law would still be unconstitutional unless the supreme court changed his mind. congress worked its will and then this poses for us your problem. it did not intrude into the prerogatives of the president in your situation. it was argued that reasonable arguments could be made. i hope in a non-tepid way, on behalf of the constitutionality of the protection act of 1989. . -- flag protection act of 1989. it came down that it was unconstitutional and congress did indeed say that into account. we worked very collaborative flee but some who at the time was counseto the senate. part of the institutional roll -- we also dealt with the

institutional role which was coming more from the senate, for whatever reason. [unintelligible] we worked very cleverly to defend the constitutionality of the law even though it had been ruled unconstitutional. what happens when there is an intrusion by congress or a perceived intrusion into their own prerogatives. your situation raises that very neatly because the president might very well say based upon the advice of military, the chairf the joint chiefs of staff says this is bad for the military, we will not defend this in court. we take this back to the senate, to the house, then they can

decide. those are very than tough judgment calls. this does ton-and the bedrock-- tug at the bedrock. it is the task of the executive branch to defend those laws. the justice white took exception to what i think it's a sacred practice which is to confess to a mistake. we believe in not in fact and

and it should not have been brought. justice white believed that this was a violation of the fundamental duty of the executive to take care that the law be faithfully executed an intrusion into article 3. >> i don't bieve tha anyone but the u.s. can appeal. house counsel can actually file an appeal for a certain petition. ratification is put forward if you're not going to defend congress. in the case is already there. they can come in there and do council. there is no authority on behalf

of counsel. this is a very good example where and there was a decent version mania of the 50's and the naming of individuals who are suspected ofeing sympathetic. those individuals brought suit in the court of claims. they were entitled to their government salaries and this was denial of process and a bill of attainder. the attorney general concluded and the solicitor general concluded that it was unconstitutional. ty complied with the law. they did not pay the money.

they thought it was constitutional and the president said so. the solicitor general filed a petition and said that we actually agree with the decision, we are following a petition and we think that the final answer should come from this court. they should appear and argued

and all that happened. the solicitor general argued that it was unconstitutional. the council argued that it was constitutional. the court upheld the board of claims and this is a very good process. i would like to bring california into the mix. if the governor and attorney general, when a federal district judge and it was struck down proposition 8, what the judge tells us is that there is a right to same sex marriage and it violates the equal protection clause of the federal constitution to deny a marriage license solely on the basis of the same sex of the partners.

the government and the attorney general has appealed the decision. they have attempted to intervene. and judge cooper was counsel for these intervenors who were appealing this . this was purported to be to the ninth circuit. i think that this cse is over. if i was applying for a hunting

license and the hunting commission and i would sue them and wind in the trial courtand the state decides, never mind, we are not going to appeal, here is your hunting license and. [inaudible] >> you can intervene for purposes of mounting to an appeal. >> you can come in. no one who has a stake in the outcome is going to appeal.

the california supreme court said that there is a right to sense and courage under the constitution and then a referendum was passed to overturn that and restored california law to allow men and women to get married only. that referendum was challenged on the grounds that this is not a ballot referendum. the intervening supporters of the referendum were allowed to intervene and defend the validity of the referendum and onethey won. this is a constitutional challenge. >> i agree with you and i am at

odds with president star. i think that the governor and jerry brown are more entitled under their authority is to not defend the statute if they thought it was a violation of the constitution. the president signed the bill and he said that it is unconstitutional and i will sign it anyway. i don't think that the state constitution requires them to do it. >> questions.

the microphones are there. please step up and ask. >> i hesitate but i have to correct judge starr on his history. i was in the reagan white house. the legislative veto went through the white house counsel's office. the president said, starr is right for once. seriously though, i don't think that the other branches to not have the same level of accountability and responsibility for their

actions in terms of something disastrous happens is that they can preserv and defend the constitution. this is not as controversial as what you have been talking about. there was government shutdowns under the reagan administration and the clinton administration. people got blamed different ways but both pridents and every president in that situation will actively disobey fundamental propositions have to do with congress must appropriate money and they will pay the military and they will keep in place people whose functions they believe are vital to the protection of the country and they will also keep the social security checks are going. i am not aware that anyone has

ever complained about that. >> it is true that presidents do not think that judges will get blamed if they do something that affects the security of the country. it is easy to discuss these things in the abstract and discuss the serious rights that might be involved and how the branch's work together but there is one human being who is responsible for thsafety of the country and preserving it and it is the president. i think that we are in the middle of something that is different from anything we've ever dealt with before and is not fit into these talks as but

however we deal with it, if there is another 9/11, if those other kinds of things that happen and maybe we'll learn because of the and thus a good because of the investigative techniques, no one will blame the supreme court of the u.s. or the congress. >> are there any other questions? we welcome a useful commentary and statements as well. criticisms are out of order. oiwent through with a group of

st >> few moments are as precious when nathan goram asks his colleagues at one point, does anyone hear imagine that 150 years hence this vast continent will still be governed as a single nation? and not a single delegate rose to say they agreed that would be the case. and we've made that. and another half century or more beyond, and during that time, we settled the continent, we brought -- lost hundreds of thousands, martialed millions, to end slavery. we combated the most serious depression the world has ever known. we managed to turn back the

tide of fascism. and europe to end the jim crow regime in the south and to win the cold war. that is no small list of achievements. for any government established under any constitution so i think -- because that degree has served us well and let the dialogue continue. thank you. [applause] allow the dialogue to continue. thank you. >> coming up next on c-span, on q&a an interview with "new york times" london bureau chief john burns. public radio host garrison keillor gives a talk about humor and politics and byron dorgan's farewell speech. on tomorrow's washington journal, radio and tv talk show host armstrong williams. also discussing with mariko

chang and also susan prolman about the effect of sustainable farming on the environment. washington journal begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the senate is often called the most exclusive club in the world. but i wonder if it's so exclusive if someone from a town of 300 people and a high school senior class of nine students can travel from a desk in that small school to a desk on the floor of the united states senate. >> farewell speeches and hear from retiring senators on the c-span video library with every c-span program since 1987. more than 160,000 hours. all online. all free. it's washington your way.

>> this week on "q&a, ks london bureau chief of "the new york times." he joins us from the studios of westminster live located across the thames river from the houses of parliament. >> john burns of "the new york times." last time we chatted i asked you about a book whether you were going to write your member oilers, and you said probably shouldn't -- memoirs, and you shid probably shouldn't, and others said you should, have you thought about it? >> i've thought about it and a few agents from new york who can tell you that i am remiss. i've talked to them about doing a book. i came back from iraq after quite a few years, iraq and afghanistan, to london a couple of years ago. and i really didn't relish the idea of the solitude of writing a book.

i would have told you in iraq and afghanistan that i was relishing the assignment. i was. i loved every minute of it and hated leaving. what i hadn't anticipated is the difficulty of readjustment. partly is coming off a very big story. partly it's the loss of the camaraderie, exhilaration. but part of it has to do with the fact that you've been in a place which is beyond in some respects the consciousness or imagining of people. notwithstanding television and everything else. and i think probably -- i'm talking now about feeling this has receded and has receded as i have come to be exhilarated by this assignment here, which has turned out to be somewhat against the odds. one of the more important

assignments "the new york times" has, we generate an enormous amount of news from london. i think it's probably normal when you come back from an extraordinary experience like that to want a period of reflection. and that's what i had. when i came back from that. and hardly a day goes by without an agent or publisher coming to me saying write a book. and i'm going to have to do it. i'm going to have to do it, one of our editors said to me, you will never really be taken seriously as a writer unless you do a book. a book not of the kind i've contributed to and been co-authors of. but a book about your own experiences. i think i do have a story to tell. and i think i have to tell it. and i think if i want to be able to continue to belong to a good golf club in my retirement when it comes, i'm going to have to. >> where would you start?

>> where would i start? well, i think i already know the subtitle of the book. which would be something that the iraqi information minister under adam -- under sawed am. -- under ssadam. chemical ali. and he was a rather comical fellow with the coke bottle specs. and he said to me which would be the subtitle of my book. when american troops arrived at the heart of baghdad on -- as i recall the -- april 7, 2003. and we were -- saw baghdad bob, chemical ali on the roof of the palestine hotel which gave us a

view to saddam's power and a view like we have of the palace of westminster. he's standing with his back to the palace. which was across the river. that the american army had been deeflted and was in retreat and the tens of thousands of american soldiers have been killed. and at this very moment over his shoulder there were troops of the third infantry division. united states army. who were bootless, dangling their feet off a pier in what became known as the green zone, cooling their feet. and i said to him mr. minister, if you look over your shoulder, you would see that the united states army is far from being defeated at the gates of baghdad. is actually captured the heart of saddam hussein's power. and he said they always use my

middle name, mr. fisher he said i'm here to tell you that you are too far from reality. i think my book would be about living beyond -- for a very long time beyond the bounds of western experience. the common western experience. the soviet union at the depth of the cold war. and north korea, afghanistan. iraq. the extraordinary people that you meet, the extraordinary evil that you encounter but also the goodness in the human soul. which is rather the largest theme for me. i'm not particularly religious. i hop i'm not particularly self-righteous. but that would be a very major theme for me is how in the midst of darkness there's

always light. >> just so those who have never heard us talk before, what years in china? >> first years working for a canadian newspaper, from 1971 to 1975. which was this last five years of mao tse-tung's life and the cultural revolution, the great chaos which mao occasioned by trying to turn chinese society upside down. and i went back to china when they began to open to the world in the 1980's. an assignment which ended with my imprisonment for spying. which i hasten to say was not guilty and the chinese ultimately themselves. after a little bit of -- acknowledged two or three years later. the soviet union between those

