host: tell us why. caller: he brought us out of the depression '30s and brought us through one of the worst wars we've ever been part of in the united states. host: citrus heights, calif., randy on the republican line. your favorite president, go ahead. caller: of all time, it would definitely have to be george washington like you were just saying, probably no other president make greater sacrifices for this country and was more of a public servant and just a good steward of the position. but in recent times i would have to say reagan. i was in the military when it transition from the vietnam era and it kind of research in the '80s when reagan came in and start of refunding -- re-

funding the military. the whole atmosphere changed. you could almost describe it as a hangover from vietnam, but the institution -- the instituted drug testing and just started being the military again. and the people talking about obama need to put down the kool- aid and pick up a newspaper. host: winston salem, north carolina, independent line. make sure you knew your television or radio. -- mute your television or radio. caller: i would like to say that my favorite president would be clinton. i do not see anything that obama has done for me or my family. or my hard-working father. i think that clinton took care

of his backyard. he took care of the people in his backyard and his own people. i do not see obama having done anything for me. host: san francisco, ruth on the democrats line. caller: it is hard for me to say one, but i have narrowed it down to four. i have two republicans and two democrats. the first is a republican and that is theodore roosevelt. he changed the makeup of our country by making -- by setting aside the national parks. the second would be franklin roosevelt' because he saved us from the depression. he was innovative. he instituted women into his cabinet and he was elected four times. the third, also republican, is

lincoln, because he, again, saved the union and was innovative and exciting man. and the fourth is a democrat, bill clinton. they could not get him down. he kept fighting through everything that the republicans threw at him. and he made a big impression on me, and i think the country, as a whole. host: do you read many presidential biographies or stories about president? caller: i do. probably the most i have read is fdr. and for a time my husband would ask me -- at one point, you know, he had seen me reading and he would say, how is things going -- how are things going? and i would say, well, fdr died again. i do think that he changed our country for the good. host: spring hill, florida, go

ahead. caller: i would have to say my favorite president was bill clinton. i have been involved in the construction industry for about 30 years, so basically, i'm just an american working man. i appreciated what he did host: you are calling us on the republican line there, robert. kind of unusual in republican thinking clinton is his favorite, don't you think? caller: that is true, but i'm looking basically at the accomplishments and how he cared for the working man in this country.

trades, so on and so forth. host: thank you, sir. palm springs, calif., james, independent line, go ahead. independent line, go ahead. caller: president clinton came up with a lot of good solutions like " don't ask, don't tell." mai said it would be j.f.k. because of the 62 missile crisis, how he handled that. because of how he handled world war ii. host: if you go to our website c-span.org connect with c-span, it gives you the ability to connect with us by twitter and also by facebook.

i was looking at these response. keep your input coming to our facebook site there. columbus, democrats line. caller: my favorite president is roosevelts, which i -- my favorite president is roosevelt, which i lived through the administration, obama and dreman. the reason i like truman is that he fired macarthur and he saved us from a military takeover. -- save the republic from a military takeover. host: back to some trivia from walter eckman, published this morning in the "philadelphia inquirerw@@@@@ rb@ @ @ @ @ @ @

caller: george washington was my favorite president. he had the chance to become a hugo chavez under his administration. they set up the commercial policy that gave the country great success. they set up a new standard of finance with alexander hamilton. he successfully managed foreign policies to avoid a war. he gave the country peace and helped keep the problems of slavery and the had the strength to believe and not try to perpetuate themselves forever in

office. one question i wondered about in talking about obama, he always uses logical fallacies and false choices in many of his speeches. why do journalists not call attention to that? host: give us an example of that coast recently. caller: a number of times he uses the ad hominem, attacked the man. , not the issue. there could be true patriots that wear flags or do not. there are false patriots that where flights and there's false patriots that do not reflect. there are many possibilities that he was using a logical fallacy to defend his position. what do you call him out on

that? host: we appreciate you wearing -- waiting in. there is an unusual look at the presidency in "the new york times." the herrell all the president's for those listing on radio, -- the pair of the president's for those listening on radio -- i have pulled it out so you could look at the hair style of president obama down here. missouri, our independent line, go ahead caller: i may far and i have called a few times. i like with the german said before. lincoln would be my choice. the founding fathers, they did not have a lot of prestige and money there. george washington could not

afford porcelain tea so he got wooden teeth. the reason i picked lincoln is for the independence out there. the proof is in the pudding. there's a chance for a third party. like it was the first republican. i vote for the man who was a person or the platform. he truly kept us together in a time when we needed to be kept together. i am glad obama uses him as a format or a template. abraham lincoln -- i wish i could have talked to the man. host: we will take a look at facebook comments of a moment. carolina, democrats line. caller: my favorite president is obama and of course clinton. i liked nixon and eisenhower host: what did you like most about nixon?

caller: i think he was a real smart men who got caught up in the same thing ever what everybe was doing. he would have done good for this country if he had not got caught up in that. host: think you are also the first caller in this segment to mention ike. tell us about why you like eisenhower. caller: i am a polite. -- i amdwight. he was a man you could stand up with. he was a military genius. host: the amateur historian, historianeckman, wrote some trivia on dwight eisenhower he

said he was famous for his fondness for gulf but john f. connelkennedy was the best on te links. chicago, good morning to john on our republican line, your favorite president? caller: washington and reagan. washington because he set the tone for what the presidency stood for and he stepped down instead of being a dictator. he was a real straight arrow through his whole life. he was a wonderful person. and reagan because he turned the country around. i agree with his conservative values. he is someone else i admire. host: we have a facebook comment -- ronald reagan was one of her favorites. also theodore roosevelt for the establishment of the national parks service.

new hampshire, jim, on our independent line, go ahead caller: i have to join the group of lincoln. it is astonishing that in a mere five years what he accomplished in keeping the nation together. his own personal life was so difficult. as much as i am delighted that obama is president now, i think it is too soon for us to gauge. finally, i would have to say reagan is perhaps my least favorite because we probably came closest to subverting foreign policy with the iran- contra situation. host: clinton was in the running for best modern president. he was a good moderate. albany, ga., on our democrats line, go ahead. caller: my favorite president is barack obama. . .

he has already got the nobel peace prize. he did not get it just for no reason. he is trying to bring everybody together. i think he will be even better in the next three years. . .

caller: i think president obama got the peace prize as kind of a slap in the face to the united states. i really do. i think he has done nothing to burn that coveted award. thank you -- to earn that coveted award. thank you. host: let us go to our independent line. caller: high. teddy roosevelt. host: got a number on teddy. what you like about tr? caller: not only was he a conservationist before it was national, but as a trustbuster, if we had teddy roosevelt in there today, we would not have

all these mergers and shenanigans we have going on at wall street today. i just really admire him a lot. host: ron in california, go ahead. caller: first of all, i want to say that there is a fallacy going on, and that is with ronald reagan did i was in a room with about 20 people years ago, worked to o'neill -- where tip o'neill said that if troops were pulled, people would have to say that ronald reagan was the dumbest, laziest president in the history of the republic. if you look at the deficit, he was absolutely the worst president ever. if we look at presidents based on what they accomplish, i accept that with the huge to buckle in vietnam, john f. kennedy did not do anything with his proposals until lyndon johnson was able to manipulate

congress and put together the biggest programs in the history of the country and the biggest civil rights movement in the history of the country. i think there is no doubt that the most accomplished president and one that did the most was lyndon johnson. the problem is that we had a vietnam that are raised that all. host: a couple more coming up. first, at little trivia -- >> we will leave "washington journal" at this point to go down to indianapolis, were indiana senator evan bayh is announcing his retirement from the u.s. senate. he is the top senator to retire from the body -- the 10th senator to retire from the body. >> thank you very much, and thank you all for joining us today. i know how busy you are. i am very grateful you are taking the time to be with us. i would like to begin by acknowledging some people whom i

owe a great debt of gratitude to the first, my wife, susan, who for 25 years has stood by my side with love and support. so much i've been privileged to accomplish. as my father told me the day we were married, "son, you definitely married up." [applause] second, my wonderful boy is, who i love so much and for whom i am so proud. being a father is the most important, i will ever have. next, my staff members, many of whom are assembled in the room today, both past and present. they've worked so hard and sacrificed so much for the people of our state. there is not one that could not have made more money or worked fewer hours doing something else. they've given me much better than i deserve. most importantly, i am grateful to the people of indiana, who for almost a quarter-century

have placed their trust and welfare in my hands. no one could ask for a better boss or greater honor. i was raised in a family that believes the public service is the highest calling i, that what matters is not what you take from life, but what you give back. i believe that still. for almost all my adult life, i've been privileged to serve the people of indiana in elected office. as secretary of state, i worked to reform our election laws and make sure that every vote counts. i cast the deciding vote in the closest congressional race in the nation for a member of the other political party because i believe that he legitimately won the election. as governor, i worked with an outstanding team to balance the budget, cut taxes, leave the largest surplus in state history. create the most new jobs during any eight-year period, and create funding for schools every year, make college more

affordable, and reform welfare to emphasize work. we have raised water quality standards and created more new state parks at any time since the 1930's and raise the penalty for violent crime. in the senate, i have continued to fight for the best interests of our state, working with hoosier person business large and small, the medical service, automobile manufacturing community, many, many more, to save and create jobs. since 9/11, i've fought to keep our nation save with national security policies both tough and smart. i have championed the cause of our soldiers to make sure they have the equipment they need in battle, the help care they deserve when they returned home. i have often been a lonely voice for balancing the budget and restraining spending. i've worked with democrats, republicans, an independents alike to do the nation's business in a way that is civil and constructive.

i'm fortunate to of good friends on both sides of the aisle, something that is much too rare in washington today. after all of these years, my passion for service to our fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in congress has waned. for some time i have had a growing conviction that congress is not operating as it should. there is too much partisanship and not enough progress, too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem solving. even at a time of enormous national challenge, the people's business is not getting done. examples of this are legion, but two recent ones will suffice. two weeks ago, the senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with the greatest threats facing our nation, are exploding deficits and debt. the motion would have passed, but seven senators who endorsed the idea and co-sponsor the legislation voted no for short- term political reasons. creating new jobs, our nation's

top priority today, fell apart from complaints from both the left and right. all of this and much more has led me to believe that there are better ways to serve my felicitous since, -- my fellow citizens, my beloved state, and our nation, then to continue serving in congress. to put in words most people can understand, i love working for people, i love helping citizens pick the most of their lives, but i do not love congress. i will not, therefore, it be a candidate for reelection to the united states senate this november. my decision should not be interpreted as more than it is, a deeply difficult, personal hundre -- personal one. i am not motivated by strident partisanship or ideology. my decision should not reflect

animosity towards my colleagues to continue to serve in the senate. while the institution continues to need reform, there are many wonderful people there. the public would be surprised and pleased to know that those who served in the senate, despite the policy and political differences, or unfailingly hard-working and devoted to the public good as they see it but i will miss them. i particularly value my relationship with senator dick lugar, and have often thought that if all senators could have the cooperative relationship we enjoy, the institution would be a better place. my decision should not reflect adversely upon our president. i look forward to working with him during the next 11 months to get the deficit under control, get the economy moving again, regulate wall street to avoid future political crises, and reform education so that all of our children can fulfill their god-given potential. this is the right agenda for

america. my decision was not motivated by political concerns. even in the current challenging political in our rent, i am confident in my cost export -- political environment, i am confident in my prospects for reelection. i have been honored by indiana for electoral -- honored by indiana with electoral success. but it is not good enough, and it has never been what has motivated me. at this time, i simply believe that i can best contribute to society in another way, creating jobs by helping to grow a business, helping to guide the institutions of higher learning to educate our children, or helping to run a worthy charitable or philanthropic endeavor. words cannot convey, and nor cannot adequately express, my gratitude to the people of indiana. i will never forget those i have been privileged to serve, and those who read so kindly supported me.

