catastrophe or two. haiti and chile. americans -- it did not matter -- americans rolled up their sleeves and gave and will continue to do that. haiti will need help for a long time. i hope and pray that we will be there. that is the commitment that we have made. when the tsunami occurred, even during katrina -- some may argue the government was late -- but americans responded. that is the beauty of who we are. if we can continue to appeal to the goodness and extract that, that is one thing i think my father mastered. instead of always saying what we are getting, trying to figure out what we are able to come

together on. ultimately, i think we will get past this issue of race. it will take some time. we're not there yet. we may be a long way from it. we made great strides and will continue to do so. >> go-ahead. >> this is touching on the media piece of this. i would also appeal for people to not be captured by the heat, but by the light. our technology allows us to have good access to the public. they're not a lot of people involved, but they are very loud and the screen and talk over each other. not on pbs, but you know what i am saying. [laughter] we get caught up in the idea that that is representative of where the american people are. it is very entertaining. it puts more of the burden on us to force the conversation, to try to be better, to try to keep

our eye and the prize. it could be obscured by the dust that we pick up in this crazy debate. the people who really want to have a conversation to get to the next place -- when we talk race and racism -- that we do not get so preoccupied that we begin to believe that is the rising -- driving force of every conversation. that responsibility ships to us because of technology. -- shifts to us because of technology. >> one last question. >> what is the media's responsibility to help facilitate the dialogue? right now, anger and talking points sell. what irritates the most -- i was here to go years ago also -- two years ago also.

the thing that irritated me most when i looked at the news coverage was that dor dissecting it like they -- that they were dissecting it like it with the final four or the super bowl. you have pat buchanan on msnbc and others on fox talking about him throwing his white grandmother under the bus. if you look at the last couple of years, what you talked about race or health care -- whether you talk about race or health care, it almost seems like a very few people, you being an exception, there are very few journalists on tv and even the newspapers are starting to get really bad -- where people are not reporting the who, what, when, where, why, and how, but they're reporting the talking

points, usually coming from the republicans. what is the media's responsibility? >> your responsibility is that you owned a remote-control and you do not have to watch. i'm not saying we do not have responsibility. i wrote to blog and which we talked about the eric massa retraction. did you see "up"? the dog would talk and get distracted. you see what i mean. easily distracted. we are the talking dog, distracted by the kid in the balloon. or the latest thing that john edward's mistress said.

it is possible to make a decision that i want to know more. there are more places to go for that now than there ever have been. when i grow up i had a choice of reading a newspaper, washing walt -- watching walter cronkite. that was all your information. it had great power because it was so concentrated. who knows what stories they did not tell. if you not like msnbc, go to box -- you can choose. go to the place that already agrees with what you decided to believe. you can go to pbs. you then go to discovery. you can go to the history channel. there are many more places. there is the world wide web. we're not going back to where we were where everybody is responsible. these are commercial enterprises. there are places to go if you want to know more. the burden is shifted on to the

consumer of news as much as the producers of it. >> i grew up watching walter cronkite. >> you are not much older than i am. >> i remember the end of the program where he would say that that's the way it is a." today it is sometimes irritating -- i remember the end of the program where he would say, "that the way it is -- that is the way it is." there is a cacophony. there are many different voices making that noise. the burden is more on us now to interpret and analyze and extract. in a democracy, that is the role of the citizen. >> all the news that is fit to print.

>> i want to go back to dr. lomax. one reason arkansas did political debate is so impoverished is because of the failure of our -- one reason our political debate is so impoverished is because of our failure. it is a place where we as educated citizens and educators can play a critical role in helping our students become good citizens. we often fail at that. >> good, bad, or indifferent -- technology is constantly changing. there is an entire network of people who do not watch television, they go to the web. it is huge. i think about the fact that -- one of the conflicts that occurred a few years ago in

louisiana largely became undergirded by the internet. it was not until after a large number of persons knew about the because of the internet that the major networks -- cnn, fox, others -- began to talk about it. the reality is that people are going to different places to get their information. what we see -- even if you look at how our news is presented to us, is about entertainment. some of the things are not necessarily the most important things that we would all want to hear or need to hear. it may make us feel good. if you look at our networks, there is a different slant of how information is presented. it depends on who we are as to where we go to get our information source. there will be some watching fox.