two and the time of leonid brez they have -- -- breznev. and apartheid south africa. also at the depths of apartheid. and i was extraordinary lucky in my assignments. almost -- i didn't set out -- ever to be a foreign correspondent. and i certainly didn't set out to have these assignments. i just felt like i had a kind of angel on my shoulder that carried me to these places at times of particular interest. and they were somebody who was prepared to pay me for it. you often heard it said, for me, if i were a wealthy man which i'm not, i would have done with my professional life exactly what i have done. >> when we were talking in 2007, you were between iraq, actually you were going to go back for a few days but you were going here to london to be the bureau chief of "the new

york times." three years have passed. how does iraq look to you from here? >> i have to say i'm apprehensive. i have a particular personal reason for apprehension which is that my wife continues to work in baghdad and now kabul. i have of course a professional and a wider personal interest in what becomes of iraq. but i've always felt and i think the recent indications strongly support this, that as the american military presence diminishes, and it's now at or below 50,000 and set to go to either zero or some negotiated number, much lower than 50,000, within the next 13 months. that we would see a resurgence of violence and possibly even a renewal of civil war there

because none of the fundamental problems have been solved. the problems that occasioned all the troubles that have enveloped the united states and its allies in iraq and the iraqi people since 2003, all those problems remain. there's been no fundamental political reconciliation in iraq. and i've felt for a very long time, from the time when i was there and since, that the keeper of the peace to the extent that there has been peace, and it's certainly been a lot more kauai he isent than it was for -- quiscent than it was for my time there, the united states, i think that's irreversible. but i don't think that what the united states will leave behind in iraq is likely to be prove stable. and i think we have to open our minds to the possibility that much of it will be washed away.

that there could be an onset of something like a civil war. programs not immediately. it might take a year or two or three. and that the -- if i had to put my money on a likely outcome, it would be that peace in iraq and it might be a very harsh peace, is likely ultimately to be imposed once again by autocracy. we just have to hope that if that does happen, the new ruler, the new dictator, will be a lot more benign than was saddam hussein. >> in 2000, in iraq, americans lost 961 to death. and 2008, 322. and 2009, 150.

and 57 in 2010. killed one way or the other, either in action. in afghanistan, in 2007, we lost 232, in 2008, 295, in 2009, 521 in 2010, 649. just been a reversal. but the united kingdom, which lost 179 in iraq for the whole time we've been there, has lost 1,300 -- i'm sorry. 344 in afghanistan and we've lost 1,393 for the whole time. so the british, it's a disproportional to what it was in iraq and afghanistan. >> yeah. it's not much noted that outside these precincts, especially in the house of commons and downing street which is just over my shoulder here, it's not a much noticed fact that the proportionally, proportional to population, proportional to the size of the

armed forces, proportional to the size of the deployment, 10,000 british troops in iraq compared to now, somewhat over 100,000 americans, britain has taken heavier casualties than has the united states. this is not to diminish. you just gave a figure which i must say i find surprising over 649 americans killed. >> 649 so far in 2010. >> 2010. well, we think about it. that's getting close to the number of americans who died in iraq in the first year in iraq. i mean, this is a pretty discouraging trajectory. i need to say because my -- much of my family lives in canada and i did start my journalistic career in canada and every time i speak about or write about the high incidence of british casualties proportionally in afghanistan, i get quite a few emails from canada from people saying why

do you never mention canada in this? canada has lost -- canadian will forgive me between 200 and 250 soldiers killed in afghanistan which proportion tol their deployments, which i think i'm right in saying never exceeded 3,000 troops, over the last several years, make them i think by quite a distance proportionally the nation that has paid the highest price. and they have said they're coming out, their troops, will end their combat mission at the end of 2011. i think canada deserves recognition for this. because canada had developed a reputation for certainly being major contributor to the united nations peacekeeping efforts. but had not had its troops in combat in any -- i think i'm right in saying, in any serious conflict since korea.

>> you once referenced or saw it referenced that when your father was in the -- >> royal air force. >> royal air force. he was born in south africa. >> he was. yes. >> did he once command 60,000? >> well he used to say when he retired, he was referring to his time in the royal air force in germany, he said i went from running an air force of 60,000 and to running a lawn mower. and he of course retired as military people do in his mid fists. and i better understand now that i am well passed that age. what a tremendously difficult transition it must be for people to make. i've been very fortunate in being able to carry on. i mean, i passed my 50th birthday when, gosh, in 10 years before i was assigned to the war in iraq. and i felt tremendously i must

say lucky to have been able to carry on a career in our business well past the point at which many people in public as much as certainly retire. -- public service certainly retire. and in iraq, the united states congress increased the retirement age for american generals. i had forgotten what it is but senior generals, four stars, something in the nature of 64. but it was a little bit of a jarring thing for me to realize my time in iraq that i was older than all of the successive american commanders there. i think the oldest of them in my time there was general casey. who would have been the end of his assignment, forgive me, general casey, but i think 58, and general petraeus is now i think about 57 or 58. and, you know, i'm sure you can

well do withou a lecture from me about an essay from me about this. but it seems to me that, you know, if we set aside the kind of -- the sort of things you commonly hear saying in the tabloid press, you know, today, the 50's of 30 years ago, 60's now, who knows what the biologists or medics would say about that. but it seems to me that many people of my age would say you put the -- you see if i can perform as you want. and i think that we see lots of evidence that people in their late 50's and 60's are perfectly capable of performing at just as high of level. they may not be as fleet of foot. but you don't like to think you make up for that with a little bit of what is called the little gray selves.

>> and how many years did your father spend in the service? >> 40. >> what kind of impact did that have on you being in a military family as you began to be a reporter? >> well, i'm sure my harshest critics would say that of my -- as i see it, attempt to see both the best and the worst of the western, particularly american military performance, in these wars, that he would say that -- his father was ultimately quite senior officer. in the british armed forces. >> how high was his rank? >> he became a one star general. at the height of the cold war. it was that that gave me my first encounter with americans as it happens. i was playing golf with him at

one of the air bases he was responsible for in germany had a golf course. i remember the 14th fairway, and we passed this dome, glassy dome surrounded by a concentric rings of razor wire. and defended, attended by these -- to me curious looking characters in army camouflage. and he said, you know who they are? and i didn't know who they are. and he said those are americans. something for which he probably could have been called -- could have been court-martialed and he said that's where we carry the nuclear weapons we would carry to war in british aircraft if there was a war with the soviet union. at that time, and with respect to nuclear submarines, which carry triedent ballistic missiles, which are american missiles, with british warheads.

there was a so-called joint key operation. the weapons were american weapons. released to britain by the united states. at the imneps of war -- at the imminence of war and the prime minister whether he would deploy them. and my first sighting of americans and i was 14 years old and for reasons i've pondered ever since because my father has been gone now for 20 years, he said to me those are the people that keep the peace in the world. i'm thinking now from what i've learned about some of the conflict in which he was engaged, internal conflicts, that what he was -- the reason he said that was that in the aftermath of the second world war, and still vestigely to some extent, there was a certain amount of unease in britain and in the british military about what some people regard as the use -- as the

usurpation of power in the world by the united states and the -- and great britain, to being a power which the present prime minister, david cameron, put it to me, he said we punch above our weight in the world, britain, because of our special relationship with the united states. so the relationship changed substantially. and i think that the 1950's were a period of unease. little known fact that on d-day, britain earned its commonwealth partners, australia and canada, new zealand, landed as many, i think i'm right in saying, troops on the beaches of normandy, as did the united states. that was probably the last moment at which -- and the last moment in the second world war of which there was that kind of equivalent. george patten and the third army got going, we very quickly

became a much smaller brit -- britain became a much smaller component of it. so my father was referencing as a south african talking to native born britts, senior levels of the armed forces, recognized -- he felt a slight discomfort with the unease that some british officers had about american power. and to his dying day, he was terribly proud of an encounter that he had in germany during military maneuvers with american forces. and it was apparently a bitter winter day on the -- the plane in what was east germany where many of america's forces were concentrated near the gap. there were maneuvers. they lost their way. he was in a jeep with an american driver. they came across some tanks. somewhere on this vast open plain. the driver said i'll see if they can tell us where the field headquarters is. came running back to the

vehicle and said to my father, general, sir, somebody you would like to meet you. so he got out of the jeep and walked over and this g.i. saluted him and said elvis presley. so he saw my father's american military identification card, thank you, general, sir, great privilege to meet you or something. and whenever my father has an opportunity to pull this out of his pocket in later years, it was almost as if he was a fighter pilot in the second world war. he commanded an air force in germany. the height of the cold war. but it was as if that one moment was more magical for him than anything else he had done. so i would confess out of all of this, that i came to america . and i came to my encounters with american military with a basically positive disposition. i still do believe that what my father said that today on that golf course in germany is

correct. that in a turbulent world, it is america more than any other power overwhelmingly that keeps the peace in the world. >> born here, moved -- when you're 18 to canada? >> that's correct, yeah. >> you mentioned earlier that your wife is still in afghanistan and in iraq and when we talked in 2007, she was the manager of the bureau in iraq and you were the bureau chief? >> yes. >> how long is she going to be there? >> well, we'll see. i think she is in a position similar to me. she doesn't go to war. she doesn't embed. but she is living and working in very dangerous places. and now that i have been back from those places for some time, i understand much better what it is for those hundreds of thousands of families. american families, british families. who have their loved ones at

war. and you keep your fingers crossed. i think she'll continue to do it. because it's very unusual. she was as my wife accompanied me for 30 years or so. to far flung assignments. and she always had a job in effect. not just raising of our children but also helping to run the operations of "the new york times." it wasn't called a job but it was. that became formalized with these wars. she left for pakistan later afghanistan. within three weeks of 9-11. and she's never really come back. she comes back on leave. and she too is now in her 60's. and of course she's -- she is -- to say she loves it, how can anybody love war? she finds it exhilarating. like any woman of her age. she finds it very engaging to be needed, to be able to do

something useful. we've just had a very jarring experience at the "new york times" which you may be aware of. we have deployed lots of people to these wars. we have been fortunate in one sense that we haven't lost to this moment any of our new york-based reporters and photographers or others. we have lost an afghan and we have lost two iraqis. two or three weeks ago, this changed for us when one of one of our photographers as it happens, one of our very best photographers, one of the great war photographers of our time and additionally one of the nicest men you'll ever meet. he stepped on a taliban mine. i.e.d. on an embed with the united states military outside kandahar.

