but on the world stage, it is not going to work much longer. >> first time i met you was in 1996. 14 years ago. you said then that you were a radical pragmatist. does that work for you today? . .

a couple of weeks ago in chicago. taves smiley had another one of his tavice smiley presents and an old friend of yours -- i want to run a little bit of what you said. and your reaction. >> in the age of o booma, there is a lot of confusion. because to have a black in a high place easily leads us to forget so many folks stuck in the house. we forget about the least of the -- so we put pressure on our pressure. loving pressure but we already see that any president is -- has

a tremendous pressure from the strong, the corporate elite, the wall street -- and can easily push obama in such a way that he tilts too much toward the strong and doesn't focus the way he ought on the weak and the poor. we're going to have to ask permission from anybody to talk about black suffering and black social misery. we love other folk whether they love us or not. that's what martin luther king was all about. >> what do you think? >> that's not what he normally says. i don't -- first thing is see, i don't really separate black

issues so-called from american issues. in other words i feel this. if black people are basically not doing well in the public education system, well then that's a problem for the country at large. it is not a black problem and when it is only discussed as a black problem, it reduces the significance of it. see, because we're in a period where we actually need every qualified person to do a good job in what they do. and it is not -- so you can't say, i had to speak to some republicans about 20 years ago in washington, d.c. i said if you will fight in a war, you would think that you

can just send people to west point and annapolis and not have any basic training and go out and win. you can't do that. you have to train your troops. and so it was interesting. that was the first time they ever thought, right, apparently, this game was in relationship between the running of the country and the quality of the education to the pop liss. and so what -- populace. what i was saying is this. you have to compete with people for whom quality is number one because they are behind. .

15-20 page story, but the woman kept saying, you should come over here. you should leave them along and come over here. the woman who became the protagonist, and i gave up and let her have her way, and she took over the book and became the protagonists. >> this could be about your own life. >> in some sense, any novel is about your own life but it doesn't have to be about the specifics of your life but what you understand about what is going on around you. >> how long have you been in new york city?

>> since 1975. >> and the last time i remember taking a picture, we were in your house on 11th street. >> you have probably enshrined it now. >> there were lots of cds. >> i am not living there now. i was awakened at about 3:30 a.m. with some screams telling me the building was on fire. there was actually smoke, and i had a good experience, because i stayed inside the house with all this water coming through the ceiling and everything, because ceiling and everything, because i was concernd m driv a l ek in aying to get you to react to it. >> in the age of obama, there is a lot of confusion. to have a black face in a high place easily leads us to forget breaking through on the top and we forget about the least of these, so we put prue our-eeese+ from thega a way that he tils 1+% toward sr ec13 they love us or not. fing eon so-callfoicue6 inhes, if black people are basically nt1 education system, well then, and when i o a significance of it. we are in a period when we actually need every qualified person to do a good job at what n haddo. discussionsthli 26 % ou are fighti++t s bening, and try ton. ir . valduat6 e meseen -- i do not believe that so- creates higher quality students, hili thoc1 things affect the country at large and g6c% president obama. how would you rate his performance so far? >> all i think he -- the first thing is, no one who has that job actually understands what is

going on. they can read a stack of stuff every day and they put people in who they think they can listen to, who do we need to pay attention to on cable television? brian lamb. you know and i know the president cannot figure out the savings and loans crisis, he cannot f middle out how to handle -- ut barack obma at giving the impression that he does in fact understand. he is also good at giving the truly american sense that if this is not going to work, we're is based on the fact that you can improvise beyond the bad decisions. abraham lincoln did not understand the civil war until 1863, and after gettysburg it became clear. this is what i'm supposed to be doing. he had many thousands of men probably the brightest man in the united states at the time. if he did not understand it in 1863 -- until 1863, you know a guy in the 21st century does not understand all the problems. >> what is he doing well and what is he not? >> personally, he is a little nicer a guy that he has to be, given his opposition. if i were in his position, i would go toward lyndon johnson than abraham lincoln or fdr. well, fdr, too.

both made a decision at some point. you think you can stay here, but i am not going to let you. you are not. i think he has begun that. >> what grade would you give him on the healthcare bill? >> c +. a friend of mine was talking to one of the senators involved in the passing of the bills in washington recently and he said, of course the bill is going to pass. it doesn't have any teeth in it but that is the way it is. that is how the game works in washington. in this case, we are getting a health care bill. it does not have any teeth in

it, but as paul berman said to me, the most important thing is that now you can move -- once it is there, you can improve it. now it is in a position where it can be improved. i was fairly astounded by the intractability of the republican party. >> you write a lot about the people who represent some of the republicans, on both sides. >> they are comedians. >> sean hannity and bill o'reilly. ann coulter. >> she is truly funny. >> why do you say they are comedians? >> they do not have any respect for the truth.