i have always tried to remember that my job is to work for the citizens, not the other way around. i am reminded that if washington, d.c., could be more like indiana, washington would be a better place. lastly, let me reiterate my deep and abiding love for our country and optimism for our future. these are difficult times for america, is true, but we have seen difficult days before, and we will see better days to come. with all our fault, we are an exceptional nation. i look forward to continuing to do my part, to meet the challenges we face as a private citizen, to work for solutions, not slogans, progress, not policies, so that our generation can do what americans have always done -- conveyed to our children that america is stronger, more prosperous, more

decent, and more just. thank you all again. may god bless you all. [applause] >> indiana senator evan bayh on stage with his wife and it to kids. are rising star in the democratic party -- a rising star in the democratic party, announcing that he will not seek reelection at the end of this, his second term, mostly due to partisanship in congress. "the indianapolis star" reported a couple of days ago that his staff, that the chair said he would definitely seek another term in the senate. he was well ahead in a poll

against other candidates. looking at his official web site here, senator bayh's biography noting that he also served two terms as governor of indiana. senator bis t latest senator or representative to

announce a career change. last week, patrick kennedy, democrat remote island, and a republican announced they were leaving. >> updated and released just in time for presidents day, c- span's "who's buried in grant's tomb?" it is a comprehensive guide to the resting places of the nation's president. historian richard norton smith on the concept behind a book. >> it is a wonderful way to humanize and personalize the past, to take events and movements that might otherwise seem impossibly remote. there is something universal about this, the fact the we will all one day be on our deathbed, we are all going to face growing old, we all have to wrestle with

questions of immortality and mortality. i mean, those are some of the themes that runs through all of this. but it is also, frankly, and entertaining book. there are lots of stories and anecdotes designed, again, to humanize all of these people. >> available now at your favorite bookseller, or ordered directly from the publisher at publicaffairsbooks.com. >> this morning, "washington journal" talked to a criminologist about recent declines in crime rates nationwide. it is about 40 minutes. today on c-span. host: for the next 40 minutes or so we will talk about declining crime rates in the united states. professor james alan fox is a professor at boston university. the fbi has reported the latest this is diggs on violent crime

from january to june 2009 cannot murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault are the categories. murder declined nationwide 10%. robbery fell 6%. for shebaa rate declined 3.3% and robbery -- forceable rape declined 3.3% and robbery also declined. it was behind the statistics? guest: the decline would have to be due to more than one factor. you can look at issues such as smart policing, policing that relies on data and information, on strategy. you can look at how many americans we have behind bars, keeping them off the streets. you can even look at the fact that the fastest growing population of our senior -- of

our citizenry is the senior citizens. they have the lowest involvement in violent crime. the crime is coming down on the because the population is aging. those are just some of the factors. i'm sure we have 45 minutes to talk about the others. host: the report indicates that the crime rate is declining in cities with small populations, 10,000 -- and in cities with small populations, 10,000 to 25,000, the crime rate is going up. guest: the focus is too much on these one-your changes. oftentimes it goes up because the previous year was relatively low. the important thing is the long- term trend, not these year by year -- and in some of these cases, there are only six month

the statistics. the homicide numbers, for example, which went down i believe by 10% in the first six months, my expectation is that in 2010 for the first six months will see an increase in homicide. not because we are doing anything wrong, not because problems are getting worse, but because when you see such a large decline as 10%, it is an aberration. i'm not saying that crime is not going down, they are. but not by 10%. when things drastically go down by that amount, the following year you tend to see an uptick. and when things rise, the following year you tend to see a decline. host: guest, james alan fox, is with us until 9:30 a.m. eastern. the numbers are on the screen. back to the rate of decline, as

recently as 2008, you co- authored a report on the rise, the recent surge in homicides involving young black males and guns. this was published in december 2008. guest: one of the problems with the fbi statistics, and when they say that crime is down across the board is the fact that their board, their tabulations, are based on different regions of the country, different population groups. they do not look at different segments of the population, that is, breakdowns by age, race and gender. if you look at that, what you will find is that in the past decade, in the 2000's, yes, crime went down for virtually every subgroup of the population except black males. in fact, for most of this decade, the rate of homicide among young black males soared.

it is easy to be misled into thinking that all of our crime rates are low because it is down across the board. we have to keep tabs on pockets of problems. what is interesting about this issue of the surge in murder, by again, young black males, is that the response to the report was quite positive in the african-american population, among black leadership. there are many americans were living in certain neighborhoods in boston and philadelphia and elsewhere whose -- for whose idea that crime rates are going down at a 30-year low was not consistent with the sound of gunfire rang out in their neighborhoods. i think it is important that we do not get fooled into a sense of complacency. we have to remind ourselves that all of our problems are not older than we do have a significant issue among run -- are not over and we do have is in the issue among one group

that we have to address. host: first call for our guests, go ahead. caller: since president obama has been in office, and just prior to him being in office, the sale of firearms has gone way up. do you think that has something to do with the crime rate? are people actually protecting themselves from these to of loans and what not? -- from these hoodlums and what not? guest: it is a great question and there is a longstanding debate in my field and in the general population about guns, do they create more crime or less crime? there are scholars on both sides of the issue. where i come down on this is that i do not believe there is evidence that shows that if we are america the crime rate --

if we arm america, the crime rates will go down. yes, offenders might be a bit more careful if they think the citizenry is armed. what that tends to do is make criminals carry bigger and more powerful weapons. obviously, the issue of guns right now is a big issue. we have a supreme court case coming up shortly, which is a challenge of the handgun ban in chicago. what it basically shows is that the ban on handguns and should -- in chicago has led to about 800 to 1000 fewer sought -- fewer homicides in the past 25 years, not more murders, but less. host: don from cyprus, texas, go ahead. caller: what is the correlation between academic achievement,

funding of schools and universities, and high incarceration rate that we have in america? and the other question i have is, how does the opportunity for these young people -- two questions, what is the correlation between high incarceration rate and academic achievement? looking at the race of all people in certain states, in particular black and hispanics. and what is the ability to participate in this free market, capitalistic society? guest: there are some important issues here. one thing that has to be in port -- pointed out is that we're spending far too much on

president and far too little on education. there are states that are having to rob from peter to pay from paul, and popping the prisons. -- and paul being the prisons. the majority of our prisoners are there for non-violent crimes and perhaps we could do something else with these nonviolent offenders than locking them up in a very expensive place, that being prison, and use that money for better purposes, especially education. the second question i believe had to do with -- the set up question i believe i do with incarceration rates for african- americans. a very sad statistics that was released a few years ago was that african-american males have a higher probability of going to prison than to college. it is certainly a combination of factors and not just having to do with criminality. a party has to do with the

ability to finish high school and afford a college education and succeed in college. the sad fact is that one of the reasons that we do have, still, high crime rates underdone -- among young black males has to do with the relatively poor education and funding of education and poor schools and neighborhoods where these young men lived. the high rate of homicide and violence among young black males is not an issue of race. it is really an issue of opportunity and socio-economic conditions that are prevalent among the population of african- americans. the opportunities still remain very bleak for many young men who grew up -- to grow up in poor neighborhoods, particularly african-american men. the economy is bleak. and opportunities for education may be limited. but one robert shiroudi is still there, and that is gang membership. -- one opportunity is still there, and that is gang membership. gains are always recruiting.

host: -- gangs are always recruiting. host: cedric from washington. caller: in the last segment there was a gentleman who talked about, i think in the '60s and '70s how for non-violent offenders, they have the opportunity to enlist in the military. i'm wondering what your thoughts are about that, for in terms of nonviolent offenders, if the sentence given them would be like a segue into the military as opposed to prisons where we know the recidivism rate is so high. guest: the military can be a very positive and reformer to of experience for young men and women -- and reformers tiv experience for young men and women who have perhaps on the wrong path. i would hate to see our military be the alternative to prisons.

but your right, i think it could serve that purpose. host: in the detroit free press this morning, there is an article about spending and the concern expressed by law enforcement. guest: that is not just happening in jail. it is also happening in prisons. we are finding that in many states, because of overcrowding in prisons, that officials have to release certain offenders

earlier than perhaps they wish they could. i think what is important is that -- you know, punishment and prison serves a purpose, yet we in this country tend to overuse it. we have one of the highest incarceration rates around the world, if not the highest. we oftentimes think about walking them up and throwing away the key. that is fine for the most dangerous. i certainly do believe that certain offenders should stay in prison for life, and life without parole for the very worst offenders. yet we need to think more creatively about what to do with drug offenders, property offenders. they are not a danger to was in a physical sense. and indeed, things such as community corrections or even home arrest, home detention, other ways of dealing with these offenders. and community corrections and community service certainly

could play a significant role, that we could create a certain form of punishment, i get at the same time contribute to society in a meaningful way while they're being punished. host: texas, build on the republican line. caller: just brought up a point there when you initially started talking and you said maybe i do not believe these stats that the fbi is putting out, and then the last thing that you are talking about is drug offenses. you want to live down here in texas along the border. i kind of agree with you, i think that the stats that the fbi is putting out is not actually true. but when you @@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @' caller: you are kind of

contradicting yourself. but i would appreciate it if you would respond to that. thank you. guest: i wish i could know how i was confident in myself so i could clarify that. is the caller still there? host: he is not. guest: i don't know what to say about it. the marketing and selling business side of drugs create significant crime problems. what i'm saying as well as the those who are arrested for drug possession and minor drug selling, and maybe even moderate drug selling -- we have to think of other ways of punishing these individuals rather than keeping them in prison at a very high cost to society. we spend very little on prevention and treatment, and an awful lot on punishment. d treatment and a lot of punishment. host: let's hear from new

jersey, ron on the independence line. caller: good morning, professor fox, bill. i would like to make a simple observation. i work in a high crime area in atlantic city and i noticed ever since president obama became president that a lot of black people who are in their 30's and '40's and '50's -- 40's and 50's are wearing their obama sweatshirt and hats and they're proud of their president. i think he makes a very nice small example for the country. i am seeing people traveling in families more than just walking around looking down. i think people are more proud of their country and i think that has a big effect on crime. guest: i think is great that more americans are proud of

their country and it's great that our country has a better reputation and acceptance are on the world since obama has been in office. whether that has translated into a lower crime problem, i think is a bit premature to conclude that. but i personally do agree with a lot of the positions and policies of president obama, and a lot of the issues that he brought up during the campaign. i'm waiting equally, however, to see if some of his initiatives that he talked about during the campaign related to crime will be implemented. one, for example, we talked earlier about guns. there was the t. hart amendment. it is a strategy that -- an amendment that has been passed through congress that limits the ability of us to use the atf tracing data to identify those wrote dealers that are responsible for a large share of guns getting into that hands of

