this is the fundamental liberty not cultural or economic liberty. um an honorable determination to -- in an honorable determination to will yourself and do it in such a way that it works. what is the sense of limited government? the public must be able to do what is necessary. meet economic crises. this was of a necessity and is -- this word of necessity is open to expansion. that was a phrase in the constitution of necessary and proper clause. it comes out at the end of the list. there were writings regarding necessary and proper clause. necessity in is not attracted to crawford.

when something is necessary, it may not be proper. it is necessary and proper in our constitution. each contains the other. a tobacco republican might say this is republican morality. that is what it is necessary to do. it would minimize or ignore necessity.

it can lead to hypocrisy and pretend to be more. you pretended to be moral of front, but behind your back, you are doing something sneaky. the president says, do not be squeamish. use the power of the executive. he could become a victim of wishful thinking. necessary means necessary to the republic. it does not mean necessary to an individual in their own lives. it also includes a necessity for good government. it means it is republican in the successful.

it is not perfect government. government itself as a reflection on human nature. human nature is the same. there will be no perpetual peace. we probe a few years ahead. there is no spontaneous order that will enable us to take care of ourselves or our government. it means the necessary exception to the will of law. it is the attitude with energy. limited government is not necessarily small government. small government is not necessarily one government.

it is not small or big either. big government takes away yourself government. usurp your liberty. it has benevolence and good will. it can still up on you. -- can still on new -- if can steal off on you. -- up on you. it is benevolence. self-government as opposed to the other. nature. it can be for the good or bad. encroachment. the constitution is not fixed. it is open to interpretation. it is short of changing the constitution. the constitution is not to be

changed except by the people. republican government is not fixed. part of the dispute in making this choice is inevitable. -- partisan dispute in making this choice is inevitable. part of the dispute is the unnecessary consequence of choices and liberty. and conservatives. the constitution is not a guarantee of good government. not a machine that runs itself. his is free to make mistakes. but they could put an end to our freedom.

thank you. [applause] >> good morning. this week, this month, many are wondering. the free market people may have done well in the mid-term election, but instantaneously,

we get a second thought and winning is easy. foodcandy's new rivals stuff a can aty's new rivals -- these at noon or rivals -- candy's new -- successful by their own terms? economy and let it grow. eight the progress of tide is strong. this legislation is really necessary. persistence is necessary. professionalism is necessary. master politicians are necessary as lawless change them or write them. i wanted to talk a little bit this morning about politicians that did start the progressive side.

it was the 30th president, calvin coolidge. he is the subject of a new biography i am writing. simon cowell. -- silentcoolidge achieved what many long -- silent cal. his commitment to limited -- you may be as surprised to hear me mention this. we do rank or presidents like sports stars.

-- our presidents like sports stars. he is there with jimmy carter. he is a taxable present. he first came into the presidency by an accident when warren g. harding died in the middle of a scandal. many people want to silence. if you have probably heard the stories about coolidge. this is another kind of republican that said that he looked as if he had been weaned on a couple -- a pickle. a lady sat next to president coolidge and had bet that she could get him to say two or more words and he toller, you

lose. -- he told her, you lose. we tell ourselves that this is a new thing. most new president get a honeymoon if you are weak. here is what an editor of the magazine wrote about coolidge to welcome him into office in the summer of 1923. he said that the government has fallen into the hands of a man who is so uninspiring, so on and lighted. we wanted to compare the challenge of them to the challenge of today. it starts with the way of progress and some -- progression

is some -- government and individual progressionism. president wilson was the living constitution. we have the progressive movement. the income tax became law. the first rate was 7% and they got it up to 77% in less than a decade. we got the fed at that time in .he 20's the planned to redistribute wealth. there were demonstrations in the streets. their words -- there was

inflation. we had a recession in the early twenties. they demonstrated in berlin, why would they not demonstrate in boston? yet, somehow, it was stopped when coolidge was president. there was not much progressive law passed in the 20's. basically, they did put progressiveness some -- progressiveism on hold. we always do this with your breath and look at a number.