it does not make any difference to them. see, the thing that is great about that is, when he's caught, he says basically, oh, i'm an entertainer. i don't see why these people are getting upset with me. i wake up in the morning and i think of something and i go to the studio and i start talking. i go in front of the camera and i start talking. he's a different kind of a guy. >> you have written about a couple of msnbc -- joe scarborough. >> he is very important because he recognizes some of the problems. he is a conservative who says he does not believe that conservative republicans should let other voices that are irrational take over the

discussion. i thought that was a -- the first thing was, saying one thing like that. i don't consider that very brave of a proposition. had he not said it, his job would have been safe. it was safe all along. >> back in november 2009, you wrote this -- >> you alluded to this earlier, but expound on that. >> i think that we are caught in an unusual situation in which the reality of life is

periodically disappointing but the usual american way of disappointment is to pretend that it is not theirs. what is happening in the celebrity culture, if you take all of these minor men and women, and you make them into these huge figures, right, who are doing things like all forming in a cartoon, like "avatar," and you make these people important and so they act important. what i mean is -- she is in a vehicle that is basically not a vehicle.

you can take these minor genres, these minor talents, you can put a lot of money around them and advertise them a lot and have people believing that they are important. the problem is that what used to be a normal entertainment approach to the selling of a product has invaded our politics. when they put out that book about nixon winning the presidency, and they talk about the making of nixon, the selling of a president and how they had to make it look, what kind of photographs he had to have made of him, all of these things, those were hollywood devices.

it didn't have anything to do with politics one of the things about john ford's movie with spencer tracy about washington politics, the fun that is made of the original nixon checkers' speech, you have this guy that is basically a dumb guy sitting with his family and stuff on my couch, saying he is an all- american guy, and he would be a good representative. he does not know anything. but what ford recognized at that point was that entertainment had taken over american politics. it does not mean that politicians in any country where they can be elected will not use as much that they find that works from the world of entertainment in a campaign.

but when the campaign begins -- becomes more entertainment and less information about your ideas, then you end up with people like rush limbaugh, glenn beck, sean hannity -- their basic interest is in whipping people up. they are interested in getting people whipped up. >> you found humor in what rachel maddow said. >> i think rachel maddow is one of the most brilliant people you will see on television, with the exception of c-span. what she does brilliantly, she actually will find footage of you saying the opposite --

footage of you on monday saying the opposite of what you said on thursday. this is what you said last week. now the interesting thing to me is that she can do it and she had -- and it has no impact. what i mean is you cannot do what sarah palin did during the campaign -- i was born in 1945 and not paying attention to presidential elections in 1960. but during that period, you could not be found guilty of an abuse of power as governor, be on the ticket, and then come out at a press conference and say, i am very glad that the investigating committee exonerated me of all charges of abuse of power.

that is not what they did. this is what they actually said. what struck me at that point is that things have so shifted that now you can actually be caught absolutely in a lie, be running for the white house, and get away with it. and that is the big difference now. people act as though the truth is just an opinion. >> let me show you what you said in our booknotes discussion. >> i recognize that we have enormous problems. we have to rebuild the public schools. we have to put a collar on

street crime. we've got to get americans to recognize that we're going into another period where things are not necessarily going to be as secure as they were in the past, but that is an inevitability connected to the technological innovations of the period. we have to maintain morale based on the human capacity to deal with problems. i think that is the fundamental power of american democracy, is that we can get the job done. corporate greed, sexism, racism -- all of those things are in the mix. the founding fathers recognized that you have to have an instrument that will allow you to right the wrongs of the past or present.

>> did you know what was coming? >> i had no idea where we would be now. what i mean is, the specifics of what fox news became at that time, i had no idea. >> you also predicted -- while not specifically, but 9/11, what impact did that have on you? >> the thing is, for a short period of time, maybe a month, new yorkers completely reversed the way that they dealt with each other. people would step on your foot and keep walking and that kind of thing. they were basically rude.

but after the unification of the disaster, the imposed disaster of 9/11, it was as though new york city went to charm school. but then one night i was half a block from my house, and i heard this guy screaming with enormous intensity, saying, with some words i cannot use here, i don't know how you got a driver's license but i ought to get out of my car and put my foot in your blah blah blah and your kids and everything, and i thought, new york is back to

normal. anything can survive, even our obnoxiousism. >> where were you on the iraq war in 2003? >> what did i think about the invasion? i was not that -- i wasn't completely convinced. nor was i -- did i automatically assume that things could go as badly as they did go, or that information could be as manipulated by the white house as it was, nor was i at all prepared to be -- to see the enormity of money, a cash cow that was created in the middle east, where all of these people made all of that money. i was not ready for that.