criminals. we know, for example, that fewer than 1% of gun dealers are responsible for over 50% of gun crimes. and we can figure out who those are if we can use the tracing data the way we used to. unfortunately, congress has put a halt on that effort, perhaps because of the significant and powerful gun lobby. if we have, for example, if we knew that 1% of liquor stores were responsible for over half of the underage drinking, i bet you we would close down those bigger stores. why are we not having the same focus on gun dealers who are not making sure of who they are selling to and how they are doing their selling? that is one issue. host: the caller from texas talked about the gun problem and the violent crime along the border. the government of mexico has asked president obama to take

action on guns. can you tell us exactly what they're looking for from the u.s.? guest: i really cannot, and start. host: i have a good question for you from twitter.com. guest: there is a certain volatility. during the 1960's -- i'm sorry, late '60s and early '70s, we saw a surge in violence, largely due to demographics. back then we had half the population of this country under the age of 25. it was a unique situation with the baby boomers growing into their prime crime years. and in the 1980's, the crime rate began to fall. in the late '80s there was this huge spike and that was related to crack. when the crack market started to

emerge across america, there were large numbers of juvenile who were recruited into the crack selling business. they were given guns because they needed guns to survive in the drug market. christ -- crime started to occur in the late 80's and early 1990's largely due to the trade among darshan due to the drug trade among sellers. -- due to the drug trade among sellers. there are ups and downs and the crime rate. we need to look at long-term trends to understand them more fully. host: here is a call from queens, howard on the republican line. caller: i believe that the

segment of the population, young black males, would benefit from history. and of learning from others, such as garvey and malcolm and others who also went to jail for nonviolent crimes, but then came from that and became positive members of society and leaders. young black males need to know their history and learn their history. it is not just about coming back into society and not being bad anymore, but about coming back to society and knowing what jill is like and then teaching your brothers to become leaders. -- what jail is like and teaching were brothers to become leaders. guest: that is a terrific point. and you are right about black leaders to work in prison. here in massachusetts, it took advantage of the mass of library

and the massachusetts -- he took advantage of the massive library in the massachusetts prison and came out having studied. it is not just learning about history. it is being educated. the shameful part about our prison systems is that we are still allowing people to emerge from prison illiterate, unable to read and write. at the minimum we should be ensuring that all of our prisoners can read, can have an education, and have job skills. unfortunately, we tend to do a little bit too much warehousing. right now, the buzz words in corrections is re-entering. successful reentry programs need to start from the time in nate stark income -- inmates are incarcerated. it is not just something we do at the end of their incarceration. host: what state is doing a good job on reentry, in your view?

guest: don't think i can answer the crunch -- the question. many states are trying. i do not think we have the data to name one state the best out there. host: miami, here is mitch on the democrats line. professor caller: fox, we know the history -- caller: professor fox, we know the history when it comes to crime. what we know the history of the united states, the crime was the white man raping or going with women outside of marriage. and then with these prisons that were overflowing coming into the southern region and allowing them to be over the slaves and everything, the basic thing that the slaves did was to just try to get away from depression.

but that being said, in our county, we have like all of the nine prison systems, a chance for those to acquire a bachelor's degree or an associate's degree and then move on. but now looking at the crime going down, basically, let's reason, can we give them a chance to say, well, we did not always make the right decision. if we look at you and saw in your eyes a problem and we say, you go to jail well, can we also look in your eyes and give them a chance to go to college and also to go to the military? host: thanks for the call. guest: i think this relates to some of the questions before. let me say something about getting a degree or an education in a prison setting. there was a time when prisons in this country have very successful education programs

often delivered by local colleges that would come in and help inmates get a college degree while they are incarcerated. unfortunately, our joe taxpayer to revolt, saying, i cannot afford to send my kid to college, what are my tax dollars being spent to support them and help them -- why are my tax dollars being spent to support them and help them get an education? it is very shortsighted. but whatever we can do to increase the likelihood that the inmate will come out and be productive member of society in the long run will save us money. host: speaking broadly, what is the relationship of the economy, good or bad, to crime rates in general? guest: cities and police chiefs have talked about the expectation with the economy in the tank we will see crime rate soared. the research shows that is not necessarily true.

people are not saying, oh, my goodness, i cannot make ends meet and i have to go out and rob people. if you're so inclined to make your living of criminal activity, whatever is happening to the economy or the employment rate does not really matter to you. it is really an issue of which direction are you taking? that is why right now so many men -- so many americans are surprised the crime rate is down and the economy is poor. there may also be one other area where the economy and unemployment issues are having an effect on crime, but we are not measuring. that is, what likely could happen in a situation like what we have now is that you see an increase in crimes such as embezzlement and fraud, particularly insurance fraud and check forgery. these are high profit crimes with low risk, but they're not counted in the crime statistics. the fbi crime statistics talk about violent crimes, not the

more white-collar offenses. host: new jersey township, good morning, todd, go ahead. caller: i am enjoying the show. host: major to mute your television. -- make sure to mute your television. caller: in jersey, we have thousands of kids locked up and 80% of them are african american. you think that is a race problem? and another thing, there was a guy that ran for u.s. senate, he was in jail for three and a half years for a flashing charge and they tried to give him 16 years in prison. he came in fourth place in new jersey. and he has been an activist for over 20 years. you should look at hearing this

guy, dale mckellar brooks. he is an interesting individual. guest: i will do that when i get home from the show. but the statistics that you cite are not just true to jersey. it is true or run the country. blacks have a much higher rate of incarceration than whites. but blacks also have a rate of offending and arrest and conviction than do whites. it is not an issue of race itself. that is an important point to make. when i did this report on young black males, many of my colleagues and my friends said, do not do that, they will call you racist. i really was not concerned because the facts are the facts. as i mentioned before, the report was embraced, particularly by let -- by black leadership, because it confirmed what many americans already knew, that crime rates in their neighborhoods got so

low. it is an issue of the socio- economic conditions associated with race. we have large numbers of young white males going to inadequate schools, who are poorly supervised, and the opportunity for gang membership is always there. gangs have a tremendous attraction to kids. they had offered excitement and throw and status and protection. and one other factor that is very strong, opportunity. it does not matter what kind of degree you have or what color your skin is, if you are tough and a boil,@@k@ @ @ host: are you not familiar with -- guest: yes.

as i mentioned before, there are scholars on both sides of the question about whether guns create more crime or less. if you rewind the tape there, i think you will find it. absolutely, i know that work. but that work is been severely critique by many criminologists. i don't think we have a total answer. there is research on both sides. where i come down on the question, looking at all the data, is that are in the public does not make us safer. the data is that army the public does not make us safer. it certainly -- farming and the public a therming-- arming the c does not make us safer. i certainly know john lot, i

know his work, but i think the weight of the evidence tends to be on the other side. host: springfield, bob on the republican line. caller: thank you for publishing that report. i know that race is the political third real in academia and politics. i agree that it is not race. i believe it is class, or an underclass problem of current. is there any ability to delete -- any validity to the idea - that in 1975, roe v wade came in and lower the population somewhat so many years later and that would reflect in a partial reason for a lowering of the crime? the second question deals in the explosion of crime in the late 80's and early '90s due to crack

sales. it happened disproportionately in black neighborhoods, and the congressional black caucus lobbied very successfully to get more stringent, draconian sentencing to stop it in the neighborhoods. that went through and then we see an explosion of young black males being incarcerated. any comments, ironic or otherwise of those? guest: the research that i think you are talking about regarding roe vs. wade and the lagging effect down the road in terms of lower current rates because of potentially unwanted -- lower crime rates because of potentially and one of children not being boredborn, while the y is interesting and perhaps has some value, it has tended to be overstated. for example, the sharpest decline in homicide in the 1990's was among mayor -- among americans over the age of 25,

who were born before roe vs. wade. i think that some of the claims that have been made are a bit over the top. and interesting. and it has some value, but i do not think it is a major -- an interesting theory, and it has some value, but i do not think it has a major impact on the decline in the 1980's and 1990's. as far as the decline of the -- of -- as far as crack in the 1980's, there was an explosion of crime across the board. it was in large cities, particularly among kids and particularly, black kids. crime rates were not going up in rural america back then. and the response that we tend to always see in our country is more punishment. we have a crime problem, let's just make sentences longer, send more people to prison.

and that is what happened to a tremendously large number of african-american males in the late 1980's and 1990's. eventually, these kids come out. our prison populations were spiraling. eventually, these people come out. and lots of leaders say, we will deal with that problem when it comes. it is here now. the we have large numbers of americans returning to the streets typically no better than when they went in. many of them are returning to their old neighborhoods, their old ways, and in some respects are celebrities because they are ex-con. i don't think we did a great job with these and young black males that we sent to prison in the late 1980's and 1990's what they were in prison. host: james fox is with us for another five minutes or so. what led you to the field of criminology to begin with?

guest: i took a course with a criminologist at really excited me. -- that really excited me. i never had that passion for crime and criminality as a kid. i was wanted to be a math professor. but somewhere along the road i ended up in studying crime. host: dearborn, mich., pamela. caller: i have at one point and one question. that thing you read from, bill, you're talking about wayne county jail. wayne county ja!l holds 1700 inmates. the wayne county sheriff is each inmate 0er day cost $240 per day to keep them there aod that totals up to over $400,000 per day. we can no longer keep people in prison for that. and i know it is going on over

the country as well. mainly i've been hearing discussion about drug crimes and gun crimes, etc. the you check into internet crimes -- do you check into internet crimes? i saw in the toledo news an article about hundreds of kids forced into the sex trade in ohio and it centers in toledo. they said in the article that it was higher in proportion than any other place in the u.s. guest: i have not seen that article, unfortunately. i do not know the situation in toledo. i really cannot comment. but i want to say something about your comment regarding the cost of jail and prison. it concerns me sometimes we hear

these very high price tags, people say it costs more to send someone to prison then to harvard. maybe we should execute them because it would save a lot of money. maybe one of the alternatives is the death penalty. let's understand the system 6 on the costs of incarceration. -- the statistics on the cost of incarceration most of that is fixed cost, the cost of salaries for the guard or the commission or the sheriff. it is fuel, electricity, heat. if we take one inmate and perhaps execute them, we do not save $40,000. dollars for their food and clothing. we have this large infrastructure in this country ^t(puáq- in this country of

incarceration because there are too many people behind bars. that is where the cost is. we will not save any money by having a death penalty. host: sean come on the independent line. caller: don't you think in the early '70s and '80s when they start taking the jobs of the black neighborhoods and they introduced crack and the fac$ that with the correct, you know, what it does, just like alcohol, it has the same effect for violence. but they still took the jobs out and left nothing. and when you go back, and in california in los angeles, when they started talking about the iran contra scandal and then bringing drugs into the neighborhoods. and just one more fact, a black

criminal told me, it is easier to rob you because you are closer to me where i have to travel 50 miles to the white person's neighborhood to rob them. that is why there's so much crime in the black labor because it is easier to rod the people that are right there. guest: the vast majority of crime is intro racial, whites against whites, blacks against blacks. are neighborhoods tend to be a a very segregated, and homogeneous greg -- racially. that is why when you see the soaring violence by young black males, which tends to be against a young black males, then many white americans say that is not my problem. it is blacks killing blacks. why should i invest my tax dollars in prevention programs? an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of prison term. we do know that prevention does