unemployment was high for a moment in that recession. but it dropped fast, below 5% after several years of the recession. so, you go from 19% in the cities to below 5%. people got a ford. the rich got richer, but the rich, also, paid a greater share of the tax than the poor. they got the fairness that was described by cutting tax rates. in our modern view, this is kind of confusing. economists say that to have to pick your poison, joblessness or inflation. it was the benign twin of the evil 70 is.

they were not just good, they were really good. a lot goes to calvin. what measures did he take to contribute to this outcome? he understood something that modern politicians do not, that change is not always good. and certainly from too much change is bad -- uncertainty from too much change is bad. it was better to stop a bad law than to sign a good when he wrote to his father as early as 1910. i call him the great refrain er for what he chose not to do. he was not alone in wanting to

limit change. harding had an even lower rank and coolidge. if you go to his inaugural address, you will see that he focuses on what the government should do during a recession. it sounds so different from anything we might hear today and so i want to read it to you. perhaps we never shall know the old levels of wages again because work just compensations but we must strive for normalcy. we must face a condition of bring -- of grim reality and start fresh. no altered system will work a miracle. any while the experiment will only add to confusion.

coolidge was part of a team that fought for and won lower taxes. here, you have to include wealth. they started at the 77% rate. then, with coolidge, all the way down, you have 25%. that is better than ronald coolidge was the president that hit that home run-that is better than ronald reagan. coolidge was the president that hit that home run. they had a snowpacks in vermont. -- a snow tax in vermont. i think that coolidge had a good understanding of the sacrifice that taxation meant. at one point, he called

illegalize larceny and therefore have the impetus to push his idea through. it was said that two founders conversed in bondage. -- conversed in pauses. while he was still governor of massachusetts, and got to do that. there was say strike. -- there was a strike. police were underpaid. they were poor. the station house had bedbugs and rats and the vermin chewed on the leather of their helmets.

they made friends with a nice union man. but when they went on strike, there was rioting in boston. people expected the governor, calvin coolidge and the mayor to negotiate. they fire the policeman. why? not because the work rule, coolidge did it because -- foresaw what it was done, because he wanted to draw that line in the sand about organized labor, specifically about what public-sector unions can and cannot do. that resonated. they said that the progressive tide would not go any farther,

that he stopped it. americans like workers but there is a limit about what we like about the organized union power. and they brought the budget from the six is down to 5.1 billion. -- down to $5.1 billion for the day -- could choose to speak about the economy, but he did not mean measuring aggregates by the economy. he meant savings by government. he came into office in 1923 and left in 1929 and when he left, his budget at $3.12 billion was

lower than when he came in. this deserves -- this rehabs him. yet heard the coolidge ". it was the internet of the day. the industry was coveted by government. there was an effort to capture utility is and to involve it in the development of a hydro-power system. coolidge vetoed that and postponed it. there were other divas. that is notable because he was from vermont. he understood farmers. how did he do it?

one was by not being grandiose and not minding being called dole. republicans today and democrats, no one wants to be called dole. coolidge's ability was to dull.ce bil here is what was said about calvin coolidge. the white house is extremely sensitive to the first sentence in the executive department to do something. the skill with which mr. coolidge applied a wet blanket is technically a marvelous. there has never been an equal. the statement imagines that his desire to interest the people that is useful.

mr. coolidge is more sophisticated. 2nd, coolidge did what he did by refusing to be thrown into action by emergency. he was an anti-rahm emanuel. his integrity -- his integrity came with the trend of their era. there was a dramatic flood and walls of water came down. hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. he confronted the same situation.