i was shocked by that. >> going back to that clip in 1996, were you thinking of a wall street crash? did that not surprise you? >> it did not really surprise me, because of the way that the previous scandal that involved one of the bushes. we got into this mess, savings and loan, things turned around, then someone came up with the idea that we can be taxed and everybody get their money back. what fascinated me them was the way that a number of guys on the right actually think.

now theoretically there should be no government intervention. they think that the market should be free of the government, but every time they have a problem, they come with both hands -- not one hand, they come with both hands, saying, give us some money. we are in trouble. i have found it to be extraordinary that the republican party seems to be absolutely at ease with all of this. that you can say, we don't want big government on one hand, and then say, well, we need nearly a trillion dollars to straighten these companies out that are too big to fail. once they get the money, then they say, you have spent too much money. >> you sound like a disappointed republican. >> i don't know. >> have you ever been a republican? >> no.

i guess i resent the democrats but i am basically neither. fundamentally i don't trust either of them. i don't think that americans should trust political parties. i think you should be skeptical all of them or both of them. you should be skeptical of both parties. they should look very closely at what is being presented and they should not allow the name republican or democrat to bring about automatic allegiance. i think automatic allegiance is one of the worst things that can happen in the united states, because people need to spend more time looking at what actually happens. i told you this before. that is one of the keys to the

ongoing interest that people have had in c-span for all of these years. they can find the time to find out what was actually said. i remember when i used to look at the news and said, that is what they say he said. oh, he is coming on the c-span. now i will find out what he actually said. everything has to be truncated because there's so much information. but if you can actually get a real sense of what actually happened, it gives you a stronger position from which to make the decision. i think that too many decisions are made on faith. when you see guys get on television whether a guy like ann coulter or glenn beck, and

they actually will say things that make you think that they believe that barack obama was not born an american citizen. the first problem is this -- we know that is bunk, because if the rnc could not have figured that out last year, if they could actually lose to someone not born in the united states and he could end up in the white house, then they need another job. >> speaking of barack obama, you said in one of your columns a connect between barack obama and one of the other loves of your life.

>> right. >> explain that. >> in the jazz band, because it is improvised, everyone relies on everybody else. in a certain sense, if you are playing and you come up with a series of ideas, and everybody in the band goes your way, at that moment. if somebody else takes it over, then you go with them. what i mean is that you have this ongoing, in the moment set of decisions within a forum that has a set of aesthetic goals, that is sometimes determined in motion and sometimes determined beforehand. now that is about as close

artistically as you can get to the constitution and the whole idea of the passage of laws, the changing of laws, the improvement of laws, the root of those things are very similar to what happens in a jazz band. barack obama is clearly intelligent enough to understand jazz. the question, though, is whether he has enough taste to understand it. he doesn't have a problem with intelligence. he has no problem with intelligence. i doubt that there has been anybody since the 1900's who we could actually say is innately smarter than he, but that has nothing to do with art.

you have a taste for something or not. i think that barack obama is a rhythm-and-blues guy. and that is just the way it goes. one day he might wake up and look out the window and realize that he and neil armstrong were born on the same day and that must mean something. if it hits him, it will be good for the country. >> a good place to segue to another one of your favorite subject. i have known two children named after byrd, one is charlie, and other parker. you been working on a biography of charlie parker since 1982. when is it coming out? >> volume one should be out

within the next year. >> who was he? >> he was a person who was oppression to many people who had to deal with him. he had a self-destructive appetite and a very irresponsible person. >> what did he do? >> he added another style to jazz and he also could play -- i mean he was a perfect musician. it is that simple. he played the alto saxophone. as the leader of the modern jazz quintet said about him, he could play it. if he wanted to play the tune, he could play it.

he lived from 1920-1955. >> did you ever know him? >> i might have seen him but i do not recall it. >> why have you taken all these years writing a biography? >> he is a fascinating guy. in those years that he lived, they were interesting and important years in american life. i think that he represents the tension between narcissistic irresponsibility and aesthetic clarity, because he was so overwhelmingly effective. but he was a wild person. >> some political columnists will talk about the politics and then throw in a baseball column. you throw in a jazz column.