work. and we can save money for all of us, even for white americans, because we are all paying for a criminal justice system, of if we invest in programs for kids. let me try to get this point. ndt me try to get this point. here. we now have a growing number of @ risk kids in our country. they need our services, they need our attention. ununately, we are seeing budget's been cut for after- school programs, all sorts of crime prevention programs, by just cuts for policing. we found a way to bail out the banks and the car industry. maybe we need a bailout for at risk youth. we have a lot of kids out there who need support. mcginn on just say, wait a few years for the recession to be over. we will get back to you. -- we cannot just say, wait a few years for the recession to

be over. it will get back to you. if you wait too long, the situation could get worse. i say we should pay for the programs now, or pray for the >> former secretary of state madeleine albright recently joined academic leaders in talking about developing the next generation of leaders you can see the conversation shortly you're on c-span. -- lee here on c-span. tonight at 8:00 eastern, the future of guantanamo and its detention facilities. legal experts and members of the september 11 families. tonight on "the communicators," brad smith of microsoft on what

is called cloud computing, how you access data on the internet as opposed to local servers. tonight at 8:00 eastern on c- span2. >> your one-stop shop for everything c-span is c- span.org/store. you'll find our documentaries on the capitol, the supreme court, a white house, books, coffee mugs, and other c-span accessories. look for these and other gift- giving ideas at c- span.org/store. >> a live look at the u.s. capital now, where light snow is falling, and where flags continue to fly at staff -- at half staff for congressman john murtha, the democrat who died last week obligations arising from gallbladder surgery. his funeral is set for tomorrow,

with marine corps commandant james conway among those speaking to attendees include bill clinton got nancy pelosi, secretary gates, and others. we will have coverage at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this is the supreme court, closed today in observance of the president's day holiday. supreme court justices were the focus of our recent discussion of how popular opinion affects the decisions of the court, with law professors from northwestern university. >> it is a distinct pleasure to be back in the national constitution center. it is always a pleasure to leave

washington and come to a sane part of the country. we are back in the silly season in washington, because the president of the united states undertook this is a big directly to the supreme court. -- undertook to say something directly to supreme court. and one of the justices of the supreme court felt the need to respond now we are in washington this morning talking about just a toledo apologizing to the president -- justice alito apologizing to the president and the president apologizing to the supreme court of the united states. i rather doubt we will get either. .

to modify the court opinion or at least deliver the scope so that it does not liberate for a corporation and american

politics. there is a trade-off, already talked to were losing a constitutional amendment, and he has written this wonderful book. it is a superb piece of work. i would call it a masterwork in the field, and i caution you, do not read only the text itself, because you will miss 200 pages of wonderful notes. [laughter] the supreme court uses footnotes in their own effective way, and barry has continued that tradition.

i cannot imagine anyone doing get out of research he has done for one particular project. it looks like a lifetime in denver. so i am really not a skeptic about it, it is worth all the time it will take you to read. but today we are going to talk about the tail -- detail. there will be disagreement, have already been promised, and we will try and examine the question that he says is in his reception, and this is the way he put it the other day, my main conclusion is that the most important function of judicial review is to promote public debate on constitutional issues. we are going to have that

debate this morning, and the last fourth of the program we want to have you join us on the program. very quickly i expect them to join in, but we do not have set pieces prepared. we will have a round of each of us having something to say. >> thank you. i want to thank everybody for doing this. i am a big fan of everybody on the stage. thank you for making the point3 tell people not only do not read the footnotes, but start the book and noodle your way to the part of history you enjoy. i thought that tonight, i have

to admire the national constitution center for scheduling this today after the decision, and as you said, it is a jump in off point to understand what the book is about. so you get the same reaction as you get for all controversial decisions to run history, people complaining that the court is unaccountable, where did they get off, these nine folks deciding critical issues for democracy. and i thought i would say three scenarios that might be, and in terms of how the public response to the court. ñiçóby far the most likely is tt the case getsñiñi decided,ñpáhes immediate anchor, and it drops çóquietly into the ocean. there are many controversial things causing a blitz in the media, people are unhappy, and we go about our business.

particularly now, people are willing to let the supreme court decides thingsñi. the second thing would be that the journalist would say the have legs. they care about this decision, maybe the court decides other campaign finance decisions that rile people up, and it becomes an issue, and our hands are tiedçó, weñi cannot pass the las that franken or othersçóñr wanto pass, and over the course of the debate, if you could become so controversial it is mentioned in campaigns, as justices retire, when we pick new ones the president picks justices based on their views about campaign finance and will ultimately see some change in the wall. so that is what happened with roe versus wade. it gotxd decided and mobilized pro-life movement's against the

decision for abortion rights, an áñçóñi campaigns, and 20 years later the supreme court decides planned parenthood versus casey, which skills it back significantly. so the national debate shows a change in what the constitution means. but the lowest probability that it will happen, this was the first of a series of decisions but the court takes that really go face-to-face with the current administration on particular issues. they will strike down the decision on firms, saying it is unconstitutional, and we get a sense court is against the government of the agenda. they are worried about corporations, but court is going against it, and it is a

controversy not about the board decision, but going against the people want. that happened in 1937 during the new deal quite dramatically. franklin roosevelt was president and congress was passing legislation, not clear whether it would make a difference, but people thought it was important report keeps striking it down, people wonder what to do with the court, and roosevelt suggests forcing the court's hand by proposing packing it to change the outcome of the decision. there is this huge debate or five months, pta meetings, everybody is mesmerized, but ultimately everyone comes down against the court, but not before it considers with the government and people want. we get a campaign finance

change, and that is the process by which public views become substantial into the constitution. >> i would like to talk about a third possibility. we called the most dramatic possibility. is it conceivable we could in 2010 or 2011 have a reprieve of 1937 with our popular democratic president taking on obstructionist conservative supreme court? this would be a rare thing in american history. i love the fact that stefan described by boat in his introduction as the most dramatic, democratic branch, taking an argument that for most of its history, the court has tried to reflect public opinion, not challenge it. i agree that a full-blown confrontation may be not

materialize, but even a partial confrontation may have political repercussions that could be dramatic, and to think through what would happen, it seems to me we have to distinguish between two types of conservatives on the court that defined american politics. call them, for simplicity's sake, pro-business conservatives and that libertarians. the pro-business conservatives are not totally deregulatory, but they believe the unified interest in american business. they are represented by the chamber of commerce, which won 13 out of 15 cases in the 2006 term. they are not opposed to something like tarp, and believe in economic recovery. what they do not like as regulation by litigation. they want to strike down shareholder suits that have

huge success, justices like sam roberts and judge alito. they like federal pre-emption to strike down jury critics with large medical malpractice suits, but they are pro-business. on the other hand, there are libertarian conservatives like the cato institute and institute for justice that want to strike a stake through the heart of the regulatory. it has been dormant since the 1937, restrictions on congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, the congress cannot delegate power without intolerable standards provided -- these are libertarians who have already filed lawsuits. freedom works, the same umbrella groups that organized tea parties, have challenged the

tarp as an unconstitutional delegation of congressional power, resurrecting this new deal thing. are they going before the supreme court? i do not think so. so who is the only sympathetic justice? you have to guess. scalia is a good guess, but it turns out that he defected away from the libertarian camp with a case called gonzales, 2006, basically a 6-3 majority saying side and say medical marijuana is ok, and libertarians were distressed about this, but it turns out that scalia is more of a hamiltonian nationalist conservative, and i do not think he would actually drive a stake through the heart of the new deal. so it is not solely a. clarence thomas is the only justice who might be

sympathetic. he has expressed sympathy in cases like regulating guns in schools. he would not want to resurrect this understanding. he is barry friedman's analogue of the four horsemen who went to challenge roosevelt. so i do not think there will be a majority for a full-blown confrontation, but that does not mean that the court might bought an average monthly stumble into a confrontation with the president that is -- might not stumble into a confrontation that is more volatile than you could imagine. you look at the citizens united case, and unites the libertarians in the central figure of anthony kennedy. he is a judicial supremacy just. he is more willing to strike down federal and state laws and any other -- than any other justice. in 2003 he voted to strike down more laws than any other ñijustice, and has a romantic ñrnotion of individual liberty

that might lead him to strike down the financial accountability portñiñiñr -- bo. imagine it is one decision or to dip below decisions, and later terms call in to strike down be accountability. he would probably think of himself as being moderate, picking and choosing. there are now unanimous opinions to uniteñrñrñr, and heok thinksd be polarized. with citizens united, it would be more important to not be restrained. restrained. so it m i think one of the many very brilliant books is that it only takes a couple of high-profile activist decisions to provoke a presidential attack.

in the new deal we think about the decisions about the national recovery act and forget many decisions that upheld the new deal. going off the gold standard by a vote of 8-1. they thought they were being really careful and restrained and judicious. once you have a president in the well of congress, as both roosevelt did -- the president can provoke up public response that the supreme court justices cannot anticipate. we're surprised again and again. this court is playing with fire. is is a dangerous game to even provoke a bit the popular president on issues that the

majority of the country cares intensely about. we have seen this narrative many times before and it rarely and well for the supreme court. >> give us your take. >> i will pick up on that comment. i would, i think, i agree that i would not put scalia on the list, but i do not know about alito. court revokes the administration, they will pay a price, that is the lesson of various books, that the court will ultimately deferred back, but i want to push a little on that, because i do not think you struggled sufficiently with this point in the book. we have a point that refers to this court, and is that

preferable to a judicial supremacist court? what do we get out of that? why do we have record? >> it is not only a terrific question, but the right question. i try to say this at the end of the book, which is as you read your way through american history, people attacked the court and say, you know, what do we do about this court, and there is tremendous anxiety about an undemocratic court. here we are in democracy, but you do not vote for dark axises -- justices. we are stuck with them. people get upset about this, and this is precisely what is britain, to say that this is the wrong word, and the truth of the matter is we have ways of getting to the court and the court is responsive. once you get a sweep of that -- >> you solve the egalitarian problem. the court is not a majority body

for very long. it becomes one, it becomes a submissive body, a meat body, a different body, what good is that for democracy? >> the other story you hear is that this is a body that will protect individual liberties and constitutional rights, so how does it do that? so to use the analogy of a leash or bungee cord, it has a certain amount of room to room, but at some point if it runs too far, it gets too far out of public opinion, it gets snapped back. the interesting question on the social science, clear answers, when and how is this independence from the court? i will point out that until citizens united, the roberts court had done a tremendous amount of pushing along the conservative agenda, but they had done it very quietly.

so there are ways the courts can do things. when the trumpet sounds and they go face-to-face with something the public cares about, they are record to get in trouble. they do it quietly and sutley, and there will be no room to go around. >> let's move down to the central question here. how the american people expressed their response to the court, and how does that translate into judicial outcomes? we have a referendum on the obama administration in the state of massachusetts, and one could say the administration has failed. so the american people had begun reacting to the president, but suppose thatñr the president has come to talk about it with citizens united.

how does that make a difference? >> these are two different outcomes. with congress and the president, for all the bad things that have happened over history, stripping the jurisdiction, it can stir the up to do that. the public is an outer shell. i think they are cautious.

they read the stories of people who are not activists of all but they heard about roe and were shot there is a right to abortion, mobilized, organized from the bottom up. the next thing you know, there is a vibrant offered. >> this has been mentioned not just by united but also by the roberts corp., assuming constitutional customer >> their house, where people are energized. thereçó are organizations who ae energizing them. the remarkable thing is that obama understands the message of barry friedman's book.