and he was grievously wounded. he is i'm glad to say, he survived. he's in the walter reed army hospital in washington. he has lost both his legs. he is a remarkable character. truly remarkable, the first conscious words he spoke, at least to our photo editor, were i'm good. he was born in portugal. raised in south africa. we in experiencing this, and tragic instances of this close hand, it's interesting, we've seen it a thousand times occurring to others. now it's happened to us. and it's a very, very educational experience. and i must say that we're all extremely happy that juwar has by the -- general rosty of the united states military been taken in to walter reed where

he will, is and will be among many soldiers and others who have had similar experiences. almost without question i would think the greatest orthopedic rehabilitation center in the world. and he will have a company if one would call it that with others who have been through the same thing and who fight their way as he certainly will back to health. i think we're going to see juwar silver, no braver man, i wrote in a forward to one of his books, no braver man nor more popular ever carried a camera into battle. and i'll put my money on juwar silver back there carry a camera into battle before anybody currently can imagine it. >> my memory was you had about 100 people involved in the baghdad bureau. >> we did. >> you were there in 2007. how big is it now? >> it hasn't shrunk a great deal. i'm sure to this -- to the

somewhat disappointment of the people who have to pay the bills, because the war obviously for america is tapering down. and i think that our ambition, our hope had been that we would be able to do the same thing. but there's a kind of critical mass that you need if you are going to operate effectively at all. because you have to -- we have to pride our own security and that accounts for 50 or 60 of those 100 people. in addition to which, and i think this is another kind of bravery on the part of "the new york times" and the people who make the decisions, as you know, foreign coverage by american newspapers and american television networks has shrunk considerably. it was already shrinking before the recession. it has shrunk further. "the new york times" has had financial battles to fight as have all newspapers in america. because of the recession but also because of the rise of the internet. i think that we're going to

prevail in this. but it would have been understandable if the people who make these decisions had decided that we could no longer afford to spend that kind of money. they didn't. economy p they committed -- they didn't. they committed to giving full spectrum coverage to the wars and they will. america is not out of iraq. america i think is a long way from over even if american troops are drawn down, there's going to be a huge american interest there for some time. and our editors have made it plain that we will continue to be there as long as there is an american interest there. >> let's go back over some of the places you worked. did you ever think when you were in china back in the 1970's and 1980's that they would own a trillion dollars of american debt? >> i haven't been back in china since the day they put me into a paddy wagon from 1986 and drove me to the airport literally in shackles.

deporting me. for the alleged spying incident. so i have watched with wonderment at what has happened in china. they've invited me back many times. it just hasn't worked out. i'm not avoiding going back to china. i have some apprehension because it's a bit glib for the people of china, there's no doubt that this extraordinary accretion of wealth and power over the last 30 years, it's not surprised the chinese people. we can see during the cultural revolution have always had an extraordinary natural capability and resilience. these were people who given their chance were always going to rebuild china to something like the greatness that it had. when it went into decline in the late 19th century. but if there's a sort of apprehension, it's because the first china, the china i first saw, 40 years ago, was a china

which -- have changed very little in the previous 150 years. i can get on a bicycle and cycle into traditional china in three minutes. that was an enchanting place. it was an enchanting kingdom. i loved it. i came to think during my second assignment in the 1980's when they said the door was open. and foreign investment. but the china that loved mao tse-tung was for a foreigner living in china a somewhat more agreeable place than a china that worshipped the dollar. of course, there's no argument that chinese people are vastly better off than they were. with the fact that they can now afford to buy $3 trillion of american debt. they're changing the entire configuration of the world we live in. and that's very good for the people of china. it's in many respects good for us and some respects i think inhibiting it's going to present us with all manner of

problems. our children's generation certainly. but i'm speaking only about the experience as a visitor. you probably been to china in those years. i haven't been. but i think i'll have a strong nostalgia for the china of my youth. >> what kind of a -- this is kind of -- sounds silly. what grade would you give a mao tse-tung as a leader? >> as a guerrilla leader? probably 10 out of 10. >> why did they adore him if they did? >> mao tse-tung wrote his own epitaph really. on the first of october, 1949. this was the moment when the communists took control of all of mainland china from chang cishek's nationalists. he attended the gate of heavenly peace in tiananmen square. and he said something like those words of churchill, spoken across from the river here in 1940, that will

resonate forever in chinese history. he said after centuries of oppression and humiliation, i'm paraphrasing this part, the chinese people have stood up. that had an enormously motivating power for the people of china. and of course in their enthusiasm, they in effect endowed or allowed to be invested in mao tse-tung absolute power and as always happens, that power was corrupted and corrupted terminally. by some estimates 10 million people died during the cultural revolution. more than that died during the great leap forward that occurred some 10 years earlier than that. an awful lot of people in china died as a result of the dictatorship imposed by mao

tse-tung. it will be -- it will be history and history as measured i would guess probably a long time forward from now. before settled opinion can be reached about mao tse-tung and from all i see and from all i experience in talking to chinese people, i don't just mean chinese officials, china is in a very conflicted state in its views of mao tse-tung. they have looked pretty onestly and openly at the disasters that were brought upon the country by mao. but i think they've also recognized that the 1949 marked an historic turning point of enormous -- enormous importance. i find him fascinating enough a figure that at my home to this day in my living room, i have a wonderful porcelain bust of mao tse-tung. and during the cultural revolution, underneath it, my little wooden stand, his little

red book. remember the millions of chinese walk through the streets waving in little redbook. the little redbook is actually quite a valuable little document because it's a kind of boiled down synopsisized version of chinese philosophy through the ages, confucious, the military strategist. and some. teachings in that little red book i have found very useful. in getting out of or avoiding getting into trouble of various kinds of one of them is his doctrine on guerrilla warfare. i actually think -- i told my children about this when they were almost knee high to a grasshopper. having to do with disputes at school. doctrine number one, don't engage the enemy unless victory is certain.

number two, don't engage the enemy unless victory is essential to your cause. now, if you apply those two pro vyse owes -- pro vyseos where there is potential of conflict, you can avoid 80% of them. first of all because if you look at realistically at it in many such conflicts, potential conflicts with people who employ you, potential conflicts with officials in faraway countries, safe to assume that you aren't going to win. if you aren't going to win, don't engage. now, some people would say that this is a formula for ducking problems. i think it's a formula for at leetch a modest degree of success -- at least a modest degree of success in life. >> you mentioned your kids. and we talked about your son last time. i figure he's about 28 now.

>> uh-huh. >> but you mentioned that he was born a pound? >> he was 1.1 pounds, yeah. >> and brigham and women's hospital in boston saved him? >> well, there are three of us in our family. he's one, i'm another. my wife is a third. who are the beneficiaries of high technology american medicine. i don't want to be more than melodramatic about it but all three of us would not be walking around if it weren't for that. >> we talked about your lymphoma and at sloan-kettering where you spent a year? >> a year. to turn me around and pushed me back out on the street. the relevance of that now, if there's any relevance at all, is that we're talking here and i'm sure the system is socialized medical care, which is extremely expensive. the budget of the united kingdom government is about 700 billion pounds a year. that's in the region of a trillion american dollars.

of that 700 billion pounds, something like 105 billion is spent on the national health service. and that figure has more or less tripled in the last 10 or 13 years. it's become a huge financial burden. mr. cameron, who is in the process, the present prime minister, of radically reducing government expenditures, the national health service budget -- >> what's that mean? >> he's going to cut all other departments by an average of 20%. the health budget will not be cut. >> we call that grandfathering? >> grandfather. same thing. >> ringed fence. >> why did he do that? he did that because in 1947, 1948, a labor government, a reformist labor government after the second world war introduced the national health service. in the face of fierce opposition from the conservative party and fierce opposition from the medical profession. it is now the jewel in the

crown of this kingdom. no political party that came to be seen as likely to destroy or undermine the national health service could possibly survive. that reflects the lived experience of the national health service. if you live in this country. there are many things wrong with it. including long waiting lists, including occasionally denial of life-saving drugs. and so forth. on the basis of cost. but there are many things right with it. principally what they call medical carefree at the point of delivery. when you go to a clinic or a hospital here, nobody asks about your ability to pay. you may get varying levels of treatment, cancel hospital just over here, the royal mas one of the best in the world, if you get cancer somewhere else in more remote places your chances of survival are going to be

proportionally reduced. that's also true under the american system of medical care. so i've ended up, if you will, conflicted. on the one hand, i and my son born eight or 10 weeks premature, 12 weeks premature, my wife, have all been beneficiaries, the fact that we're walking around today we owe to american high technology medicine. medicine which had we been in the u.k. and i was at the start of my cancer treatments, i was here, we would have been unlikely to get. i said once to joe leliville who i'm sure you know -- >> former editor -- >> former editor of "the new york times" and very helpful to my wife and i when i had cancer, and helped us navigate through that difficult time in ways which i shall be eternally grateful, and i said to him at the end of the experience, that

i had sat at the patient meetings at sloan-kettering and seen a new york city police officer, as touch as you want, -- as tough as you want, over the bills was getting, second mortgaged his house, and borrowed money from his brother-in-law. and he thought he was going to die. he did die. and he was going to ruin his family in the process. i think that's a rather dramatic version of what can happen. i know now that there are many things in the american medical system and even before president obama's reforms that mitigate that. i understand that. and i said, i'm a little conflicted. i come to america to this high technology system of medicine which has saved my life. and i see a new york city police officer weeping at patients meetings because of the cost. and then in my native country which couldn't give me this kind of cancer care, nobody is going to ruin his family as he descends to the end of life

through cancer or any other chronic disease. and joe said, and i pondered ever since, this thought, he said, well, i don't think you need to puzzle too hard over that. he said the way i would see it is he said, the united kingdom has the kind of medical system i would want for my country. the united states is the kind of medical system i would want for my family. and that's more or less how i keep saying about this. but coming back here, after 40 years away, i would have to say that if i were to list the things about this country that i find most admirable, the national health service would be right at the top. and the bbc would be not far behind it.