are political writers frustrated because they cannot write about that first and foremost? >> oh, no. most people don't know about anything other than politics. when they are away at the top end, it doesn't make any difference. >> david broder writes a baseball column all the time. george will wrote a book. >> but the other thing, you're talking like a guy like george will, he is not -- he is in another class. you could not say, well, we had

george will and then we have rush limbaugh. george and i are good friends. we will leave it at that. i have great respect for him. >> back to charlie parker, is there anything political about him? did you find a political connection? >> he was not a guy that had much interest in politics and other than the fact that he was put up by the racism of the period like everybody else was. what i mean is, i have yet to see any black people who lived during that era who said, things were fine and dandy. i have not met them yet. they may be out there somewhere. >> you find that fine and dandy

anywhere now? >> probably not. but the other thing is, fine and dandy might be overrated, like everything else. what i mean this -- my orientation is more blues- influenced, in that i expect things to go wrong. i don't expect to be overwhelmed by them going wrong, but i am the kind of person who i believe it is like playing baseball. when you go to bat, the odds are against you getting to first base every time you go to bat. life basically treat you like the pitcher does.

now if you hit the ball, well, good luck. but life is strange and, it seems to me, a different pitcher who has a very high average for striking people out. >> go back to charlie parker. why do you like him? >> i like his audacity. i like the fact that he had many different sides to his personality. he was a great mimic and a funny guy. he had an extraordinary sense of humor. now some of the things that he did and thought were funny were not that funny to the people to whom he was doing them, but when you look back at them -- >> and you know that barack obama's book was "the audacity

of hope." >> he is doing the best that he can. the thing i like about him is his focus on being the president of the united states. i was recently reading on some website, where some black writer pointed out that barack obama's job -- the job of the president is to uplift the black community. in other words, he should do it, but he should not make it part -- that should not be part of his agenda. he started thinking about "them." but it should not be seen as a

separate thing from thinking about the united states. barack obama is smart enough to know that if it gives the impression that he has a special interest in a particular community of people who say that he looks like them, then he will have problems with that. >> what did you learn? you referred to the constitution of this country -- where did you learn about the constitution? and i want to go back to your pomona days. >> i learned about it from reading it. >> you only have 1.5 years of college. >> that is true. i dropped out. i am not a finished intellectual. i'm still developing. >> how did you talk pomona into giving you tenure? i read that somewhere. >> there again --

fortunately, you see, it was not said on c-span as a fact. >> they did hire you to teach. >> i taught theater, i taught history of jazz, and i taught literature. >> when you talk about teaching those seven years, it brought me to another column that you wrote, because you were an academic. >> were you one of those? >> no, i don't think that i was.

in fact, i know that i wasn't. i was referring to this guy who taught theater and film, named todd boyd, unbelievable. not really unbelievable, but an example of the american academy. >> but you got everything. you got politics, is there anything you are upbeat about? >> i am not downbeat about it. it is to me, it is important -- if you or i or anybody else goes to a doctor, it is not doing us a favor if he tells us that we are in perfect health

when he knows there is a problem that we have. my contention in telling people that there are certain problems in american life, does not suggest that i think the whole house is about to fall down. >> here is a column from a couple of months ago. >> right, i was talking to a young woman not long ago. she was trying to explain to me that women should be able to look hot if they want to look hot. and i said, well, but why does looking hot have to look like a whore? that is what i don't understand. i don't see why a fine actress

has to have her hemline up about 6 inches below the vagina. i don't know why that is. i don't know what that means. except that these actresses have accepted the idea that this woman is exposed -- a female chauvinist pig saying that women have bought into the playboy ethos and that is why they were going to strip bars and dressing like hookers and all of that, that they accepted that idea that that was their idealization of the sexual norm. >> where will this country be in 50 years? you indicated 14 years ago -- >> the first thing is, we will have a much better public

education system, because i don't think we will be able to maintain the quality of american life with a substandard education system. i think that it will improve, not because of any vision but because of necessity. i think the world competition is going to demand it of us and that is going to do a lot for us. >> what else? >> i think that what i am hoping is that these various special interest groups will lose interest in what i call special-interest pr. if you have a homosexual in something, they have to be an exemplary homosexual, and all of that is ok, except that it does not have much to do with

human reality. for i'm hoping that we will get to a point at which a criminal represents criminals. you know, you take a big dope dealer like mickey barnes in new york, he did not represent black people. he represented dope dealers. and ted bundy does not represent white guys from the midwest, he represents serial killers. that is who these people are. as long as we can get off of the failing to do the pr job, we will be closer to getting where we needed to go. >> stanley crouch, we are out of time. a book on charlie parker coming out. thank you. >> thank you for having me,