coolidge did the latter. his commerce secretary, herbert hoover -- he did not see it as the role of washington to run it all. private philanthropy should take the lead. a third feature of coolidge that enabled him to achieve what he did was that he practiced politics while. he was a career politician. the kind that we are trying to vote out these days. he knew that to get your goal,

it took skill whether it was a pocket veto or behind-the-scenes work. he did his work carefully. he picked his battles. he did not have a steep learning curve because he took the years before he got to the presidency to learn his craft. he is the rare animal that is a master and uses his mastery to make government smaller. the final feature of the coolidge mask did -- coolidge method is his humility. his humility towards his office. he not only have the ability to delegate, he believed he should out of respect for the structure of the executive branch. when the time came to run for a second elected term, kind of an entitlement of a successful president, coolidge declined with an admonition that could have been written by someone else.

he said that it is difficult for men in high office to avoid this. they are assured of their own greatness. you can find this in his autobiography. the chances of having wise public service is increased by a change in the presidential office after a moderately the time. -- a moderate length of time. he knew an economy was about deals between -- he cared much about the bilateral agreement. it is hard to find an attack on anyone.

they felt that god had a role to play. the chief business of america is business. they give it an incomplete report because coolidge did not just say that the chief business of america is business, he said that the ideal of america is idealism. he made clear that there were areas where government could not go. coolidge said that the government of the country should never get involved in the religion of the country. he said that there was no way you could substitute the quality of law for the virtue of man. this takes us to the final question. if coolidge was a success and the 1920's did war like a real

long and, -- roar like a real the depression was deep and wide. the era that caused the great depression had to be great, covering an immense amount of time. , thee 30's were bad twenties have to be that cause. -- the 1920's had to be that cause. as a footnote in history, the president must be travell laws as well. roosevelt good meant coolidge bad. you could not have it both ways.

also, and i think that jim pearson is going to talk about this today and we cannot remember what they say because we speak and economic -- we speak a different economic language. it lacks the vocabulary to describe what happened in the 1920's. a recession with a cut the budget -- where they cut the budget. this was impossible. it cannot happen. a decade it that disproves the phillips curse. let's not talk about that. when unions got smaller, real wages rose. this was a time when there was so much emphasis on supply and

so little on demand, it must have been fake. because of all these inconvenient truths, our social science overlooked the strength of the 1920's. that does not mean that they did not happen. they did will the government. they endorsed tariffs because it was in the platform of his party. tariffs hurt the economies. i hope he will agree that the fax suggest -- that the facts suggest that coolidge belongs on the all-star team. thank you. [applause] >> my task is to comment on

these two papers. i do not know as much about federalist and calvin -- calvin coolidge. this is not in all that stands between you and the break. the next panel is jim pearson and and and the party. i can build on those two. . .

>> i am very much on board the agenda. on the other hand, people should read the federalist papers there's a tension

sometimes that rises up. there's a healthy tension. it is a tension that the federalist discusses and recognizes. claims the constitution resolves. one of the striking things i have been pretending to help. i've read these a few times. one of the striking things how hard headed the office is to the intention of the good republican government that a lot of the politics are about balancing tendencies that go in different directions trying

with the aspect. there's no perfect way to do this. they've tried work these things out some of the rules might point in a certain direction. deviations are necessary or required because of some

differences the complexity and wisdom is worth stressing at the scompevents most simple mind the tea party statement taken out of mind. the truth is, the tea party

activists must not understand they wanted limited andener ge both. it is notener ge tick.

you get the worst of all worlds. the spralling state that can't do effectively what government should do effectively and tries to do everything in an incompetent, not desicive way. there is a little bit too much. one has to be careful and rethink the wisdom of the founders certain things that they had not on fundamentals

but on application of them. there is no meckkl solution. my second other point i'll lean a little more against the trust of her talk the other temptation we need to resist is a certain amount of nostalgia of the past or that everything was great until it went off in a certain year in is the 12 or 1968. or 1901 or 1896, even. one does have to be a little

bit hard headed about what the alternatives were at the time or what they were going to be in some respect the abandonment of blacks in the south is not a key issue we like to discuss. that had something to do with the sense that simple conservatism wasn't a solution to the problems of the day.

not as if it was a wonderfully stable free market william jennings did get 46% of the vote as president. it wasn't as if it was a great con sen sister. an attempt to take these forces and try to reshape them. there was a lot of the theory behind it. a lot of bad practice. under willson, i would say. one shouldn't over do how wonderful things were. i recall there was a bad recession. threatening almost to the

system in the u.s. before the progressives were in charge of much.