i'm tom put numb director of the presidential library and museum on behalf of john mccain and the kennedy foundation and all of my library and foundaonolleagues, i thank you for coming and welcome those watching this program on c-span. let begin by ack knowledging the underwriters of the kennedy library forum including lead sponsor spanl bank of america, ston capital, the boston foundation, our media partners, the "boston globe," wbbr and today's special sponsors powder milk biscuits and rue barb pie.

there at least a reason that the kennedy library would organize a fum in the role of humor. let's take a look. >> big business is using the stock market slump as a means of forcing you to come to terms to business, r representable column after talking to businessmen obviously reported this week, tir attitude is now we have you where they want you. >> i'm wrm where big business wants me. -- i'm where b business wants me. >> you have said, and i think more than once that heads of government should not go to the summit to negotiate agreements but only to approve agreements negotiated at a lower level. now it's being said and wtten that you're going to eat those words and go to the summit

without any agreement at alla lower level. has your portion changed, si >> i'm going have a dinner for all the people who've eaten it and we'll see who eats what. >> mr. president, your brother ted recently on television said that after seeing the cares of office on you that he wasn't sure he'd ever been interest on being the president. i wonder if you could tell fuss you had to do it over again, you would work for presidency and so you that you can recommend the task to others. >> the first is yes and the second is no, i don't recommend it to others. at least for a while. rrp 1952 and i was thinking for running for the united states senate. i went to then to the senator. i said what do you think? he said, don't do it. bad year. [laughter]

in956, i was at the democratic convention. i didn't know whether i would run for vice president or not. i said, george, what do you think? this is it. they need a young man. so i ran. and lost. and in 1960, i was wondering whether i ought to run in the west virginia primary. don't do it. that's a state you can't possibly car rifment and actually the only time i really got nervous about the whole matter in los angeles was just before the balloting. george came up and said, i think it looks pretty good for you. >> as it was an essential compent in the police political career of john f. kennedy, humor is one of the founng pillars of this institution, bridging these two worlds is our cue ray tor david power who is worked with president ken di throughout his

career and was -- kennedy throughout his career d was treasured because of his irish wit. his described the scene this way, never in the history of the massachusetts democratic party had so many gathered on such a beautiful day with so few under indictment. [laughter] >> it is with this appreciation of the importance of humor that we are deeply honored to have one of the finest storytellers garyson keilor, best known for "the writteners almanac." he's the author of hundreds of books in which he explains of his lifelong political affiliation is formed by the scandinavian wisdom of his youth. .

i will return to the podium -- podium to close the session. it may seem like catching up with an old friend. the committee your voice we have invited in our living room, kitchen, and cars and whose stories, poems, and songs as touched chords and our hearts. please join me in welcoming garrison keillor to the kennedy library. [applause] >> thank you so very much. i don't remember the president having that pronounced an asset -- accent when i heard it back in a pall of the 1960's. memory can be deceiving.

i cannot help but think of a talk i gave in detroit for a fund-raiser with the united fund, a couple of years ago. it was at the henry ford museum. they were about be an enormously wealthy people sitting -- 50 enormously wealthy people sitting at tables on the museum for. they were circulating around and havi drinks and i walked around and caught the lay of the land, and behind me was the bus from montgomery, alabama that they had written on which had led to dr. martin luther king jr. and the bus boycott of montgomery which led to so much

else in the south. they're all the various cars. and i realized that i stood up in front of these people, that black lincoln limousine back there, that long limousine was the car that mr. and mrs. kennedy were writing and in dallas on november 22, 1963. indeed it was. i knew it somehow. it was sitting tre just beyond this group of people having drinks and waiting for me to talk about lake wobegon, minnesota. it was an enormous disconnect to attempt to beat a humorous and lookout at this monster, this monster of history, this dragon,

this car which you and i have seen how many hundreds and maybe thousands of times in newsreel footage over and over, making that turned in dealey plaza and coming up under the elm trees. i could not get it out of my mind and yet i was not there to talk about this, you see. i was there to tell stories. but it was there, this car, which was the scene of a great change in the history of our country. we can talk about that for years to come, but it was. , peoplehat momento start to feel disconnected from theiown government, conspiracy theories abounded that the government itself had killed the president's, so much darkness followed from that very moment.

how many times had we gone back and rewound that film, wanting it to come out a different way? it seemed to be monstrous that we're sitting here are round tables and having drinks and their that car was parked. just beyond us. and yet this is a challenge of humor, somehow it must comprehend darkness d death. must take this into cognizance. i stood upn front of them and i switched directions and i started to tell stories about deat [laughter] not what the united fund people were hoping for. [laughter] but you feel this disconnect in your mind is going one direction, and your voice is

trying to take you someplace else. and in the end, you have to follow your head. so i told them a story about mr. tolphopson of the grain elevator who had an affair with the english teacher, though each of them were married to other people, and he went down to visit her in her classroom and to recite love poems to her. he worked up in the grain elevator. he was an unprepossessing man, he was wiry and his hair stuck up and he was dealing with hair loss and he wore black warm round glasses repaired with masking tape. [laughter] and he had soybean dust on him and cornmeal in the cuffs of his jeans.

but he went up there to recite a poem to her, let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. love is not love which alters when it alteration fines. and before long, there were down to the moonlight base supper club. and they sat in a back booth around a little read cut glass decanter with the candle inside, and they ordered bombardiers, a drink that is powerful, that you would not order if you meant to keep your good judgment. [laughter] and they win often parked in his little pickup truck just down the gravel road, just over the hill from where the state highway curves off to the west toward the dakotas. they parked just over the hill and they steamed up the windows for a while, never imagining

that lumber truck would take that turn too fast and this sit and then go over that rise and go fishtailing down the gravel and sideswiped the pickup truck and roll it over eight or nine times. an she who that passenger seat belt, or nearly you would not do what you are steaming up the windows -- [laughter] she suffered cuts and contusions. and his naked body -- [laughter] because a man who was steaming up the windows times tain some element of mobility, he is -- his naked body was thrown out on to the gravel where it lay there and the sheriff's pplewhite's when he came. and he inspected the pipe -- in the sheriff's headlights

when he came. the man had put that on himself for safety. in this case it had not worked. [laughter] they brought the body up to the mortuary and put him in his suit and he was taken up to the lutheran church for the funeral, at which the pastor reached a very stiff sermon on the obverse, be sure your salmon will find you out. got season the rest of us will find out about it inevitably. be sure your sin will find you out. got gloves -- it will be found out. the pastors old church secretary, and jean in the thi

row, burst into tears and sat there sopping, her bosom heaving, and so that story came out. [laughter] and the pastor had to be dismissed. [laughter] the chairman of the church council live voted for -- who voted was involved wi the woman but she destroyed his letters to her but there was one that he could not bear to lose. it was a letter to marine telling and what aonderful lover he was and how strong and our imaginative and how generous and in during. -- enduring. is letter recommendation he

held onto. [laughter] and put it for safe keeping in a book in the library. which was up but no one would ever read, a book of statistics of american agriculture in 1929- 1930, the chapter on flax which we do not grow around there. it was safe for years until the library and grace was a reading out books and the letter came fluttering down to the floor and she read it, and she thought surely this cannot be my brother eugene. is the chairman o the church council. she showed a letter to her sister read it and thought nothing of it. the person described in the letter bore no resemblance to her husband. [laughter] but she asked him about it and

he dropped an armload ofhina. and she had to be sent off to think about his sins, to his brother roger, who himself was caught three weeks later, having gone to town to play penuchle with his friends, he said, and came home a 1:00 in the morning which is much too late for penuchle. it is a game for old man and always ends up at 10:00. he had a gash over his left eyebrow. because he could not think of a good story, he was forced to fall back on the truth, which was not to his advantage. [laughter] he had been struck by a mirror that fell off of the ceiling of a motel room. [laughter] where he and the young woman lying in theere

jacuzzi and miring each other in the mirror on the ceiling, and he opened up bottle of cheap french champagne and the court bounced off the mirror and suddenly their reflection started to get bigger and bigger and bigger. [laughr] i told this story to the united fund the people. [laughter] i think they were expecting something else. something about neighborliness and something about generosity and coming to the aids of those less fortunate. but who could be less fortunate? those struck by a mirror fallen off of the ceiling? [laughter] my own. jack was the less fortunate man.