some will watch cnn. some will watch pbs. it is interesting. it is a smorgasbord. we want them all. >> ladies and gentlemen, here in our audience and on the web, two years ago obama gave an important speech right here at the center. we followed it up with this discussion. how did we do? [applause] let's thank our panelists, dr. lomax, professor sugrue, dr. king, gwen ifill. by the way, you can stay and gwen will sign copies of her book. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

back >> several experts in nuclear security will talk about president obama's upcoming trip to prague. following that, irs commissioner douglas shulman will talk about his role in collecting tax revenue. another chance to watch that discussion on u.s. relations -- race relations. >> tuesday, in discussion on the

federal oversight of car safety standards with former administrator of that nhtsa. the president and ceo of the alliance of automobile manufacturers. yours can call in or tweet their questions -- viewers can call in or tweet their questions. >> c-span, our public affairs content is available on television, radio, and online. you can connect with us on twitter, facebook, and youtube. signup for our e-mails at c- span.org. >> several experts in nuclear security talk about president obama's trip to prague to sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty. they also discussed next week's nuclear security summit here in

washington. this was posted at the csis and it is about 55 minutes. >> you'll find an example of our critical questions. this is sharon squassoni's

critical questions on the nuclear security summit. this will also be a website. i would like to introduce my colleagues -- dr. alex questions -- dr. andrew kuchins. >> it is a great pleasure to be here. thank you for joining us for our briefing. i will not talk about my personal over-under on tiger woods performance at the masters. the s.t.a.r.t. replacement treaty signed in prague on thursday -- beware of overselling the importance of this agreement, but it is really significant for the u.s.-russia relationship and also president obama's ambitious goals for nuclear security and further reductions in nuclear weapons.

all long journey begins with the first step. -- a long journey begins with the first that. it is extremely important that this agreement be reached before the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in may and the nuclear summit coming up in washington next week. we will talk more about that. >the agreement is also important for president obama's political capital, domestically and internationally. when he was elected, my sense was this guy had a chance to be either one of the greatest presidents in american history because of the circumstances or an unsuccessful one-term president. about a month ago, it was looking more like the former and the latter. with the combination of the health care bill passing and the start -- s.t.a.r.t. 1 replacement treaty, he is looking considerably more corp. -- more successful with

political capital, important at home and abroad and how he is viewed by international leaders. for the u.s.-russia relationship, which a lot otheie key issues on the reset that have been driving the administratoion. iran and the urgency of their nuclear weapons program. afghanistan in the larger bet they have -- the higher but they have placed on winning the war in afghanistan -- the higher bet they have placed on winning the war in afghanistan. the third is the nuclear security agenda which, without making progress with russia, is impossible to move forward. as we look at 14 or 15 months

since the administration has taken power, the u.s.-russia relationship has improved considerably. it has improved for muller -- from a very low point. it was basically frozen at the end of the bush should ministration, after the war in georgia. there was a day -- after the bush administration, after the war in georgia. amongst the achievements that are not talked about -- maybe i should knock on wood -- there has not been another war in georgia in the last year-and-a- half since the war in august, 2008. i know that my colleagues and the defense department and the national security council spend a lot of time on this issue, insuring that this is not happen -- ensuring that this does not happen. we got a call about the tragedy at the bombing of the moscow

metro. we wondered if another war had started in georgia. it is a significant achievement that is not talked about often. the relationship has been broadened considerably with the establishment of the commission between secretary of state clinton and the foreign minister and the 16 working groups which is important. most importantly, aside from the war in georgia, is that there has been progress on the three, key security drivers -- iran, afghanistan, and security. the lower our expectations, the mess -- the less likely we are to be disappointed. when you looked at these issues, are not -- our interests are not fully align. let's look at the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. this was talked about as

allowing -- and this was going to be the easy achievement. it got little bit more complicated than expected. there was a danger a month ago when i felt like the low-lying furred by become the poisoned fruit. that does not been the case. why the lengthy negotiations? from april, 2009, and the deadline of december, two dozen 9, the expiration of the s.t.a.r.t. -- 2009, the expiration of the s.t.a.r.t. treaty-- perhaps this agreement was more important for the obama administration that it was for moscow. that led them to press hard. it seemed like we were 97% there for a few months.

this may be the most important. like any agreement about security cooperation between moscow and washington, it brings into the debate the whole relationship. for the russians, they're still operating under military doctrine which identify as the west, principally the united states and nato, as the number one threat to their security. our strategic outlook for quite different. we have quite -- we have really moved on from the cold war. the russians are not quite in sync. that is a problem. the doctor those involved in negotiations, it was clear that some people -- if you talk to those involved in negotiations, it was clear that some were obstructing the agreement. we got it. the other point that would make is that the role of nuclear weapons is in asymmetry for

washington and moscow. nuclear-weapons are more important in the russian military doctrine. for us, the reverse is true to some extent. that gets to the question of how possible or difficult future agreements are going to be as far as reductions with the russians, which may be tougher than we can talk about. let me talk about the product representative. it is my understanding that the meeting between president obama and president -- president medvedev -- it will be important for them to work out something closer to an agreement on language about areas on sanctions before negotiating on what the chinese -- who will be in town next week for the nuclear summit -- broadly speaking, to have a minute left?