>> on the other hand, just to be a little bit of a skunk he was impressive. he made it possible that he would get in and do some of the things he did. we did have more in 1930. we did have the fed policy i

believe it was under coolage he signed beyond treaty and played some part there bad policies that brought about the great depression.

i would wanch a little bit against progressive nostalgia for a certain era. they are certainlyly in the 20's or more moderately 19 2-1952 were not terrible years. we came out some what clear to it.

in truth it needs to be fought. they were healthy and unhealthy aspects of it. it is not forning. some how, the idea of progress is not a particular idea. the progressive characters, the election that happened on tuesday was a very big deal no

first-term elected president has ever had the reputeation that president obama and the democratic party had last tuesday. it wasn't much about the issue.

for whatever reason, president obama has decent approval rating. the states where the numbers have fallen, especially the midwest were a disaster. the reversal and the depth. there's no katrina or no war in iraq we are not ultimately about underlying policies the

character was very ideas based. limiting our system and finding new policies. the effective government is an unusual thing it is these ideas the task is for these ideas to

be translated the lessons of the founders and later successful presidents, including reagan are deeper in the american political sikee than one would expense. turns out americans are in term

was that. it turned out there was not just a healthy resist tans but a rezillyens. all the more important to go back and think through the list of founders. do it in a clear eyed way without too much of the view of history or too much nose tall gaw or wishful thing. [applause] >> we are running a little behind. i figured we probably would. >> would you like to answer some questions.

please speak into the microphone. >> i didn't say anything about the 19th century. bill thinks i am police yit is a nostalgia for the 19th century. i would address that. the hardest question about coolage is his depart you're in 28.

this is an issue of concern and will be on the biography. on ambulance. that is because of his religious adherence. he nonetheless, had they followed coolage-like policies. in the early 19 30's, i would argue we wouldn't have had a ten-year recession. we would have had a terrible sharp recession by terrible credit probably worse than the

one but it would have been less remembered. not jaust but not as ironned into our memory as the great depression is. >> i don't want to gang up over here. one of the this gp things about the tea party is that it did connect up to the republican party. one of the problems with bg methodest or prudent it doesn't inspire people.

you aren't going to hear your child speak up and say, i have the ambition to grow up and be a wet blanket. americans use this ambition in culture and politics liberals go into government. conservatives aren't so much and don't go into it.

>> before we take a few questions from the you had yens, i'd like to see if anyone here would like to intervene. any questions, would you please go to the micro fofpblete the morning's discussion has been so utterly convincing that no one has any questions. let's take a short break and reassemble here in say 7:30 minutes.

>> next on c-span, a look at the problems of child soldiers in africa. we'll hear from strategists from both parties. topics include the general political environment and the chicago mayor's race. we'll have live coverage at 9 a.m. eastern on c-span two.

jo we'll begin with the panalists. it includes all of us. i also want to say you are in for a treat as you will hear from panalists many of whom have worked with or been child soldiers.

it's our responsibility to learn to deal with conflict wisely and responsefully before it escalates we will address the greatest challenge that faces hume onity. the pursuit of just and lasting peace. simply put, that means living in right relationship with self, others and the world around us.