if you read model answers for students, me and all of my colleagues were put to shame. they were more careful and well thought out than anything i have ever produced. but he argues on his chapter in the constitution in his book of liberals have recently relied on the fiction that eight supremacist court battles for them. most civil liberties have come from the bottom up. the reconstruction republicans after the civil war and before came up with the idea you could only ban speech in a period of danger. it took the supreme court 100 years to codify that principle into wall.

so if we're talking about liberals, no. çófree-speech, a quality has coe more from political after d --y q%1h!13e more from úo ñiçóçóthey are thwarting progree walk, rather than advancing it. they can codify in principle after it is accepted by the country, pushing ahead. you have to protect speech in those circumstances, we can codify that into law. but it is a fiction. obama gets it, and barry

friedman gets it, to imagine that they are creating these legislations. >> i think the court gets it, and citizens united is a great example. there were several opinion polls down on campaign financing, and we learned two contrary things about the public. they value free speech, but the other thing is they want limits on campaign contribution. so if you look at the supreme court's's decision, and people have done analyses of the decision, how did kennedy frame and? the free speech, free speech, free speech. very little on corruption. those words we do not want to share. so they are good at framing decisions that will attack public support -- attract public

support, as well. >> we had an interesting and judicial reaction to the supreme court opinion with this past week. the court of appeals from the district of columbia held a hearing, an hour-long hearing in a new case, the speech now case, which attempts to take the citizens united decision and move it back towards analysis of the constitutionality of contributions in campaigns. and it was interesting because the present the judge of the d.c. circuit opened the hearing by saying to the council for the organization looking for more freedom, do you have anything to add to justice kennedy? the point being that already, the lower judiciary has

processed and is beginning to, i think, anticipate expanding into other realms. so the controversy, if there is one in response to citizens united, is going to be exaggerating very quickly. >> he wouldn't hesitate to expand broadly. it is a kind of libertarian conservatives who would strike down new deal regulatory standards, and you think, aren't judge is supposed to be principled? it clearly does:the question expenditure contributions, and

be principled. barry friedman says no. the question is, what would john roberts do about this, when at the end of his first term he said that he feared they were acting like law professors, and that law professors would be terrible justices. i had to convince my colleagues that sometimes you have to be pragmatic and think that the country is ready for this, it will not attract big support. and i think roberts is a barry friedman-like justice. there are plenty of conservatives to agree that corporations should have broad protection, but when you are a judge, you face the possibility that a majority of the country does not agree with you. the pragmatic thing to do is restrain yourself. be modest.

do not put your principle to its conclusion. so i like that, because it seems that it is generally good for liberty to be defended. >> is a very effective strategy with judges who do not want to wade through hundreds of pages of opinion but one the restraint, pragmatic, for it to go both ways. i think that it works. >> it is important to emphasize the importance of the lower court, and i think president obama understands my book. justice kennedy, somebody gave them a copy. i do not know if he has read it. >> nixon, earl warren -- they got it too. [laughter]

>> things happen in the lower court after the supreme court decides the case. if anybody thinks they have the right of their own and the public, i agree with the justice that it is good to be cautious. i want to cite that they say it is good to be chromatic -- pragmatic, but there is the story about the constitution, story about the constitution, that they are protected a lot of that happens in the lower courts. petty officials, police officers, they do things to infringe on people's rights. judges get those basic principles right and protect liberties, that is an essential part of the system.

it is different at the supreme court, a different dynamic it is a political court. it is one of the three branches of government. >> can we throw on theñ table te test case for your theory -- gay marriage? do you believe in good conscience? the constitution allows game marriage -- gay marriage. you are in california and you have a strong sense that if you pass this it will have a strong backlash and a setback progressive politics more generally. you are afraid the massachusetts decision may have led to the election of president bush rather than john kerry because it made the difference in states like ohio and pennsylvania. you are torn between principle and pragmatic judgment. what do you do?

>> after i finished the book, one of my colleagues came into my office and had given me a hard time while i was writing theñr book,ñi saying, this is a splendid book. i wish you had not written it. i looked at him and said, i understand what you mean. i am not sure i want any judge to be sitting in his or her chambers and thinking how it is going to play in the papers went is decided. -- when it is decided. çóñr and decides. the problem is the backlash, and it is no different for the judiciary than anyone else. so there has been a lot of debate about this game marriage because many gay-rights activists feel it is a huge mistake. the worst that could happen as we could force this issue before

it is ripe and ready, and then, you know, the court decides, well, the public is not here, and you get other movements pushed back. one of the best things that happened for the movement was ballard versus hardwick, where the court decides the case and says, you know, there is no right to sodomy and these laws are constitutional, and it is that decision that so struck at the height of the aids epidemic, you could predict what the court would do if you read the book, but at that moment, you know, the gay rights movement really engages in the country engages and we get this huge debate and 20 years later the court reverses and we are where we are now. >> in this area, may be gay marriage is a peculiar example. but the public has already spoken. state after state after state,

legislation, the state legislatures have responded and to change their own constitution to match. so what message does judge walker, sitting in san francisco now with the case before him, how does he read what has happened already in those countries in terms of expressing a political sentiment on this issue? >> people have mentioned the scopes monkey trial, and it is the same. we're having a trial about a contest that fact. it is not like a car runs through the intersection when the light is red. you have a history of gay- rights, and it is and add -- odd question to decide after hearing this testimony, but you are right. i never say on the book that it should be, and that is a

complicated question. but the court coming into overtime with the considered views of the people, if you had time to debate, that is ok. but i think it is not45q1e gay marriage. >> on the other hand, i think, and you put this out in your book and we could all think of examples where the court has not been timid or meat, or to use your metaphor, it has stretched that bungee cord as far as it will go. so one question i think for both of you is, when does the court take that risk? >> it is a case for everybody, brown versus education. brown was not on popular when it

appeared. it was supported by 54% and opposed intensely by southern minorities who opposed congress. it was supported by the truman administration and even the eisenhower administration, although eisenhower was a more supportive proponent behind the scenes. it was not a complete story. it was not until 10 years leader until the sun -- civil- rights movement, that meaningful desegregation actually occurred. >> that is fair, but only fair to a point. relative to something like sex discrimination, but court was the head of the curb -- the court was the head of the curve. in sex discrimination, it was behind the curve considerably. so what kind of issues is to

court willing to throw out a little bit? is gay-rights one of those issues? i do not know. >> let's turn to a different one. the war in terrorism. where is that? the court let way out in front. four or five times, the court has told congress and the executive that we are not going to allow you to treat terrorism suspects as you please come and get one supposes if there is any prevailing sentiment out there in the general public, it is one of fear, of anxiety, of these people who somebody wants to bring into our midst, talking about the government reconsidering have a trial of 9/11 terrorists in new york city and the reaction to the political response.

obviously, with the assistance of creative lawyers, they leapt out in front of what appears to be an incentive. >> i am not sure i agree with that. i think it is complicated. but let me just point out that when we get the be original decisions out of the court about guantanamo and they are against yet mr. should come and you might ask why is the conservative court and administration against, you remember the oral arguments in the case with the inspector general for the united states is saying we do not torture, and everybody watched the abu ghraib video that night on the news. that was a turning point of that particular issue in the public mind, and you see this again in the court issued. criminal procedure and death penalty, and what you learn is many years now, most of what happens is criminal defendants in the court.

there are deftly cases going one particular way, search and seizure cases. what is going on? you realize that racial profiling is going on, the innocence project is going on, and they are concerned about executing somebody who might be innocent spirited it is nuanced. -- who might be innocent. it is nuanced. >> but the point with xdcongressional and national reaction, when the president says he can do this on his own, he says, can do that with congress. usually the court is deferential. withxdok japanese internment, wt was -- it was authorized by roosevelt and congress, as

opposed to indefinite internment authorized by military commanders in the field. recent cases, they were going to go to congress and get support. then president bush did that and the military commissions act got to say you could suspend habeas corpus for combatants abroad, and justice kennedy, the supremacist, the anti barry friedman justice -- i am sorry he did not read your book carefully, but he does not care a whit from that. the court should do the right thing. he strikes downçó at military commission, saying to you have to have habeas rights. -- saying that you have to have habeas rights. we have a president who campaigned on the idea guantanamo had to close, who disappointed many of the left by not being as pure on these issues as they hoped, but did not go after the court. and that is what happened in the warren court. many of their criminal procedure decisions were popular with the country as a whole.

you have to have a lawyer? that was not unpopular. is not until president nixon gets up in 1968 and runs against the warren court and criminal forces that he can mobilize the backlash and maybe justice at kennedy is safe as long as obama >> he has to wait a bit. whether or not his book will be ;museum kiosk. because no book about court is sold in that kiosk and less the nine justices signed up on it. and currently, the new book about cilia -- scalia, an excellent biography, is still not available in the supreme court kiosk because justice scalia has not yet signed off on it. [laughter] so there is a way by which the justices -- just as kennedy

perhaps is going to veto barry's book going in there, but let's hope that it does not -- >> i am sympathetic to this point about the terrorism case. you can slice and dice this, explained that it was not the mainstream, we had an unpopular president, we could offer lots and lots of explanations, but ñiultimately, barry, i think it comes down to this. you have a theory about the way that the court works and the public works, and so, what would be against your theory? if the terrorism is not an example of that. >> evidence against my theory, i always tell people it is a question of how we falsified the theory, and it is probably good to have a theory of everything works with. [laughter] ñibut falsifying my theory would look like the courts standing firm for some time in terms of

an agreed public opinion, where the public is really angry about something and the public stands firm. it is hard to think of examples it is hahat.%"tñri welcome them. >> it is pretty clear that at least the class's have undertaken to condemn the court for terrorism. peter king, for example, it just introduced legislation to prevent any federal funds being used to try any terror suspectxd on the soil of an american continent. the political class's made their statement. are they thinking of this larger, disorganized public? or not. >> they introduced bills. there were a lot after laws

were stricken down, but they did not have a constitutional amendment at that point. they did not have daschle majorities. they do not control congress right now. so you need sustained opposition. and i want tou% reinforceñrñrt is incredible how fast accord response. áid issues opinions against the mccarthy at national stir the investigation, a huge congressional response, and within two years the court reverses itself and the "new achieved on their own. they are very good at beating a hasty retreat. >> they did stick their ground on the terror casesñiñi, and wed

not see that kind of backlash barry talks about. çóñrñiññrñrñi>> let's again reto the book and ask the question, the book and ask the question, after the things we ha bamut is judicial review and the role of the court to greater or lesser -- >> is a judicial review and the role of the court greater or lesser than it was? what is the reaction when these major decisions come down? does the instant reaction actually have any effect on the judicial review and the extent of the power of judicial review? does it really change it? your theory is that judicial review survives and is healthy because it is very popular and widely supported. >> as you told us at the very

beginning, it is a very long book. it is long, and because the call -- covers all of american history. i tried to show the story of that evolution of dealing with the court. it is infinitely stronger now than it was at the beginning of the nation's history. the nation walked through this remarkable progress. the most common thing that happened was a story about how the court took a death penalty case from georgia, stating that the diffusion -- staying the execution. there was not a profound sense of respect for the court that we have today. jeff has put me on his team. i think that the justices are

sometimes more skittish than they need to be. there is a great sense of appreciation for the court in the american public -- it means we will stick with the court, even if we do not like some of their decisions. they are a strong movement for an independent judiciary. when there is a backlash against the court, there is a backlash against the backlash. regard to that judicial view, what is in it for the court? if justices are simply going to sit there and rubberstamp public opinion, who wants to be a justice, really? [laughter] go to the house of representatives or something. >> talk about paper trail.