the strategy has been to try to convince the russians that it is in your interest to have a better relationship with us, washington, then won with tehran. think about your interests differently. if we're not able to reach a meeting of the mines on sanctions compass -- meeting of the minds on sanctions, even the ratification of s.t.a.r.t., all of those things will be jeopardized on capitol hill if there is now shifting towards the russians -- no shifting towards the russians. the russian strategy on iranian nuclear sanctions has been to try to find a way to appear that they are cooperating with the united states and our allies, while not making a hard decision about tehran down the road.

there is a big hullabaloo in the fall where he said they were not categorically opposed to sanctions on tehran. they're already opposed to that in the un. lastly, the administration would like to -- from a strategic sense -- tried to regain some leverage in the u.s.-russia- china relationship. it is worth -- i will leave you with this thought. it is appropriate to have modest expectations about the reset with the russians. when i look at three key security issues driving the relationship -- iran, afghanistan, and nuclear security, moscow is conditional on all of those. the conditions are closer to us than our beijing. it is something to think about. i would like to introduce sharon

squassoni -- >> i would like to introduce sharon squassoni. she has just joined us from carnegie. we're happy to have her. this is her first appearance at csis. >> thank you. i am the functional specialists here. i will talk a little bit about nuclear security -- the nuclear security summit that will take place in washington next monday. andrew mentioned the three- pronged agenda that president obama laid out last april in prague. nuclear arms control, disarmament, nonproliferation, and nuclear security. this summit next week takes place just one month before the review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which happens every five years. president obama needs a big win. he needs something to gain more

cooperation and collaboration. i think the nuclear security summit was designed with that in mind. to get something that would be splashy and have style, but also have substance just one month before this important review conference. one is going to have been -- we're going to have 44 heads of state, hu jintao from china, medvedev, manmohan singh, and the prime minister from pakistan, benjamin netanyahu. iran and north korea will not show up and that is probably for the best. there will be a state dinner -- and heads of state dinner on april 12. there will be to plenary sessions on the 13th focusing on both national measures and international cooperation.

more importantly, this is a big opportunity. not since 1949 has there been such a big gathering of heads of state. as andrew mentioned, this is an opportunity to discuss sanctions on iran, other pressing bilateral issues, and of course some of the nuclear nonproliferation issues, just one month before the conference. on substance, it is a little tricky. one question i get is, what is nuclear security? what will this include? not everyone agrees on which material poses the biggest threat or how big the threat is. one of the functions of this conference will be to gain greater agreement. let's start with a couple of facts and then i will leave a lot of time for questions. since 1993, there have been more

than 1600 illicit nuclear- trapping incidents reported to the i e a e to the iaea. not all of them have involved weapons-usable material. it demonstrates that there is a market out there. there is interest in trafficking in this material. this summit -- when you look at the kinds of material, things in weapons stockpiles, weapons- usable material, which is not just stop in weapons and stockpiles, but also in the civilian nuclear energy sector and research reactors, the third category being radioactive materials that you find everywhere. in hospitals. sources used for cancer treatments, those kinds of things. some are particularly -- some of our european allies believe we should focus on those

radioactive materials, because they're not well-guarded. they are a target of opportunity for terrorists who cannot make a nuclear weapon with them. you can make what we call a dirty bomb -- are radioactive weapons. many experts agree that is what terrorists would probably seek. nonetheless, the security summit next week will focus on the weapons-usable material. there is enough material, depending on who you talk to, for between 120 -- 120,000 weapons or 300,000 weapons. that range demonstrates that we need to do more. we need to exchange more information. there needs to be a lot more transparency. this is a job that is for all countries. it is not just nuclear weapon states nor nuclear weapon

holders like india, pakistan, and israel, but for all. going back to the agreement on what the threat is, one of the assumptions of the summit will be to -- one of the functions of the summit will be to get a greater agreement on the fact that there is a threat -- to get all countries to agree that this is a problem. the white house hopes that -- hopes for four things -- that countries will be engaged, more aware, pledged to do something about this, adopt best practices, and they will provide assistance to other countries. the non-governmental organizations hope for a little bit more. they do not just focus on the existing regime. do more. actually consolidate, maybe eliminate these global stockpiles of material. i am going to leave your

specific questions about what countries can do for the q&a section. even if -- i just want to close with -- even if and there is a communique that is full of flowers early in -- all of floury language, even that would be helpful in this effort against nuclear terrorism, primarily because we all know what to do, but we're lacking the political will to do it and get it done. thank you. >> thank you, sharon. i would like to introduce janusz bugajski. he is the director of our new european democracy project and a senior fellow in our europe program. he is going to talk about this aspect of the trip. >> thank you very much. good morning and welcome.