beginning to the immediate left of me with eric how he's embraced every aspect

these were country people. there was a real cruelty behind it. i'm the last person in america to remember the power of a finger tiffin. it was a profound thing. people in my childhood did not have this other summer cabins. boys who were near a lake as i was occasionally did this cause

extreme boredom. hang around in the woods in the evening as the sun went down and watched the stars have been of year-old star. he made a good target. he had an outhouse behind his cabin. the new then he would make them waukesha the and that path he knew we were there. this is not a surprise. he knew we were waiting out there and what he had in mind. has he came out of the cabin door, he yelled the us. he showed a shotgun thinking it

would scare us off. it did not. it was just a challenge. he went into the outhouse and when he closed the door, he came down through the tall grass until we could hear the unmistakable sound of him doing was he had come out there to do, we made a rush for the bauhaus. we had to do it quickly. you revers for one purpose. that was to push this over on to the door as fast as you could. he yelled. his lantern and broke. he fired the gun and it went

through the roof towards his own cabin. there were flames in there. we're running. he came out the only exit that was available to him. there was the whole right there waiting for us. he slid right down into its nobody would ever do this today. we could discuss why. it is an an interesting question. there are not too many of houses as there once were. he would deal let us in the threaten us. he said u.s.. to find us. he had a good idea as to who we were.

this was part of a game we had come after him because of his high position. it was a tribute in a way. you do not pull practical jokes on weak or vulnerable people. it is not funny. you go after the powerful and the mighty. he was able to accept this. we do not do this anymore. this is a form of good manners. michael of better time when men said deprecating things about

their wives to other men. it was not funny to me then and it is funny to me now. what does put a damper on human is not so much political correctness us a tendency we have to make any human oddity into a symbol of all or a dysfunction for a disorder. we have made life clinical somehow. we have taken human conditions that we used to live with and we have made them into problems to be solved possibly with pharmaceuticals. so that everybody has some sort of a disorder. we each have a long list of

problems which have some clinical or therapeutic solution. this has been a way of humor. it requires a certain fatalism. this denies us that. if you wake up in the morning and you have empty ice cream cartons in bed with you, there is a reason for this. it comes from taking indian sleet tablets. one possible side effect is the small print written on the pamphlets inside of the box. this is an eating disorder, late

night excessive eating disorder. you go to work solving this instead of making a joke out of it. and to cool it and come up with several fallston hits. most of which have to -- you do will air its -- you google its and get thousands of hits.

[unintelligible] you sit there with star from chairs -- styrofoam chairs in coffee and you talk about your disappointments. all of the people are meeting in other rooms. it is full of people. a day is here of a regionaa -- aa is here and people talking about mother and how they are

disappointing her if they do not finish everything on their plate. and anger anonymous, a group of mostly parents of adolescent children, so sweet tempered and then fell lemond bad company and took a wrong turn and went to live in basements until they were in their mid 20 you see . -- 20s. such a country is a clear -- psychotic music playing down their -- there.

and the child opens the door of and hisses at the evil spirit of the parents. and what is that on their neck? metal everywhere. their eyebrows in violence and ears and lips and the tongue as well. it is like a fell first phase in a tackle box.

[laughter] and the child recorder and the parents yelling on their cell phone. they were referred to child services. now you have to sit in a circle and drink coffee. this is the enemy of humor and in jokes. drogues word democratic when i was growing up. -- jokes were democratic 19 was growing up. it did not matter if your life was a mess or if you were all wrong politically. if you could tell a joke you

were ok. this was how you could make your way in america. if you were the guy who had married the daughter of the former, -- farmer, you had very little in common. you came from the city and more on clothes. what was that you put on yourself? why would you want to smell that way, like citrus fruit. they had plenty of reasons to dislike him. but if you sat there as people told jokes, you waited your turn, you did not rush. as the conversation moves in its

audit way -- autumn way -- odd way [unintelligible] [laughter] it is not the greatest not knock joke. it is good enough. you told it well. it is a beautiful gem. the week after bill clinton admitted to canoodling with the

in turn, -- intern , people were telling a joke about a sale in the men's department about pants being half off. [laughter] you have to tell it with confidence, no hesitation. even if you are all wrong in all sorts of ways, if you can't leizhou -- if you can tell a joke, they will give you a lot

of credit. this is foreign politics that you and i may realize. the same ability to tell a joke may be applicable in your situations. there is a common trust, a feeling about the common good that parlays itself into humor. we lose much too much. i will close and to tell a story and then take your questions. i probably do not know the answers. i am sure the questions will be interesting.