>> at some point, this has to be about building trust and good will over time so there can be the occasional disruption. that has got to be. just lengthening that bungee cord. >> let me throw him overboard, also. there are things here that are hard to fathom. so will the backlash effect be different now? we are in the media environment. five years ago if the justice rolled his eyes at the state of the union, that would not be instantly broadcast live and commented on. what areñi the effects of the response to the i role? that is a question of temperament, of psychology. some people are defensive, and being criticized might get them

up and make them determined to stick to their guns. and i get a case of your role as a justice being linked to a particularly made a commitment to say jurisprudence and conditional understanding or textualism, there is a big difference on the court between formalist and pragmatist justices, and justice alito is not all that pragmatic. so you do have times in history where particular justice to stick it out. it is a matter of psychology and happenstance. broglie, things tend to wash out. but there are pressure points, not because of the happenstance. so it is completely possible. i was given an account of how to pick and choose, they might just shut themselves up. they could be clumsy about it and think as the new deal people did, we are going to save the country for itself, as justice

reynolds did. the constitution is gone, shame and humiliation are upon us. those are words from the bench. >> we suppose that he did become instantly aware of his new celebrity, because we put the video clips in response to the president's response, and he may have just been suffering some drastic ups that -- gastric up set, but recently he became a new celebrity, and people in this country, everybody, the people in this country who have encountered him for the first time, he is not a highly visible member of the court. now he is, and the point is, what kind of response is there

from his colleagues on the bench? bringing the question back to the foundation question, does that kind of an incident, does that change in the public perception of judgment, insensitivity? does it change the core's capacity to be the ultimate expositor? to what lengths will the court go to protect its prerogative of being the last word on the constitution? are we talking about that? we are. and when the public reacts, as you have suggested, has the court at any point -- and it has -- currently lost the ultimate control over constitutional meaning. when that happens, does it regain it only by withdrawing? does it surrender?

that is what this is all about. >> it for me, the book is ever- changing. it never sits still. there is always a reaction to move things along. all the way back to john marshall during marbury versus madison, he writes a letter saying, you know, maybe we should give up this thing just to keep our independence, and during the reconstruction when the courts have the case going to strike down southern ñrreconstruction,ok congress bas away and says we cannot do this. so the ebbs and flows you see all the time, maybe there will be even another chapter. >> is a wonderful question, i think, and barry tells a story çó review be

excessiveok. çóñijujr "empire ofñi libertyxd," tells a similar story -- gordon wood. ourt realize they can nowood. longer be perceived as political if they want to get away with this power of judicial review. so they start acting legally, and lots of different ways, and that is one of the reasons the xdxdreviewñi gets accepted strategies to do."i it, but thas the bottom line. ñrñiñrñiñiñrñ2ó>> judicialçó rl ñrñiñrñiñiñrñ2ó>> judicialçó rl ñiñrçóñientirely intact? otherwise. çóabsolutely. ñi>> a constantly changes. isn't the alternative way of perceiving this, it never changes, the cycles are the

same, but court stretches the bungee the public and then reaffirmed its favor of judicial review an accord goes back to being the ultimate expositor of constitutional meaning. this is what is all about. it will not change. that is how we can look forward -- or can we look forward to a time when it would change? will judicial review be impaired in a lasting way by one of these episodes? >> ultimate expositor might be too strong, since the claim from marshall on word was that the court had concurrent authority to the constitution, and there are times in history when they were more willing to debate constitutional terms. lincoln made convincing

arguments, and roosevelt, also, gave his meaning of the constitution. politicians have gotten out of the habit of doing that and what to pass the buck to the court. it would be good to see an energized party take on the court on constitutional terms. >> burns, in his book on review, in his concluding chapter encourages the president to directly confront and say no when the court has issued an opinion that is subjected to. i think what obama did this week in the state of the union is not the equivalent of saying no to the court. in fact, there was this just for of respect for the court's authority, and the president came in.

so we are not likely to see from this president a direct confrontation, a refusal to abide. >> you never know. i agree that things take on all life of their own and all of the sudden you have history and realize that people never go up, and that is the way it is. i do want to say one thing, my happy story of the book is that this process of confrontation back-and-forth, that goes on and it's still all changes the fundamental way of as it goes on, but the most important thing for me is that it gauges all of the american public to think about these questions, so i think it is wrong to think about the constitution about being alone just by the supreme court. it is our constitution. it is over 200 to two years old. it certainly says things today we did not mean at the time it was written, and the only way that it has fundamental meaning as people think about it.

so there are questions, is their right to abortion in the constitution, how does it apply to terrorism? >> at this point i would like to ask jeff to jump in and tell us how goes the movement to take a constitutional way from the court. people like gary ackerman at yale and levenson at texas, larry kramer at stanford, jeff rosen at gw, members of the leading constitutional academics in this country are trying with considerable energy to take the constitution away from the court. how's that going? >> i would not take a constitutional way from the court. -- i would not say to take a constitution away from the court. it is about the argument barry is making, popular constitutionalism, democratic constitutionalism. but if you think that it is

wrong, and generally constitutional values have risen from popular mobilization rather than just judicial decisions, there are a lot of interesting differences about how aggressive or restraint courts should be, and the current buzzword among liberal circles in the american constitutional society is democratic constitutionalism, and the point here is not that the court should be completely restrained and let the people do everything, but they should be modestly interventional list, moving away from the public occasionally, like women's rights, pushing back when people get in, but basically engaging in a dialogue with people, and different people come up on different sides about how interventionist the court should be. in terms of taking the constitution away, we mentioned one author who does in his book take a radical position the president literally should refuse to obey supreme court decisions with which she

disagrees. there is a tradition of this radical miles an. robert bork raised this after his defeat. he thought that maybe the people should be able to overturn decisions that they disagree with. during the progressive era, there was a suggestion of majority or two-thirds vote overturning. so you do not have to buy the descriptive story to think that the judges have no role at all. çó>> let's think about ways we n change it. the court has interpreted the constitution, and now i have interpreted the constitution and i disagree with the court, and we a and that it would be great for him to say he disagrees with

the court interpretation. it would be a wonderful example of presidential leadership. it is tricky because the president might say, i will refuse to execute a law that i believe is a concept -- unconstitutional even though the supreme court has upheld it. say he disagreed with the discriminatory law and the court says that segregation is fine, but a liberal, progressive president -- this is hypothetical -- he says no, i believe in the original vision of reconstruction. that would be fine. the citizens united case, for the president to say the supreme court has said these funding limits are unconstitutional, i am going to insist on them anyway and prosecute or persons who are engaging in them. it would put him in another category. i would not support that. >> it is your constitution.

it is now your turn to take the stage and the microphone here. we only have one microphone this time. please come down and line up behind a microphone. i ask you please, if you can, keep your questions fairly brief so that we can get more of audience to take part in this. i will call on indirect sequence those who have but what -- call on you in direct sequence. identify yourself -- you need not identify yourself. just ask your question and we will respond. >> it is a very enlightening discussion. on citizens united, i got the impression that the court was reinforcing this judicial fiction that corporations and unions are actual people. i am a little bit concerned if that trend continues. are we going to have

corporations serving on juries and voting? . stopping point for the rights of the corporations? what parts of the bill of rights don't they get to invoke? >> part of the public debate on this is unaware of the situation. since the late 19th century the supreme court has determined that corporations shared some of the rights of citizens. the rights of citizens. obv o not expect them to serve on juries. we do wish they would pay their share of taxes. this is something we will be discussing for the next couple of years. it resonates with the public. >> next. >> speaking about interpreting

the constitution, to the best of my knowledge, the constitution is not supposed to be interpreted. the constitution is supposed to be clear. how could you contrast that true wealth of the people who from the populace? how can you measure the wealth of citizens in the united states [unintelligible] >> the question would be, how would i know what is the will of the people when i write this book? what we call it the will of the people changes over time. in the 1800's, there was a great deference to the gentry elite. later, big tycoons and war veterans had the biggest voice.

we look at adversarial court rooms, we debate, you turn on your television and there are pros and cons. there is not a lot of gray area in the middle. i can see what the fight was. i can see what the sides look like. i can see who won. >> just to pick up on the question. now that the polling is so much better and instant reactions are so much more precise, public opinion has become more and direct. >> be made a great point about technology. this book required me to think about what the supreme court did and to do a lot of research about how the public reacted. whether it is railroads or technology to change, you're

right, poles do not exist until the 1930's -- polls do not exist until the 1930's. now we know right away with the+ american people think. >> i have not read your book but i agree with the general thesis. nonetheless, i was surprised when you decided roe versus a way. the decision has been around for 37 years. abortion is now legal in a way more jurisdictions and then it was in 1972, still. the groups that have mobilized the counter-wrote versus weighed -- roe vs wade is still unhappy.

were you being predicted a when you made your comment about uápvr'g that it is going to be overturned -- your comment about roe, saying that it is going to be overturned? >> when the court decides, it may get it right or wrong. if the court decision makes sense in the context of what is happening in a country historically, that does not mean they always get it right. if they strike down the death penalty in every state and then 37 states reinstate the death penalty, the court says, ", we got that wrong, and then they reenact the death penalty. the american people have been right, they're not always overwhelming, it depends on the

provision of the law, but they are generally in support of abortion rights. but what people do not understand is that the casey decision scaled back those rights in major ways. women could be shown pictures of aborted fetuses and know what was happening. the remarkable thing about the casey decision was that if you went down a provision by provision what was challenged in at the case, it could also do a gallup poll provision by a provision and see the support. >> the dread scott decision declared people property. i have heard it said that in another decision declared property people.

when to corporations merge, does that legalize same-sex marriage? [laughter] >> very good. for that, there can be no response. >> this was not mentioned, but i am still trying to figure out how the supreme court made the decision in electing george bush for president. >> how did they do it or why? >> why? i know how they did it. i just had a comment that when president obama spoke the other night in regards to the supreme court decision on the campaign issues, when i read about the

decision that they made, i thought it was one of the most stupid decisions and that they had made, and i think that his response to the other night was appropriate, and i do not believe that portions of the media should have attacked him in the way that they did. he is president, but still, he has individual rights just as all of us do. >> do you want to take the first part of the question? >> let me talk about a bush immerses gore. -- bush vs. gore. people had extremely extraordinary reactions to it. it seemed very partisan. some called it a disgrace. you got that reaction in many academic circles.

the polls prior to the decision, when asked who should resolve the election controversy, over 60% of the american people said the supreme court. we had a similar controversy in 1876 in this country. i am relatively confident that people would not have even thought to say the supreme court. >> a reminder for those of us that care about public opinion that sometimes the court should be death to the calls of the public. -- deaf to the calls of the public. indeed dread scott decision, the public was calling on the court to resolve the issue of slavery. they thought they were doing a grateful nation a favor by making a decision. they were shocked by the response of republicans.

in renquist's book about the election controversy of 1876, he said, that when people are begging to the supreme court for an answer, they make it harder for the court to say no. in something as filled with tension as bush vs. gore, sometimes staying in your hand is the wise thing to do. >> when you look at the public opinion polls after bush vs gore, whatever you thought of the opinion, of course 50% of the people supported the decision. it did not cut into the court posole legitimacy at all. in fact, the legitimacy and bumped up slightly in the public opinion polls. it was quite a different response, whatever we think about the decision.