y uncle was a less fortunate man. he took to jim beam for solace and develop alcoholism as a major copy. had to be sent away, sent off to live in a hunting shack out on the other side of the lake. and there he lived. i loved him. he was a dear man. he wrote songs. not the right kind of songs, he knew "annabel lee" by heart. he knew all sorts of forms by heart. he died. he dd. they all died, you know. i do not kill them off deliberately in my stories, but my uncle did die. he had come into the

sitrack tap to medicate himself and he was on his way a bitterly cold january day in minnesota. it was 40 below zero and may have been colder than that. our outdoor thermometers only go down to 40 below. we don't want to know about anything colder. [laughter] he was on his way to the sidetrack tap, a heavyset man with a friend of red hair and a brushy red mustache, making his way, and he went into -- ran into his nemesis who was walking toward him and with him he had had a life long argument about the authenticity of the kensington moonstones, a stone found in a corn field in western minnesota in the late 1870's, runic writings on the stone,

which transted said something like 14 of us have come down with the red disease and are on our way back to the votes to sail back to vinland. which some people, mr. birkie being one, felt was authentic, and prove that the vikings were amazing navigators to be able to find them -- their way to the middle of north america just by the stars. other people including my own called jack thought it was an obvious that anyone with the iq of a potted plant would know that this was the work of some soybean farmer with time on his hands. if you were sick and dying, why uld you take aeek to carved into a stone and meaningless message in a language that

nobody around here understands? they had an argument about this. they have an argument about this in the streets. they were shrieking at each other in norwegian, of language rich in invective. and then my uncle felt the elephant step on his chest. he reached for the parking meter. they just put up one as an experiment back in the early 1950's. they got one for cheap and they just never worked out. and so they did not put up any more. he grabbed hold oit for support and his last words on this earth, though he could not have intended this, work, "and you have got shit for brains." [laughter] and thene fell.

mr. burke he said, "you go to hell." then he felt that might be the case in nicolle but the constables and the sheriffand the ambulance, but corner, the fire department got involved somehow. you had this scene of an emergency and walk and talk is going off, and you had read in blue flashing lights and yello tape around a man lying there, this whole scene of crisis and emergency, which my uncle love more than anything else in this world and such a shame that he should miss it by just 10 minutes. [laughter] humor has to include all of these things to comprehend them. we cannot close it off.

humor is not silliness. humor embraces our life and there is a connection between humor and politics. more than just politicians telling jokes. when we talk about him, we mean first of all -- humor, we mean first of all good humor, a general good humor among

up bias toward trusting each other, a communal spirit. such as we fl around christmas, en if you do not believe in any of it, if you cannot be impervious to this feeling amiability which is at the heart of christmas. christmas does not require a big outlay of cash. especially as you get older and greed is less and less a part of that. christmas requires cookies and christmas carols and candles. it is good if it is cold. i cannot imagine christmas and florida. i guess other people can but i cannot. it reqres a few simple things. some lights and candles and cookies, saffron cookies, bayberry candles, but your choice, really. [laughter] and this feelingf amiability, of good will which is everywhere you look around you at christmastime. some people are offended by the manger scene. so people feel marginalized by

it. we live in an age of complaint. i say to them, "get over it." [laughter] you are in america, that is where you are. if you are in france, you would't expect buttermilk pancakes forreakfast. you work in france, you're with the french know. it's a catholic country and france. don't expect they will -- they will publish box scores. you will have to go elsewhere for them. there's this feeling of amiability even among people who do not believe that jes was the son of god and who appeared in human form in a cradle on december 24 back in bethlehem. there is this feeling of

amiability, of people coming together, good humor. this is crucial. and if we lose thi if we lose this in our society, we have also lost something in politics. we are living in this intensely partisan era, not the first time in our country's history, god knows, but it is worrisome when you have a poll that says that 57% of republicans in our country believe that barack obama is muslim. that 48% believe that he was not born in this country. when 38% believed that he is doing many of the same things that adolph hitler did. that 24% believe that he may be

the anti christ. they are talking about a kid from hawaii who was the son of a single mother, and who strode in classic american style, going to the best sools could get into, winning the prizes, and replanting himself on the south side of chicago and go into the swamp of chicago politics, somehow one scathed -- how did that happen? and bearing the first woman he was really in love with and making his way up the ladder in a sort of classic dickensian story, at this striver, this earnest striver, that have been so misread by such a large

majority of people. pure racism in my opinion, but still disquieting, if you believe that the bedrock of politics is some sort of, and good will -- some sort of common good will among the american people, it is very disquieting. when you talk about humor, pure also talking about jokes, which are a crucial part of american culture and american literature. we pride ourselves on this, one being people who appreciate jokes. this is an age of celebrities and celebrity does not go with jokes. celebrities are precarious, fragile people who are properties and who are brands

and they must defend their brands against humor, against satire. they must be very, very careful not to be caught off guard. it is a very precarious thing especially in this day and age, when there are so many celebrities. there used to be 45. [laughter] and now there are about 475 olson. -- 47,300 famous people in america, which means that most famous people in america are people who most americans have never heard of. but they are nonetheless a liberties and they travel around in celebrity cars and they get beyond the velvet rope very easily, and they enjoy a great privilege, until one day

humor comes after them and people start to make fun of them, and then it starts to fall apart, and it happens in so many ways. you get out of your black car and your publicist, jennifer, a lead you on to the book signing, and there you are, and people passed by the velvet rope and hours go by. you go for an interview on tv, and then you stop in the men room on the way back and you look and there is an enormous, greenish tint coming out of your less -- left nostril that has been moving in and o as you breathe. and you looked as in horror. you are aamous person admired by literally of thousands of people for your cable tv show,

but nobody, not one person, walked up to you and said, hey, you need a hankey. and youe fired jennifer go into hiding. you go into the betty ford center. [laughter] and you hire a new publicist, vivian, and vivian puts out the word that you suffer from a rare condition which creates excess mucus. [laughter] and you pick this up when you are over and africa trying to and adopt an orphaned child. she does her best at damage control but the damage is done. you've suffered this sharp blow and your image i forev craft.

and it will never, ever recover. people will always look get you and they will be looking at your nostril first. this is how it is. so celebrity culture and humor, jokes do not g with each other. i grew up in a era of cruel humor, desperately cruel. the age of the practical joke. people do not do this anymore but they used to do it and they would send for ads in the back pages of popular mechanics, and they would bite itching powder, d they would buy dribble glasses, give one to uncle

louis and liquid would run down his tie and everyone got a big kick out of it. and you would put salt in the sugar bowl. i can barely remember when a group of boys put sheep in their friend's bedroom. put a sheet, led the sheep up the stairs and their the sheep was, and the sheep was left in there for a long te. so she made a markn that bed room. these were country people. but there was a real cruelty behind it. nonetheless person in america to remember the era of tipping, a profound thing. people in my child did not have indoor plumbing but not at the summer cabins.

they still have outhouses. boys who were ar a lake as i was occasionally did this out of extreme boredom. you would hang around in t woods in the evening as the sun went down, and in particular you were watching harold stars' cabin. he was a good republican and he made a good target. he had an outhouse behind his cabin. and you knew that he would make that walt down that path in the dark. he knew that we were there. this was not a surprise. he knew that we were waiting out there and knew what we had in mind because he had been young

himself. so as he came out the cabin door, he yelled at us, "i know you are out there." and he brandished a shotgun. thinking it would scare usff. it did not. it was just a challenge, that's all. he went into the powerhouse and when he closed the door, we came sneaking down through the tall grass, until we were about 30 feet away, and we could hear. and when we heard the unmistakable sounds of him doing what he had come out there to do we made a rush for the house. you had to do it quickly. you could not discuss this. you were there for one purpose. and that was to push this over onto the door as fast as you

could. he yelled andis kerosene lantern broke and this big coup of flame. he fired the gun but it went toward his own cabin. there were flames in there. e were. hellbent four-letter up the hill. and he came up the only exit bill was available to m. he came leaking out and there was the hole waiting for him. he knew it was there but he slid right down into it. nobody would ever do this today. [laughter] we could discuss why. it is an interesting question. i do not know why. people are not nicer now. but there are so many out house is now, i expect.

he would yell at us and threaten us and told us he was going to find us if it took him the route -- the rest of his life. but he had a pretty good ide of who he -- who we were and he settled down and realize that this was simply part of a game. we had come after him because of this high rescission -- position. it was a tribute in a way. [laughter] you do not pull practical jokes on week are vulnerable people. it is not done. it is not funny. you go after the powerful. and the mighty. and so he was able to accept this. we do not do this anymore. we are in the nature of political correctness, which i do not mind. i consider it to be a form of good manners and i did grow up

during the 1950's at a time when men more less rich release said deprecating things about their wives to other men. this was a guy humor. i do not miss it. it was not funny to me then and is not funny to me know. what has really put a damper on humor is not so much political correctness, as a tendency that we have to make any sort of human oddity into a syndrome, into a dysfunction, into a disorder. we have made light clinical, somehow. and we have taken the human conditions that we used to just live with and the curious about and we have made them into

problems to be solved, possibly with pharmaceuticals. [laughter] so that everyone has some sort of disorder and we each have long list of problems which have some sort of clinical or therapeutic solution. this gets in the way of humor. humor requires a certain sort of fatalism. the this denies us back. -- this denies us that. if you wake up in the morning in new have empty ice cream cartons in bed with you, there is a reason for this, and you discover it. it comes from taking ambien sleeping tablets and one possible side effect in the small print written on the

pamphlet inside the box is eating disorder, le night excessive eating disorder. nocturnal excess eating disorder. n-e-e-d, need. so instead of making a joke about this, if you solve it, and you google nocturn leading and one-half cent at you, with 36,749,000 hits. most of which have to do with owls. [laughter] but here is one that identifies your problem and shows you the

way to a group that is meeting every week. always in the basement of a unitarian church. [laughter] always on tuesday nights they are meeting and you sit there in a room, in a circle of folding chairs, with people with styrofoam cups of not very good coffee and you talk in the circle about your life and about your needs and your disappointments and so forth. other people are meeting in other rooms here in the basement. it is full of people. in one circle or another, aa is here and when did daughters of emotionally distant fathers, men coming to terms with their own bodies, men who mothers told them to eat everything on their

plate so that would grow up bi and strong, but they just gr up big. [laughter] so they have to talk to their mother in their feelings about mother, disappointing hurt they do not finish everything on their plate, and anger anonymous, a group of mostly parents of adolescent children who had been so sweet tempered and then fell in among that compy and took a wrong turn and went to live in little basement rooms in the parents' house until they were in their mid 20's and there they live like trolls in dark smoky taverns, strange smoke coming out from under doorways, psychotic music playing down their and odd instance, and the parents begging their children

to please, it is christmas, jus come be with us, you do not have to eat the same food that we eat, you do not even have to make eye contact, just be in the same room with us. and the child opens the door and hisses at the parents, evil spirits, and children who once were happy and gay -- will not gay, but they were happy. [laughter] now they are dressed all in black, expensive black clothing ripped to pieces, and what is th on the neck? a spider web something. ere did that come from? meddle everywhere, their eyebrows and i lives and their careers and their lips and the nose and their tongue as well.