a story about death. my parents -- we were out there and we got a ferocious winter. these blizzard's come rolling in a regularly. it starts right about now by thanksgiving, snow on the ground. this is a reason for being we

are not beach people. we strive to get the job done. our job a living there is to defend our country is a long border. to keep the highways clear. we have a hard time telling them from each other. there we are. winter is part of the basis of understanding ourselves in minnesota. summer is a beautiful time.

it leads people into all sorts of questions. what is the purpose of my life. why am i here. , and we are mammals. we seek shelter and food and keep that food supply coming and have children and extra children in case the wolves carry some away. if you did not have children, you should practice making them. this is what we do. winter was much harder than what it is no. we put on layers.

wearing heavyby clothing on our backs. the desertion of it kept you warm. school was never canceled in minnesota, not for any reason whatsoever. if you started it, when would you stop? you caught the school bus or may be a slave would come for you.

if the runners for a crew, you would go down to the eyes of the mississippi river. you avoid fees tattered mention gray who came down from rocks and trees, the last remnants of the army of northern for jinnah trying to use natural little yankee children -- virginia trying to snatch little yankee children. winter, and dealing with it is

a madly obligation. you are not to complain about it. do not tell me how you feel. keep it to yourself. you are supposed to get out there and shovel snow and throw it up onto the bank until february or march, you have 30 foot high canyons of snow coming to your house. throw it up there. there is a cougar waiting for you to falter or look lost. you have to preserve life.

that is what we do in the winter. my father and mother lived in a little house. my father went to shovel snow off of the roof. he put up a ladder against the house. he climbed up to shovel of the snow. you have no idea how heavy the snow is. if it is heavy enough, it could collapse the house, and we all would die, which could be embarrassing. a man has to do this. he could hire someone else to do that, but it is not a good thing. a man has to shovel his own roof.

down the path, it leads to people reaching for your elbow- to go downstairs. people say, you look good, which they never said when you did look good. [laughter] [unintelligible] it is much too early. a, a and someone who barely knew you this gives the eulogy.

it is all wrong. you are in this wagon. this last trip, they take you up the hill and carry you on rough ground. they sang verses. nobody is stopping. it is cold. no one is throwing herself on your coffin saying she cannot live without you. you are lowered into the whole and the grave diggers are waiting for everyone to leave.

he was shoveling snow in got worn out. it was heavy snow. he was going to rest for a moment. he lays back against the steep roof. he woke up half an hour later and when he went to set up, and realized that his jacket had frozen to the roof. is had frozen to the shingles on this cold night. he cannot move his hips.

and from the events from the kitchen, he could smell the tuna casserole. the little children had gone to bed. cars were going by. he cannot wave to them. he tried to signal them with his index finger. he could not. it dawned on him that he could die appear. it was very cold.

now he could imagine that he died on the roof and this is what people would talk about. they would say he has a drinking problem. he would have to go on the roof to drink. that is how desperate he was. he was almost resigned to this line in a crucifix position. the mother asked are you almost finished and he said, yes, i am. i will come in as soon as i get this jacket loose from this roof.

just came running up this letter and up the steep roof, holding onto his jacket, she pulled herself up and laid on him. she grabbed the zipper and pulled it as hard as she could. he slid down the roof with her straddling him and down into a snowbank. nobody had seen them. she put away the tuna casserole and got some stakes out. she was going to make a feast that had defeated death. she had a little bit of wind that she used for cooking. she poured it into a class for him. he sat there and drink it as she cooked.

then there was a knock at the door. there were the constables. they asked is everything ok, because we saw a jacket on your roof. he says, i put that up there. it is a cougar trap. [laughter] i said, what do you use for bait. peppermint schnapps. [laughter] my parents defeated death.