brian. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> for a dvd copy of this program, call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q-and- a.org. "q&a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts. >> cspan, our public appears content is available on television, radio, and online. you can also connect with us and twitter, facebook, and youtube

and sign up for our scheduled alert e-mails c-span.org. this year's bostoncam -- this year's student can competition -- studentcam competition. this is one of the second place winners. >> many people consider the united states to be the leader of the free world. as the leader, shouldn't we have the best education system? so that's we can continue to make the world a better place for all? do we currently have the best education system? according to the tisa test given by the oecd, we only rank as average. >>oecd, organization for

economic cooperation and development for a better world economy. national experts in areas of economics, science, and technology, taxes, education, migration, environment, all the concerns of the 21st century meet at oecd. education is key to ensuring that people everywhere at the perchance that finding good jobs with stable futures. oecd examines the education system to find what works and why. >> how did they evaluate the effectiveness of the educational system? the use a program for international student assessment them this spring they to pisa. it is a global assessment. >> it looks like the -- it looks at the assessment of 15 year olds.

we don't just look at people's confidence. we are very interested in people's attitudes, dispositions. we want to know whether young people see signs of something that will open life opportunities for them and whether they understand what they learn in school related to life and we collect a lot of contextualized data from students, parents, schools, and systems that help us understand or at -- education has hexagon them up these tests are given every three years. >> the results of these tests might be surprising. the united states has perform consistently no higher than average. these average results were based and all subjects tested, math, science, and reading, as well as all years tested, 2000, 2003, and 2006. what does this say about americans and our education system? in 2004, ""the wall street

journal" said that the education system is a time bomb. many other countries have scored above average. if education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world, do these pisa test results prove that we cannot lead in the future because we are failing in our younger generation? president obama said -- >> the american education system must once more be the envy of the world and that is exactly what we intend to do. that is exactly what the budget i am submitting to congress will deal with. >> is planned requires increased spending to improve the education system. is this the answer? in 1966, james coleman, a chemist sociological researcher

conducted an extensive study on the effectiveness of our educational system. according to his research, the amount of money spent on students did not affect their test results. instead, he found that students with higher socio-economic status score higher on tests. in addition, students who went to school with kids whose parents had a higher socio- economic status did better as well. 40 years later, things have not changed. for example, the united states outspends korea on dedication it korea consistently out scores the u.s. on pisa test scores. in tampa florida, the hillsborough county school district is taking a different approach. it was selected as one of four districts to receive a grant from the bill and melinda gates the invasion of $100 million over seven years. bill gates spoke about the changes needed to the egypt --

educational system at the 2009 ncsl conference in philadelphia. >> you'd think we should identify the top teachers. we should award them. we should retain them. we should make sure other teachers learn from them. >> regarding the grades of the hillsborough county school district, becky phillips the education director said it is all about the importance of teaching. it is the seven-year experiment to get the best teachers possible in the classroom. our ultimate goal is to dramatically increase student achievement, raise graduation rates, and to insure college and career readiness. the way to do this is to ensure our teachers are inspired and have the support they need. local administrators i spoke

with feel that better teaching of the teachers is key to success. >> what the first things we do is allow professional development for teachers. the teachers take training sometimes on the weekends, sometimes after school, and sometimes even during the school day where we put a substitute in the classroom so the teacher can get education. >> and other teachers spoke about a cooperative learning atmosphere. >> kagan corporate learning is what our strategies. he said the problem is the replacement cycle. when they get something new, they forget everything else. you do not throw everything out because you read something new. you always keep what works and add, just like you do with technology. it is always learning new strategies. >> in president obama's

education policy, he outlined the important role that teachers play in the success of students. >> preparing and rewarding outstanding teachers from the moment students get in school, the most important factor is not the color of skin. it is the person standing at the front of the classroom. >> there is a lot of debate as to what government, educators, administrators can do to help improve student learning. i called boils down to the students themselves. this is why i challenge every student to show up for class every day on time and prepared to learn. make completing euromarket priority. ask the teacher for help if you need it. make -- get your parents involved in your school work. attend after-school help sessions and homework clubs. use all available resources including public libraries.

i think the slogan from the united negro college fund sums it up best -- >> a mind is a terrible thing to waste them a to see all the winning entries, visit studentcam.org. >> "washington journal" is next. later, live coverage of a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing. 1:00 p.m., this week by the -- speech by the acting chair of the ways and means committee. on this morning's "washington journal" cnbc realistic correspondent barrie in a olick on home foreclosures. gene karpinski talk about the pending climate chang