>> about 80% of democrats disapproved of the decision right after. 80% of republicans approved. but a year later, polls have gone back to what they were before, because 9/11 had happened. it shows that the justices are as bad at predicting what will be given legitimacy. justice scalia predicted that the court would give legitimacy to what bush called a the legitimacy of his election. that turned out to be wrong. the court could no more have anticipated terrorism than the reaction to the outcome of the election. >> sandra day o'connor thought

the election would go a certain way. after the decision and the backlash, in academic discussion circles, her decision seemed to turn a somewhat less -- i think she had an amazing barometer for where the public was on issues. she has had a response which was basically, "see what happens when i leave the court? " [laughter] >> she has also said in public that she is not sure that case was decided correctly. >> i want to make an observation and then ask a question. the observation is about deference on political questions, that the court would stay away from an issue if it seemed too political. i recall that justice scalia was

asked a question about the power to declare war and the fact that the constitution allows only the congress to declare war and how that has been done, and how presidents have used other means to engage the nation in war, and to what extent there still is a difference on political questions. bush vs gore is of course an outstanding example of not backing away from a political question. the real question i wanted to address is this. you have been talking about the court as if it was a single entity. it is in fact nine justices. the outcome of the issues that are brought before the court are very much a factor of the ideological and personal predispositions of each of those nine persons. they are human beings who are

sitting on the court at any time. >> your question? >> i wonder if you could address house that individual shifting of votes this way and that on the court affects your judgment as to how the court response to the democratic will. >> make a point about ideology, and then i will disagree with you. you. >> broadly, more collegiate justices that can put their ideology aside in the interest of legitimacy have been more successful, and the law professor types who are sure they know it all have often provoked unintended backlashes. you cannot tell what the mix is

going to be at any particular time, and you can have other types of pragmatists and formalist, like justice scalia. but temperament matters a lot and that will affect public opinion. >> one should say in response to that last question, from the perspective of the court, that is the institutional perspective, they were not resolving a political question, but a constitutional question. and they did it in a way with political consequences, but to be fair to the court, the cases were presented to them and all nine justices said that the ultimate question was not who should be the president, but how

do we resolve a controversy in the politics that was not provided for. -- but the constitutional question of the controversy within the politics. i think we have to give the court credit for the perception of it had of what it was doing, whether or not you like the outcome. i do not think the justices thought they were making a decision in order to make george bush president. i do not think any of the nine thought that. >> when it is crystal clear that the consequences of deciding that decision will decide the president of the united states, i do not always agreed with the justices, but at that moment it may have been smart for the

court to sit back and think through the political consequences. >> i don't think it was anticipated that we would go to the eve of inauguration without a cut -- without a presidential choice. >> by the textbook definition of a political question, not a description of whether an issue has political consequences, this met all of the criteria. there were mushy standards susceptible to legal resolution. it seems almost comical that justice scalia said they could not hear challenges in the gerrymandering in cases when the political consequences applied so much more dramatically in the bush vs gore. >> thank you for a stimulating

discussion. my question relates to caution and versus pragmatism. i am focused on the chief's concurrence in the citizens united, which seemed to say, quite a ride. >> both justice kennedy and the chief justice in a separate concurrence marched through all of the reasons why they had to do this. the case is remarkable in the number of briefs that were filed and the arguments were made in stopping points along the way. by the time you walk through those stopping point to explain why you couldn't stop theire, oe wonders if you did have to go all the way. >> i think it started in 1990

when it justice kennedy made a decision in a case. from that day forward he was instrumental -- when the court backed off of the statutory argument and called for new constitutional arguments, it was all over at that time. >> in the voting rights act, that was a case where john roberts did what he was supposed to do. everyone thought the court would strike down the voting rights j t(qin any 8-1 decision, they came up with a statutory argument that had never occurred to congress. they created a kind of technical provision that said that any municipal district can bail out if they meet certain qualifications.

>> why didn't he do the same thing in this case? he said people were protesting too much. he is shocked by any suggestion that he shouldn't have done this. but that is exactly what they did indeed boating rights case. >> this proves berries point perfectly. john roberts had a majority, and he'd lost it. i think that was a perception of where the country is by either john roberts wore the colleagues he had with him. the court hesitated and pulled back from it, and then reached for a very readily available statutory alternatives in order to decide the case. i think that was a case in which the court clearly got cold feet, or some member got cold

feet, and roberts would have gone to the whole way with citizens united if he could have. one more question. >> i join in the banking and the panel for a terrific discussion -- i join in thanking the panel for a terrific discussion. i thought you might want to comment on the apparent replacement of the amendment procedure as a mechanism for the people's will through the other mechanisms you described in the book. >> so, the framers arguably blue

something in writing the constitution. they arguably blew a number of things. one of them was at the framework for amending the constitution, which is extremely difficult. if you think about it, you do not want it to be a simple popular vote. but it is nearly impossible. had they not made it so difficult to amend the constitution, it is not clear if the supreme court would have taken on such an aggressive role in changing the constitution itself. had they gotten it right, i would be in a very different situation than i am now. that is what fosters this national debate that ultimately proper thought -- that ultimately forces the court to come on board. >> please join me in thanking

our panel. [applause] >> thank you very much for your participation today. it is clear that this book is destined for in the bedside tables of the nine most influential legal minds of america. if they are watching this program, i encourage any of this -- any of the justices to come to this center and tell us what they think. we will [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> former secretary of state madeleine albright recently joined other leaders in discussing diplomacy. you can see that conversation starting at 4:40 eastern here on c-span. the future of guantanamo, is discussed tonight. and tonight on the communicators, brad smith up microphones off -- of microsoft on the cloud computing. tonight at 8:00 eastern on c- span2. >> it is the only collection of presidential portraits painted by one artist, chas fagen.

see the entire collection on wind at our web site. >> democratic senator evan bayh says that he will not run for a third term in congress this november. he attributed this decision to the partisan divide and conquer. his comments are just under 10 minutes. >> thank you for joining us today. i know how busy you are today. i like to begin by acknowledging some people for whom i owe a great debt of gratitude. first, my wife susan, who for 25 years has stood by my side and without whose love and support so much i have been privileged to do would never have been possible. as my father told me the day if we were married, "son, you

definitely married up." [applause] second, my wonderful boys, beau and nick, who i love so much and of whom i am so proud. being their father is the most important job i will ever have. next, my staff members who are in the room here today, both past and present, who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much for the people of our state. there is not one that could not have made more money and worked fewer hours doing something else. they'll always managed to make me look much -- much better than i deserve. most of fort lee, i am grateful to the people of indiana who for almost a quarter century have placed their trust and welfare in my hands. no one could ask for a better boss or a greater honor. i was raised in a family that believes public service is the highest calling in the church, that what matters is not what you take from life but what you

give back. i believe that still. for almost all of my adult life, i have been privileged to serve the people of indiana in elective office. as secretary of state, i worked to reform our election laws to ensure that every vote counts. i cast the deciding vote in the closest congressional race in the nation for a member of the other political party because i believed he had legitimately won the election. as governor, i worked with an outstanding team to balance the budget, cut taxes, leave the largest surplus in state history, create the most new jobs in any eight-year period, increase funding for schools every year, make college more affordable, and reform welfare to work. we created water quality standards, created more state parks than any time since the 1930's, and raised the penalties for violent crime. in the senate, i have continued to fight for the best interest of our states. i've worked with workers and

businesses, large and small, in the defense sector, the life sciences, the medical device industry, autos, steel, recreational vehicle manufacturing, and many many more to save and create jobs. since 9/11, i have fought to make our nation safe with a national security approach that is both tough and smart. i have championed the cause of our soldiers to make sure that they have the equipment they need in battle and the health care they deserve when they get home. i have often been a lonely voice for balancing the budget and restraining spending. i've worked with democrats, republicans, and independents alike to do the nation's business and a way that is civil and constructive. i am fortunate to have good friends on both sides of the aisle, something much too rare in washington today. after all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in congress has waned. for some time i have had a growing conviction that congress

is not operating as it should. there is much too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. even at a time of enormous challenge, the people's business is not being done. examples of this are legion, but two recent ones will suffice. two weeks ago, the senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with one of the greatest threats facing our nation -- our exploding deficits and debt. the measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted no for short-term political reasons. just last week, a major piece of legislation to create jobs fell apart amid complaints from both the left and right. all of this and much more has led me to believe that there are better ways to serve my fellow citizens, my beloved state, and our nation than continued service in congress. to put it in words most people

can understand -- i love working for the people of indiana, i love helping our citizens make the most of their lives, but i do not love congress. i will not, therefore, be a candidate for election to the united states senate this november. my decision should not be interpreted for more than it is -- and very difficult, deeply personal one. i am an executive at heart. i value my independence. i am not motivated by strident part mission ship or ideology -- partisanship or ideology. these traits may be useful in many walks of life, but they are not highly valued in congress. my decision should not reflect adversely upon my colleagues who continue to serve in the senate. while the institution is in need of significant reform, there are many wonderful people there. the public would be surprised and pleased to know that those who serve them in the senate, despite their policy and political differences, are

unfailingly hard-working and devoted to the public good as they see it. i will miss them. i particularly value my relationship with senator dick lugar and have often felt that if all senators could have had the cooperative relationship we enjoy, the institution would be a better place. my decision should not reflect adversely upon the president. i look forward to working with him during the next 11 months to get our deficit under control, get the economy moving again, regulate wall street to avoid future financial crisis, and reform education so that all children can fulfill their god- given potential. this is the right agenda for america. my decision was not motivated by political concern. even in the current challenging environment, i am confident in my prospects for re-election. five times over the last 24 years, i have been honored by the people of indiana with electoral success. but running for the sake of winning that election, just to

remain in public office, is not good enough. and it has never been what motivates me. at this time, i simply believe that i can best contribute to society in another way -- creating jobs by helping grow a business, helping guide an institution of higher love it -- of higher learning, or helping run all were the charitable or philosophic endeavor. -- helping to run a charitable or philosophic endeavor. in closing, let me say this -- words cannot convey nor can i adequately express my gratitude to the great people of indiana. i will never forget those i have been privileged to serve and those who have so kindly supported me. i have always tried to remember that my job is to work for hoosiers, not the other way around. i am constantly reminded that if washington, d.c. could be more like indiana, washington would be a better place. lastly, let me reiterate my deep and abiding love for our nation

-- our country and my optimism for our future. these are difficult times for america, is true. but we have seen difficult days before, and we will see better days to come. with all our faults, we are an exceptional nation. i look forward to continuing to do my part to meet the challenges we face as a private citizen, to work for solutions, not slogans -- progress, not politics -- so that our generation can do what americans have always done -- convey to our children anan america that a stronger, more prosperous, more decent, and more just. thank you all again. may god bless you all. [applause]