the was 9 months and 10 minutes before i was born. we come through the other side. here we are, a bunch of humorous people. we have in common in politics is about. these are times when we have less in common from before. the world is split up into many pieces. the most successful tv shows have small audiences. maybe 8 million people out of

this vast country. it used to be elvis and frank sinatra and the beatles. there are not people like that anymore, people who everyone would recognize we have become different humor and politics can bring us back together. if politics cannot, then i have my doubts about humor as well. thank you. [applause]

>> thanks very much. we have a couple of microphones. >> i know you have skipped -- scripps. how do you do that? >> when you are telling the truth, you do not need a script. you remember things as best you can. it is not really required that you have a script. the president tends to have one.

if kids have the wrong subordinate clause -- you and i do not need a script. >> we still managed to conclude a story in a logical way? >> i am an older person. a person should develop some skins -- skills. >> you got your start in humor. we come back to the beginning

again. how does that have been? >> i had a need to do this as a child. my mother enjoyed having me around watching her as she worked. she had a six children. she would wash and clean and iron and i was her little boy and i told her jokes. she is very charmed by this. when i was six, she did something i did not understand. she got pregnant by my father. and she had twin boys million

brothers. when you are a third child, you disappeared. people gather around to watch these infants. beyond quintuplets on a smaller scale. there i was gasping for air, because my brother's suck it out of the room. out of a troubled childhood comes the urge to entertain other people. your parents may have deprived you by giving you a happy childhood. shame on them.

make sure you give your children the gift to they deserve, which is a little mystery. that is the secret to there. you grew up as the middle child , you need to nothing more. you have it all. >> thanks for your stories which transport meet each week to a wonderful place. my question is, president kennedy had a vision and a story, as did president reagan and all of the great leaders do. what is the story the president

of, should be saying to us -- obama should be saying to us? he has been given a truckload of trouble when he came into office. alistair along with millions of other people on january 28. it was one of the great days of my life. there is a lot of trouble to get to washington three. many of us felt we had to be there. when we saw them walking down pennsylvania avenue toward the white house, i had a beautiful feeling. it has been put in place lightly on the shelf. i think he has been slightly successful. if you were anybody else, you

may have trumpeted this more than he has. he and congress have gotten a great deal done. there are dark people. we find faults and we are dissatisfied with our own. i try not to listen to people who believe as i do. they seem to be a poor guide to this administration. out of trouble, great things will,. these cables from which he

leaks -- wikileaks, shows the administration in a pretty could light. i have high hopes for them. [applause] not the best answer i could have come up with. >> my question is you were in a new york state of mind a few years back. what drew you to the big apple? >> the new yorker magazine, which i started reading when i was a kid.

i saw it when i was 13. i grew up -- and one person smoke well and could swear well a growing up in a fundamental evangelical family. she understood the cartoon of the chicken in the bank line in bed together. the egg as lighting a cigarette and says, i guess that answers that question. [laughter] she loved the writers. i did as well.

i wanted to be a writer for the "new yorker." i went there when i was 24 to write a tryout peace for them. -- piece for them. a couple of years later, they bought my peace. -- piece. i was an english major in the that was a great accomplishment. then i moved to the city years later. i decided i did not want to live there and the poor.

you could be very portion minnesota in the live -- or in minnesota and live. you could rent a farmhouse for $80 a month. you could live there in splendor with a vegetable garden. the that money in new york would have bought you a couch in a studio a permit sharing with a couple of other people. there is no comparison between them. i moved there in 1990. i love the city, because it is a pedestrian city.

everything is out on the street. you walk down the streets and humanity brushes by you. this is a wonderful friend. you look out across corn stubble and you can see for miles and no one is coming to see you or ever will. in new york, all of this humanity passing year. it is amazing. you walk down the street and here comes somebody on roller skates with no pants. you glance at them, and they say, what are you looking at?