matal everywhere. it's like a bill faced first and to the tackle box. -- it is like they feltace first -- fell facefirst into the tackle box. people who shriek that their parents and yelled at them and the child recorded all on the cellphone. so they could refer to child services and now you have to go sit in the circle and drink coffee. [laughter] every week. this is the enemy of humor, the enemy of jokes. i grew up in the era of jokes. jokes were democratic. small the democratic. -- small d democratic.

it did not matter who you work, if you have a lot of money, if your life was a mess, it your all -- all wrong politically, if you belong to the wrong church -- if you could tell a joke until it cleanly, but you were ok. this is how you could wake -- make your way in america. i saw it over and over. in the chatterbox cafe, if you're the guy who had married the daughter of the former, you knew nhing about farming, and so they had very little in common with you. you came from the city, you war fought clothes, and you're here to not look right, what was that you putn yourself? why would you want to smell like citrus fruit? they had plenty of reasons to dislike you. but if you sat there, as people

told jokes, you waited your turn, you did not rush, but as the conversation moves in its odd way from lutherans to moose to highways to soybeans two uncles to in a wet -- inuit, there is your moment. a new step in and say, not, not. eskimo. eskimo who? eskimo questions, i'll tell you no lies. [laughter] not, notthe worst just. it's not as bad as sam and jack, but it is good enough. and you told it well.

there are beautiful gems. the week after bill clinton admitted to having canoodeled with the intern, people in lake wobegon were telling this joke. there's a sale down at the store, men's pants half off. every word in that joke needso be exactly where it is. you need to tell it with confidence. no hesation. nobody in that chatterbox cafe would ever be caught saying, i cannot remember jokes. i do not know. i do not have the knack for telling them. you would never admit to this. the joke -- the joke is the key to fitting in anywhere.

the door that you can easily open, and even if you are all wrong, and all sorts of ways, if you could tell a joke they will give you a lot of credit. this is the basis of more in politics than you or i may realize. the same ability to tell a joke maybe applicable in all sorts of other situations. i think that good humor is the basis of good politics. i truly believe this, that there is a sort of common trust, appealing about the common good netiquette parlays itself in tumor. and when we lose that, we lose too much, we lose much too much.

i am going to close until a story and then i will take your questions. but i am sure the questions will be interesting. -- i probably do not know the answers, but i am sure the questions will be interesting. [laughter] it is a story about death. [laughter] since i have that on my mind. i do not have my cell phone on me so i do not know what time it is. it does not matter. my parents liv in lake wobegon a little town out in the middle of nowhere. as we say in lake wobegon, it is not thend of the world,ut you can see it from there. [laughter] we are out there and we get this ferocious winter that comes down from skatchewan and manitoba, these blizzards, rolling and regularly.

starting right about now, starting sometimes as early as halloween, but always thanksgiving, snow on the ground. this is our reason for being, somehow. we are hisrical people -- still -- stoic people and winter gives us something to be stoic about. we are strivers to get the job done and our job, living there in the northern tier states is to defend our country's long border against the rapacious canadians. [laughter] and to keep the highways cleared. because once these people get in and get across, we have a hard time telling them from each other. [laughter] so there we are. winters part of the basis of

our understanding of ourselves in minnesota. we are little lost and confused during the summer. summer is a beautiful time, of course, and yet it raises hopes that cannot be satisfied. and it leads people into all sorts of questions and who in my and why am i here, what is the purpose of my life? in winter, this is all perfectly clear. we are mammals. that is who we are. we are meant to seek shelter and food and keep that food supply coming. and have children, and have extra children in case the wolves carries some away. [laughter] and if you do not carry children -- if you do not have children, you should at least practice making children, and this is what we do the wintertime.

i grew up when winter was mh harder than it is now. we had no light weight formalwear back then before the space program. we just put on layers of long woolen underwear and sweaters and sweat shirts and had these mackinac's. we kept warm by wearing heavy clothing on our backs. but the exertion of carrying heavy clothing, at 87-pound shirts going out over the frozen tundra and carrying 42 pounds of clothing on your back, you ayed warm. the exertion of it kept you want. in the storm, you marched when you're a child. school was never, ever counseled and minnesota, ever, not for any reason wtsoever. once you start canceling school in minnesota, where you stop? [laughter]

so you win often called the school bus or maybe a slave would come for you if the school buses could not get through -- sleigh would come for you at the school buses could not get through. it would pull you off thrgh the snow, and that a runner broke off, u.n. often to the ey of the mississippi river and author river u.n., swerving sotimes off to one side, to avoid these tattered men inray who came down from behind rocks and trees, running towards us, the last remnants of the army of northern virginia trying to snatch little kinky children -- little yankee children for ransom so that the confederacy could rise again which it never did until the renaissance of the republican party. [laughter]

anyway, another subject. but winter is a manly obligation. you are not supposed to be defeated by this or even complain about it. everybody else is just as cold as you are, so do not tell me how you feel. this is not a personal experience, ok? just keep to yourself. you are supposed to ge out there and shovel snow and throw that snow up on to the bank until in february or march, you have 30-foot high canyons of snow coming into your little house. you can throw that's no way up there -- that snow way up

there, and up there is a cougar waiting for you to waver if you look lost, and you have to preserve life. that is what we do in the winter. my father and my mother, long many years ago, lived in a little house in lake wobegon with my older brother and my oldest sister. my father went out to shovel snow off roof. it was around twilight. the sun was just going down. he went out there and put up a ladder against the house and declined up to shuffle off the snow. you have to do this because you have no idea how heavy the snow is. if it is heavy enough, it could collapse the house, and you could all die, which would be embarrassing. [laughter] silly man has to do this.

a man could hire someone else to do it, but that is not a good kid -- a gd thing. unman needs to shoveled his own room. if the hire someone else, then this is one more step down the path which leads toeople reaching for your elbow when you go down the stairs. people saying, you look good. which they never said when you did look good. [laughter] it leads to people suggesting that maybe you should not drive at night, and injured children taking your car keys away, and you wind up in the good shepherd home and you are hanging out with people you have been avoiding all your life. and finally dementia settles down and then they shovel you into the box in the suit did you used to wear to other people's

funerals. and it is much too early and they hold you in the church pastor pew and down front, and someone who barely news you gives you a eulogy and it is all wrong, the distinguished thing that you did light privy tipping, they did not touch those. that puts you in this blacken. you meant to take more car trips but this is the last one. the pallbearers carry you over rough ground and they sit you down over this frame over the hole in the ground and they seemed to vs of all by by me. and that is all. two verses of me."e by the grave diggers are talking about drainage problems, the

last thing you want to know about. and so to prevent this from happening too soon come when you go up and shovel snow off of your route. [laughter] and he did, he was shoveling snow any doubt war now. it was a heavy snow and the sun and gone down and he was going to rest for a moment. he lay back against the steep roof and he braced his heels in the gutter. and then he fell asleep. local up about half an hour later. -- woke up about half an hour later. and he realized that his jacket had frozen to the route. it had this can now, but police in, and it throws into the shingles on this cold night. he tried to move his hips, his

legs, he could not move anything. it was a long jacket. he could kick with his heels against the roof, but he could not move his hips. from the bent over the kitchen, he could smell but tuna noodle casserole that my mother was making for supper. the little children had gone to bed. she was making supper for him and here he was trapped on the roof, cars going by. he could not wave to them. he could only move a thker. they drove by, back and forth, some halt. -- some honked. he tried to signal them with his index finger and he could not. and it dawned on him, he could die of. no one can buy. it was very cold, 40 below zero.

he heard a crunch in his back pocket. he realized as he felt all liquid going down his leg that he had lost at a bottle of peppermint schnapps that he had brought up. to keep himself warm. he had broken it, and now he realized that when he did die on the roof, this is what people will talk about. he had a drinking problem. [laughter] that would say that he had a drinking problem. he had to go up on the roof to drink. that is how desperate he was. he drank and then he'd pissed his pants. [laughter] so he was almost resigned to this in a crucifix position when my mother. standing in the snow down below. she said, are you almost finished? he said, yes, i am.

she said, when a mine going to come in? as soon as i get this jacket lose from this route. oh, mercy, she said, and up the ladder she came. this woman afraid of heights came clamoring the ladder and the steep group holding on to the jacket, she pulled herself up until she lay there on him d she grabbed that zipper and she pulled it as hard as she could, and he came leaking out and he cameown the route with her, writing and straddling, off the roof, and down into the snow bank, and jumped up. nobody had seen them. [laughter] they went into the house. she put away the tuna casserole. she got

they had defeated death. she had a little wine that they used for cooking. she poured it into a class for him and he drank it. she bake a potato with sour

yes, we are ok. we are fine. we just wondered because we saw a jacket of on your route. he said, that is the jacket -- i put that up there. that is a cougar trap. [laughter] would be used for baked? he said, peppermint schnapps. my parents, my parents, the defeated death. and that was about we come through the other side. we survive. they had narrow scrape bus somehow, here we are. a bunch of humorous people. what is humor about. it's about what we have in common, which is what politics is about as well. these are times when we have so much less in common than before.