>> updated and released just in time for presidents day, c- span's "who's buried in grant's tomb?", a tool or a presidential gravesides. it is a comprehensive guide to the nation's president. contributor richard norton smith on the concept behind the book -- >> it is a wonderful way to humanize and personalize the past, to take events in movements that might be impossibly remote and there's something universal about this, that one day we are all on our

deathbed, we will face growing old, and we have to deal with the questions of immortality and mortality. those are some of the things that run through the book, but it is also frankly and entertaining book. there are a lot of anecdotes designed to humanize all of these people. >> available now at your favorite book seller or ordered directly from the publisher a public affairs books. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern, the future of guantanamo as a detention facility. stephen abraham joins legal experts and members of the september 11 families. and tonight on "the communicators," brad smith from microsoft on cloud computing, accessing data over the internet is set of local computer

servers. "communicators" tonight on c- span2. tamara, the funeral service for john murtha who died last week at age 77. he was chairman of the house defense appropriations subcommittee, which allocates defense spending. we will have live coverage around 10:30 a.m. eastern. >> former secretary of state madeleine albright recently joined college presidents to discuss leadership. they are at wellesley college to talk about how women can receive an education and government. this is just over an hour and half. >> good afternoon, everybody.

i am not used to sitting down in this room. welcome to all of you this afternoon to this conversation with secretary albright on higher education, its role and responsibility in global affairs. this afternoon's events is held on the auspices of the college's newly established madeleine colbert albright institute for global affairs. the albright institute represents our renewal and extension of wellesley's commitment to global education in the liberal arts context. all this at wellesley are excited by the possibilities. we are honored that secretary albright is the institute's first distinguished visiting professor. she is joined in this afternoon's conversation by

three distinguished academic leaders. by president bottomly, who needs no introduction. but the president of columbia university, and by the president of spelman college. president bollinger has emphasized global education on her campus. each of them has presided over the initiatives similar to the albright institute here at wellesley. initiatives to expand the intellectual range and global reach of the college. we're grateful to president bowling shirt and tatum. -- president bollinger and

tatum. last week's catastrophe in haiti has refocused all of us on this fundamental issue of our responsibility in the world at large. our goal is for this event to be a real dialogue, that is, a conversation among the members of our panel and then also conversation involving all of you. after our panelists have delivered their brief remarks, i will open things up for and -- for a question and answer session. i hope you feel free encouraged to participate. my role is described as that of moderator. we're not expecting the back- and-forth of a televised presidential debate, but if we can generate enough passion to justify the need for moderator. [laughter] so welcome to all of you.

it is my pleasure to introduce madeleine albright. she was the 64th secretary of state of the united states. she was the highest ranking woman in the history of the u.s. government. before that, she had served as the u.s. representative to the united nations. she is the principle of a global strategy firm and investment advisory firm. dr. albright earned her be a with honors from here, and hold advanced degrees from columbia. >> thank you very much and thank you for telling everybody who i am. not everybody always knows. and i am truly delighted to be sitting in front of this banner and to relate that wellesley for

this great honor. nothing makes me happier than to be able to be a continuing part of wellesley, particularly this institute which i think is reflective of what we are going to talk about today -- the importance of an integrated education that prepares people for dealing with the world in the 21st century. the 21st century is different from what people thought. it is requiring the people that emerge from our universities to have a variety of talent. i did love wellesley more than i can tell anybody. family knows that important it was to me. i was a political science major, and could have been a history major. but the big deal was that when i

took an economics course, it seemed like a real departure, someone in political science interested in economics. i cannot say that i did very well but there was a big deal. and how important it is to learn a variety of subjects to impact on global affairs. i underlined the world privilege -- we are privileged to hear from the albright fellows, and get a briefing on them -- from them on aspects of the millennium development challenges in terms of poverty and education. these were groups of young women that came from different disciplines as well as other countries. i think that what they brought

to the discussion is evidence of how important it is to explore global events through a variety of different disciplines. i believe that the curriculum generally in universities needs to be conducted in a way that creates people that are capable of operating in a multifaceted environment. i think it's important, not only to have the basic history, but also to understand government systems, to be able to understand the culture -- which require some knowledge and anthropology and archaeology, and the family requires some knowledge of language and literature, and to the scientific background. i know that when i was secretary of state, it was very important

to have people fully understand what happened in the oceans or what health issues were about or how the loss of a particular country affected the way that people dealt with different problems. i can multiplied is. there is almost no area that in some way or another does not impact on the emerging students and leaders in terms of the subjects that are out there. i think that in many ways our universities -- in order to be in global affairs, it's important to have a very married curriculum. -- a very varied curriculum. i think it is good that there are a variety of disciplines and that they are learning from each other. that is also reflected in this class of albright fellows, a

different variety of backgrounds from different countries. that is a part of education that is essential, the exchange program that allows people to understand what is happening in other countries and enriches -- it may sound selfish but it certainly enriches american students to have students from other countries. i know it enriches me as a professor to have students from other countries to actually challenge what is i am brainwashing them on. [laughter] i also think that as we go forward, there is a whole role in the united states government now which does encourage the exchanges, visitor exchanges, student and strangers, in a way that we all get to know more about each other. i think it is a big job for

universities to undertake this integrated, comprehensive curriculum, but in order to create leaders for the 21st century, i think it is essential to create these people. i wrote a book last year for which was a memo to the president alike. i did not give it to present obama, and i read it with the audacity of hope that it would be useful. just to tell you what the agenda was that i stated a year ago, it will tell you why we need these integrated educational systems and leaders. we have to figure out how to fight terrorism without creating more terrorists, how did deal with non-proliferation systems, how to minimize the gaps between the rich and the poor, had to deal with energy, environment,

and global pandemic issues, and how to deal with financial crisis. we have to figure out how to deal with talks that are not going anywhere in north korea and the middle east and how to deal with people killing each other in africa, that people do not even notice, and we have to figure out how to deal with the various ethnic battles going on in other parts of the world. those are just a few of the issues. i'm very proud to be associated with wellesley, but certainly with an institute that is dedicated to doing this kind of integrated educational and creating new women leaders, because actually women do hold up most of the world. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you, secretary

albright. i think we have a clear sense of the challenge, and now i am going as the president's here to respond to that challenge. wellesley's president, kim bottomly, who i said she needs no introduction. i must say just is one thing. since the arrival, nothing -- no project has been terror to her heart than the creation of this institute -- has been dea rer to our heart than the creation of this institution. >> thank you, andy. i want to thank all the members of the panel for being here today. but it's great to have you on campus and to see such a terrific turnout, and hello to all of you. i think all of us believe that

higher education has a significant and important role to play and global affairs, but there are different types of institutions. we think of are about -- our educational and parity from a variety of perspectives. my perspective is that wellesley college is a liberal arts college is specially designed for women. even though liberal education is a foundation of undergraduate education, even though it is american and continues to serve as a model for undergraduate education in the united states, the institution is dwindling. in a highly competitive world where students and parents examine the value of an education, providing successful skills for jobs, they are

questioning the expense and that type of liberal education we're providing. i am going to take my few moments to tell you that we need liberal arts education more than we ever have before. and that we face the challenge of the world, we need a learning environment that fully prepare students for click -- for greater global understanding to prepare our future leaders. president obama noted that we had entered a new era of responsibility, and most of us know that already. few of our solutions can be found within our own borders. most of our problems are global in nature. globalization captures a whole new reality, and the leaders we

produce here at wellesley college must be able to act on the large stage, larger than they ever had had to before. the citizen of the world moves from being a cliche to being a reality. while the role of liberal arts education has not changed, the world has, and with that comes the need to redefine and refocus our liberal arts curriculum. we need educational innovation for liberal arts education to be effective today. i'm going to propose two questions. at liberal arts colleges, what do we need to do? and secondly, what are the challenges in getting this done? let me talk about the first question, all little easier. what do we do to prepare leaders to embrace the new responsibilities?

citizens that will be able to take on the sense of the global world. liberal arts education was originally designed to produce people participating in public life. one scholar referred to it as the skills of freedom. we accomplish this by building up pedagogical structure emphasizes interaction, to think innovatively and effectively. good liberal arts education also talks about engagement, not only in the classroom before a student to be able to go out into the campus our community and be able to talk to others about the exciting thing that they are learning. the students bring this kind of

engagement to their career when they graduate, and there's an interest in lifelong learning. i think it is clear the liberal arts education, this pedagogical structure really works. only 3% of american college students are educated a residential liberal arts institute, they are 8% of the world's wealthiest ceo's in 1998. 19% of u.s. presidents, and in a recent two-year period, nearly 20% elected to the national academy of sciences. if i were to talk to you about leading scientists at yale, the vast majority of underbred for work was done at liberal arts

colleges, and the women, many done at liberal arts colleges. this is changing to be a positive experience, liberal arts education needs to continue in a different kind of environment. we need to figure out what kind of changes we need to make to be relevant. i'm going to talk about three things that i think are important in terms of liberal education. the first is interdisciplinary and -- the 21st century demands decision making by people who have a broad sense of perspective, and come from different disciplines. that is complicated because in general we academics are extremely specialized, yet the problem we have to solve are not. so historically, liberal arts

education has been the teaching of skills, not simply a set of intellectual disciplines. so how can we get back to that? i think the way we get back to that is that we broaden how we think about our educational mandates. interdisciplinary areas were not a traditional part of liberal arts education, especially in the 20th-century, and in some instances they were actually look down upon. and some of that still exist today and that has to change. we must realize that different disciplines and burst through historical imperatives, and nude imperatives drive the need for interdisciplinary studies. -- and new imperatives drive the need for interdisciplinary studies. there are several ways to accomplish this -- one is to

create new interdisciplinary programs. all of our institutes have done that. we do that here it will slowly. and it has worked. but there are challenges in doing that. which ones are the right programs, and at this point time, and you might say that this is the best program over time. and many of the decisions about what are the right program are based on the interest of the faculty at that particular institute, and that the faculty is not behind it, it is hard to sustain. and the new programs that are truly interdisciplinary are not accompanied by a lot of new faculty. so we end up with faculty having to do a lot more work. so it is a struggle at all of our institutions between the balance of the disciplinary and what is interdisciplinary. and not -- and one way is to

hire new faculty. it can broaden the curriculum and regenerate is a great way to do it. i think that that has its challenges as well, but there is a little bit of bias against hiring ph.d. from interdisciplinary programs from other schools, because we're suspicious of those programs not being strong. so it is a vicious circle in its own right. i prefer the model of not creating a lot of new programs, but bringing together multiple experts in a way -- of focus team. broadening the founders of interdisciplinary work and creating new habits for tackle the collaboration, all of that would help as well. that is not easy to do. you have to create incentives for individual faculty members to broaden or modified their

expertise in a different way come but it is desirable to take the partitions between the departments and make them more semipermeable, if you will. that desire for faculty to cooperate and think with one another, that can create the interdisciplinary approach read the second thing i think is important for the liberal arts institutions to create a more global awareness and as part of the liberal arts education is team learning and problem solving. the student experience in higher education for the most part is very individualistic. yet tackling real world problems requires the ability to work together in a problem-solving way. so i think one of the things we can do with these liberal arts colleges is to have more examples of team approach to learning and solving problems. i know some of the students

here heard one speaker, her wonderful work in haiti, particularly right near where they had to establish an infrastructure and the some of the first responders in a moment of crisis. she talked a lot about her own desires, to establish a health care presence in haiti. and what happened when that particular mission of hers was compromised by the need to build a new bridge, a bridge destroyed by the previous hurricane, which separated communities and made it difficult for people to come and seek health care when they needed it, people would try to swim the river and drowned, and it was not good for them. she wanted to provide health care but they needed to bridge. and she knew nothing about building a bridge. so what did she do? she fil