one site after another. i grew up in an earlier day before there were moles -- mlla. malls. one shop after another. that is what it should look like. [applause] >> thank you. >> i could go on. >> my wife and i lived in minnesota and every morning we would wake up to your radio program sponsored by jack's father repair and human --

jack's auto repair and human services. what happened to them? >> it is something we do every day. we live in cities that are against this. we move to them in little steel boxes. we work in cubicles. there are ways for us to touch other people. that is all we can do. we can only deal with the people we have come in contact with. i am not trying to organize a campaign, just being descriptive. i think the world has changed

for comedy, i regret that. i believe its has a parallel in politics. i will leave it to other people to develop that and come up with a prescription. anonymity is an enemy of civility. this is shown so clearly on the internet. at least we can be aware of the world that we live in. all of this formless anger drifting around in clouds. i wait for it to pass. thanks so much.

mores auto repair was one disgruntled person. that is all. [laughter] we did not reach the right audience. >> i am concerned that the amount of partisanship in a legislative branch, and i wondered if he thinks surrounding out houses would help at all? how do we get that good will facts it is scary to me. >> smarter people than i have written about this. the point is one that people in politics are not able to may to the voters. it is the simple point that for

all of the trouble of the great recession, high unemployment. this is not that bad. many thrive on creating a sense of chaos and suffering and deprivation. if you want to see death, go to india. go to somalia. go to north of africa. you will find a reality that we

do not have in america. we have come loose from our sense of reality. we need to discover it somehow. we have to realize that in this world, our species we are among the most fortunate in the history of the world. if we want to know what true suffering since, we do not have to look that far. the people who come to this country illegally are people we have to it myron. people who are coming to this country illegally are coming in behalf of their children.

they do not have that much hope for themselves, but they have hope for their children. i admire that. there is no sacrifice like the sacrifice of immigrants. they gave up their country, their language, their jokes, their culture to struggle in behalf of their children. this is reality. it is around us in every city in america. people know what suffering is and know what they want. it is here. in it.

-- we have it. [applause] thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> coming up this morning, queen elizabeth the livers her annual christmas message. on q&a, dianet gives the opposition prescription -- perspective on the british austerity plan. and "washington journal" is live with your phone call. monday is day one of american university's annual campaign management institute.

training students to work on political campaigns. we will hear from strategists from both parties. we will have live coverage starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. the original documentary on the supreme court has been updated. you will hear about how the court works. you'll even hear about the newest justice. the supreme court, home to america's highest court, iran for the first time in high definition. -- fearing for the first time in high definition. airing for the first time in

high definition. this is just under 10 minutes. a ♪

>> at a time when the christian church was deeply divided, a conference was convened of people of all opinions and faiths to discuss the future of christianity in this country. the king agreed to commission a new translation of the bible that was acceptable to our party -- all parties. this is to become the king james bible, which next year will be four centuries old. it has a vivid translation of the scriptures. it has survived the turbulence of history and given many of us descriptions of the birth of

jesus christ, which we celebrate today. >> she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped in swaddling clothes. >> there were country shepherds abiding in keeping watch by night. >> the glory of the lord in -- they were so afraid. >> a multitude of heavenly host st. or to god in the highest. -- saying glory to god in the highest. ♪ [singing]

the king james bible was a major cooperative endeavor that require the efforts of scholars. it was guided by an interest to reach an agreement to the water benefit of the christian church and bring harmony to the kingdom of england and scotland. 400 years later, it is important to build communities and create harmony. one of the most powerful ways of doing this is through sports and games. during this past year, i have seen how important sports are to bring people from all backgrounds and all age groups.

. people every week to give up their time to participate in sports. we encourage others to do so. these kinds of activities are common throughout the world and play a part in providing a different perspective in the life. apart from developing physical fitness, sports and games can also teach vital social skills. none can be enjoyed without abiding by the rules. there must be cooperation between the players. this positive team spirit can benefit communities in companies of all kinds.

think of the injured men and women of the armed forces to see how interesting games and sports can speed recovery and renew a sense of purpose, enjoyment, and the comradeship. people gather to compete under standard wills from around the world can't in the spirit of friendly rivalry. -- to compete in the spirit of friendly rivalry. sports often speak of enormous pride they have of representing their country. we see this vividly at the commonwealtham