the world is split up into little pieces. the most successful tv shows have rather small audiences, maybe 5 million, 6 million, maybe 8 million people out of this who's vast country. there used to be elvis and frank sinatra and the beatles. there aren't people like that anymore. people who everyone would recognize by their voice. we've become different and estranged from each other but humor and politics can bri us back together and if politics can't, then i have my doubts about humor, too. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright tional cable satellite corp. 2009] >> thank you very much.

thank you so very much. we have a couple of microphones here and i see people edging that way. a young woman has leaped or leapt to one. yes, ma'am. >> i have had the joy of seeing you at tanglewood the last seven years -- >> where were you sitting? >> i notice you all have scripts but when you do lake wobegon you have no script, yet the show comes out on time. my question is, how do you do that? >> when you're telling the truth you don't need a script. you just remember things as best you can. no, it's not really required that you have a script.

the president has to have one, i understand that, the teleprompter and all of that, because, you know, if a sentence of his skids off into thwrong subordinate clause, you know, the markets in japan react. but the rest of us don't. you and i don't need script, right? we're americans. >> but you still manage to conclude the story in a logical, funny way andhe show always ends on time. >> i'm an older person. a person ought to develop some skills, you know. you lose a few and gain a couple. yes? >> i'm curious as to how you got your start in humor and i'm sure there was a wealth of

characters to base stories on but how did you develop this ability to go from one -- something leads you to something else to something else and then we kind of come back to the beginning again. how does that happen? how did you start that? >> well, i was -- i had a need to do this as a child. and mother enjoyed having me around, watching her as she worked. she had six children. and she would wash and clean and cook and iron, she even ironed sheets. and i was her little boy who memorized jokes out of reader's digest. soy told her jokes and she was very charmed by this. and then when i was 6, she did

something i didn't underand, she went and she got pregnant and -- by my father -- and she had twin boys. my younger brothers. and when you are the charming third child in a family, which then adds twins, you disappear. you become invisible. people gathered around to watch these infants, you know, it was like the dion quintuplets or a smaller scale and we didn't charge admission. but this is a source of wonder to people and there i was, gasping for air, because my brothers sucked it out of the room. and out of -- o of a troubled childhood comes the urge to

entertain other people. your parents may have deprived you by giving you a happy, satisfied, comfortable childhood. and shame on them. and make sure that you give your children the gift they deserve. which is a little misery. and neglect. so that's the secret there. you grew up the middle invisible child in a family of calvinnists -- >> pretty close. >> and you need nothing more. you've got it all. >> thank you so much for your stories which transport me each week to such a wonderful, civil place, a luxurious place. my question is president kennedy had a vision and a

story that compelled us, as did president reagan and all, it seems, the great leaders do. i'm wondering, what's the story that president obama should be saying to us? >> president obama has been gaven truckload of trouble, he came into office on it. i was there in washington on january 20, along with millions of other people and it was just one of the great days of my life. it was a lot of trouble to get to washington but i and all those millions of other people felt we had to be there and when we saw the obamas walking down pennsylvania avenue toward the white house, i just -- i had a beautiful feeling. it's not gone away. but it's been put sghtly on

the shelf. his first two years, i tnk, were anybody else, he might have trumpeted this more than he has. i think that he and the congress got a great deal done. we ce from -- i come from northern liberals, however, and these are people who are dark people. and we are fault finders and we are dissatisfied with our own and so i try not to listen to people who belie as i do. they seem to be a poor guide to this administration. i have great hopes for it. out of trouble, which he has

recently experienced a little bit of, i think great things will come. i think that these cables that wikileaks released, i haven't read them all, neither have you, but these cables show the administration, i think, in a pretty good light. so i have high hopes, high hopes for them. [applause] not the best answer i could have come up with but i don't have to revise this. >> it's the best presence, though, we like that my question is, you were in a new york state of mind a few times back and it's kind of two-part, either part i'm curious about. what drew you to the big apple and today, now, are there things that linger in it that

so new york city. >> what drew me was "the new yorker magine" which i started reading when i was a kid, my cousin kate subscribed to "the new yorker," she was two years older than i, she probably showed it to me when i was 13 or so. she was a very adventurous person in our family a real bohemian, growing up in a fundamentalist, evangelical family. she smoked and she could smoke really well and she could swear really well and she understood the cartoons, the cartoon of the chicken and the egg lying in bed together and the egg is lighting a cigarette and saying, well i guess that answers that question.

[laughter] but she loved the writers and i did too. i loved s.j. perlman and a.j. liebling unreasonably and i loved john cheever, john updike, later, who was more my age and i wanted to be a writer for "the new yorker," so i went off to new york when i was 24 to write a tryout piece for them. i'd been writing for them for years but they didn't know about that. so i went, they were very decent to me. they didn't buy my tryout piece but i sent them a piece a couple of years later and that was one of the great events. if you were a a -- i was an english major. if you were an english major and a iter, the new yorker

was the gold standard. i wanted to write for them. then i moved to the city years later. i decided i didn't want to live there and be poor when i was 24. it just involved too much squalor. ened you could be veryoor in minnesota and live with a you could rent a farmhouse when farms were being consolidated out in minnesota, you could rent a farmhouse, and i did, for $80 a month.

and live there in splendor with a vegetable garden and that money in new york would have bought you a couch in a studio apartment sharing it with two other people. there's in comparison between the two. but i moved back there in 1989, 1990, and i got to work at the new yorker -- at "the new yorker" and write talk of the town pieces. i love the city, it's a pedestrian city and there aren't many of them in america. it's a city where everything is out on the street and you walk down the street and all this humaty brushes by you and when you come from out on the frozen tundra, this is a wonderful thing. it may not be wonder ffl you grew up in queens, but it's woerful if you grew up on the prairie where you sit and look out across corn stubble and soybean fields and you can see for miles and nobody is coming to see you and nobody ever will. and in new york, all this humanity passing you and it's just -- it's just -- it's just

amazing. you know, you walk down th street and here comes somebody on roller skates with no pants. and you glance at them and they say, what are you looking at? it's just one sight after another all of this life. i grew up in an earlier day, you see. before there were malls. and so, when i walked down upper broadway, when i walked down lexington avenue, past shop after shop after shop after shop, that's my childhood fantasy, how a city is supposed to look, one shop after another, and not just chain store and not big box stores but shop, shop, shop, shop, shop. bloomingdale's, shop, shop. >> thank you. >> i could go on.

>> my wife nancy and i lived for three winters in minnesota in the mid 1970's, every morning we would wake up to your morning radio program sponsored by jack's auto repair and human services. what happened to jack's auto repair and human serviceand at can each of us do to help restore humor and civility to american life? >> it's something we do every day, isn't it? we live in cities that -- we live in cities that militate against this. they are cities in which we move to and fro in little steel boxes. and we work in cubicles. but still,here are ways for us to touch other people. that's all. that's all we can do. we can only deal with the people that we come in contact with.

m not trying to organize a campaign, i'm only being descriptive. i think that the world has changed for humor and for comedy and i regret that and i believe that it has in politics. but i'll leave it to other people to develop that thee thee sis to and come up with a -- come up with a prescription.

anonymity is an enemy of civility. i'm sorry, but it is. this is shown so, so clearly on the internet. no solution for it but at least, you know, we can be aware of the world that we live in. all of this formless anger that's drifting around in clouds, i wait for it to pass. thank you so much. jang's auto repair was just one more disgruntled sponsor, that's all. we didn't reach the right audience, i guess. >> hi. i am concerned with the amount of acrimony and partisanship in our legislative branch and i'm wondering if you think perhaps surrounding the buildings by privies and outhouses would help at all. how else do we get back good will? it's scary to me. >> well, smarter people than i have written about this and -- but the point is, is one that people in politics are not able

to make to the voters. and it is the simple point that for all of the trouble of the great recession, high unemployment, this is t that bad. this is the rock bottom truth. there are people who thre on dramatizing it. many of them on television. many of them highly paid pundits who thrive on creating a sense of chaos and suffering and deprivation. but if you want to see deprivation, go to india.

other countries. go to somalia, if you want to see real trouble. go to the north of africa. you'll find a reality that we don't have in america. and we've come loose from our sense of retail. we neeto discover it somehow i don't know how that's going to happen. but it has to. we have to realize that in this world among our species, we are among the most fortunate in the history of the world. and if we want to know what true suffeng is, what abject suffering is, we don't have to look that far. the people who come to this country illegally are people we

have to admire. people who are coming to this country illegally are coming in behalf of their children. they don't have that much hope for themselves. but they have hope for their children. i admire that. there's no sacrifice like the sacrifice of immigrants, be they legal or illegal, not much difference. they gave up their country, they gave up their language, they gave up their jokes, their music, their culture in order to struggle on in an alien country and all in behalf of their -- all in behalf of their children. this is reality and it's around us everywhere in every city in america.

objection. mr. dorgan: mr. preside nt ose of us who are leaving the congress at the end of this year are given the opportunity to make a farewell speech but more it's an opportunity to say thank you to a lot of people that we owe a thank you to and to colleagues, to family, to the aff here in the senate, and on our staffs, and the people of north dakota in case who gave me the opportunity to serve. it's the opportunity for me to say ank you. one of my colleagues the other day talked about the number of ople who he served in the united states senate since the beginning of our country. there have been 1,918 people who have sved in the united states senate. when i signed in -- you sign on a line -- i was number 1,802. and there was been 212 senators

with whom i have served in the years that i have been in the senate. it's hard to get here, and it's also hard to leave here. but all of us do leave, and the senate always continues. and when finally you do leave, you understand that this is the most unique legislative body in the world. now, i arrived here 30 years ago in congress, and when we all show up the first day, we feel so very important, and we believe that the weight of the world rests on our shoulders. and then we begin getting mail from home, and i have long described a letter that was sort of levinning to me, sent moo -- leavining to me, is sengtsz to me by a school teacher. her class was to do a project to write according to nonwashington, d.c. and i paged through the 20 letters from fourth grade students and one of them said, "dear mr. dorgan:

i know who you are. i see you on television sometimes. my dad watches you on television, too. boy, does he get mad." and so i knew -- so i knew the interest of public service of trying toatisfy all of the very interests in our country. it is important, it seems to me, that we do the right thing as best we can and as best we see it. that dad from that letter showed up at a good many of my meetings over the years, i think -- didn't introduce himself. but in most cases, the people that i've represented over these many years were people that -- ordinary folks who loved their country, raised their families, paid their bills, and wanted us to do the right thing for our country's future. no i have a lot of really interesting memoriesrom having served here. 12 years in the u.s. house and 18 years in the u.s. senate. the first week i came to washington in the u.s. house, i stopped to see the oldest member of the house, claude pepper.

i'd read so much about him, wanted to meet him. walked into his office. his office was like a museum with a lot of old things in it really interesting things. he'd been here for a long, longs, long time. and i have never forgotten what i saw behind his chairs -- two photographs. the first photograph was of or ville and wilbur wright, 1903, making the first airplane flight the. signed:-to-"to congressman claude pepper with admiration." and beneath it, a photograph of neil armstrong, signed "to congressman pepper, with regards." and i'm thinking to myself, here's a living american in one life time, has an autographed picture of t person who learned to fly and the person who flew to the moon. think of the unbelievable progress in a lifetime. and what is the distance between learning to fly and flying to the moon? well it wasn't measured on that

wall in inches, although those photographs were only four or five inches apart. it is measured in education, in knowledge, in a burst of accomplishments, in an unprecedented century. and this country has been enormously blessed durg this period. the hallmark, it seems to me, of the century that we just completed was self-sacrifice and common purpose, a sense of community, commitment to country, and especially -- especially -- leadership. in america, leadership has been so important in this government we call "self-government." and there was a book written by mccullough about john adams and john adams described tt question of leadehip. he would travel in europe representing this new country, and he would write letters back to abigail a in his letters to abigail he would plaintiffly ask the question, where will the leadership come for this new country we're starting?

who will become the leaders? who will be the leaders for this new nation? then in the next letter to abigail he wld again ask, where will the leadership come from? and then he would say, there's only us, really only us. there's me, there's george washington, there's ben franklin, there's thomas jefferson, there's hamilton, mason and madison, but there is only us, he would plaintiffly say to abigail. in the rearview mir he of history, the only us is some of the greatest human talent probably ever assembled. but it is interesting to me that every generation has asked the same question that john adams asked: where will the leadership come from for this country? who will be the leaders? and the answer to that question now is here in this room. it's always been in this room. my colleagues, men and women tested by the rirgs of a campaign -- tested by the riggers of a exairntion chosen by disefns their state, told,

you provide leadership for this country. now, for all of the crit simple about this chamber and chose in which -- those who serve in this chamber, for all of that crit cinches i say that the most talented men and women with whom i have ever worked are the men and women of the united states senate, from both sides of this aisle. they live in glass houses, their mistakes are obvious and painful, they fight, they disagree, then they agree, they dance around issues, posture, delay, but always, always there is that moment, the moment of being part of something big, consequential, important, the moment of being part of something bigger than yourself. and at that moment, for all of us, at different times there is this a cute awareness of why we

were sent here and the role the u.s. senate plays in the destiny of this cufnlt you know, the senate is often called the most exclusive club in the world. but i wonder really if it's so exclusive. if someone from a town of 300 people and a high school senior class of nine students can travel from a desk in that small school to a desk on the floor of the united states senate, i think it's more like a quiltwork of all that's american, of all the experiences in our country. it allowed someone from a small town with big ideas to sit in this chamber among the desks that were occupied by henry clay, daniel webster, harry truman, lyndon johnson, and so many more, and feel like you belong. theals the genius of self-government. -- that's the genius of self-govment now, i announced about a year ago that i would not seek reelection after

serving here 30 years, 12 in the s. house and 18 years in the u.s. senate. i am repeatedly asked, as is my clerks senator dodd, i'm sure, who is leaving at the end of this year, what is your most significant accomplishment? and while i'm proud of so many things i have done legislatively, the answer is not legislative. i have always answered it by saying, well, the first month i was here 30 years ago next month, i stepped into an elevator on the ground floor of the cannon office building of the u.s. house of representatives. at step into that elevator changed my life. betwee the ground floor and the fourth floor, i got her name, and that's a pretty significant accomplishment for a lutheran norwegian, and this year we celebrated our 25th wedding annirsary. my life has been so enriched by

my wife kim and children scott and shelly and bren done and haley and my grand southern. they serve, too. families are committed, to to this life of public service, weekends alone, and i am forever grateful to the commitment and sacrifice of my family. and i want to say a few things about some other people as well. first there is our staff. all of us would probably say -- but of course i s with much greater credibility -- i have the finest staff in the united stes senate. i have been so enormously blessed. i am so prated of all of them. they are talented. they are dedicated to this country. and i have been blessed to work with most of them for many, many years. then i want to say to the floor staff of the united states senate, i come here, as do my colleagues, and we say our piece

and we get involved in the debates and the floor staff does such an unbelievable job. when we're done speaking, we often leave. they're still here. they're the ones that turn out the lights. they refrain from rolling their eyes when i know they want to duri these debates, but, boy, arthey professional. and all of us owe them -- just such a great debt of gratitude. and to my colleagues, i -- i just -- there's nobody in here -- i kind of feel like will rogers, "nobody in here i don't like." a great place with some terrifi colleagues, eecially kent conrad. we've been friends for 40 years. 40 years we've been involved in the politifights and the political battles in north dakota. a great senat. and i said last night at a reception, the best u.s. senator in the united states senate come january. but i -- but i should have said right now, he's an outstanding senator

and makes a great contribution to this country. and congressman pomeroy with whom i have served, the other part of team north dakota, three of us who worked together on campaigns 40 years ago, 35 years ago in north dakota, and then for 18 years became three members of the -- the only three members of north dakota's congressional delegation. it's been a great, great pleasure and it's -- we will continue these friendships but i say thanks to senator conrad especially for the work we've done together. now, you know and it shows that i love politics and i love public service. alwaysave. john f. kennedy used to say tha every mother kind of hopes that their child might grow up to be president as long as they don't have to be active in politics. but, of course, politics is the way we make decisions about america. it's an honorable thing. i've always been enormously proud of being in politics. i've run 12 times in statewide elections since age 26. i've served continuouslyn

statewide elective office since the age of 26. never outside of elective office statewide. a long, long, long time. 40 years. it's been a great gift to me to be able to serve and i -- i'm so forever grateful to the people of north dakota, who have said to me, we want to you us. -- we want you to represent us. and now it's time for me to do some other things that i have long wanted to do and that's why i have chosen not to seek reelection this year. let me be clear to you. i didn't decide not to run for the senate because i'm despondent aut the state of affairs here. it's just not the case. these are difficult and troubling times, however, but i didn't decide not to run and choose to criticize this institution, although there's plenty to be critical of. i just don't want to add to the burdens of this institution. this institution is too important to the future of this country. and i could talk, by the way, for hours about the joys of serving here with individuals. you know, i was thiing about

the late ted kennedy when i was jotting a few notes standing at his desk back in that row over these years. i think- and no one will mind saying this -- i think he's the best legislator i've ever seen in terms of getting things done. but ted kennedy, full of pason passion. and on certain days when he was agitated and full-throated, you could hear him out on the street fighting and shouting for the things he knew were important for america. i think of bob dole, who would saunter on to this floor and he almost seemed to have an antenna that knew exactly what was going on, what the mood service and what he could and couldn't do and how you must compromise at certain times. he had a knack for that unlike any others that i've seen. i think of a strom thurmond who left us i think at age 100. what -- if everybody could know his life story, wha a -- an

unbelievable, courageous story. and one of the things that happened with strom thurmonds i was very involved and have always been involved in organ transplantation, to save people's lives. and i did a press corches a bill i was introduce -- conference on a bill i was doing on organ transplants. and strom thurmond showed up. think he was 90 years old. and he signe an organ donor card. and he said, after he signed the organ donor card at age 90, he said, i don't know if i've got anything anybody wants, but if i'm gone, they're welcome to it. [laughter] and robert c. byrd, who sat where my colleag is sitting now, and they just don make him -- they don't make them like robert c. byrd anymore. i recall one day when another colleague was on the floor and robert c. byrd got very angry about what the other colleague was saying. he felt it was disrespectful and so he rushed up to the chamber and the other colleague had left by that time, and i don't know that he ever understood what happened. but senator byrd, being very angry at what another colleague had said that he felt was

disrespectful to the president, senator byrd was recognized and he said simply this. "i've been here long enough to watch pi pygmes strut like colasses. he said they, like the fly in aesop's fable sitting on the axle of a chariot, observe, my, what dust i do raise." and then he sat down. and i thought, you know, they don't make speakers like that anymore. the senator who left didn't understand what senator byrd had just done, cutting him off at the knees. but i take a treasury of memories. i should mention as well one of my best friends,om daschle, who served here, a wonderful friend and i think a great leader for a long while as well. i just take a treasury of memories from this place. this place, however, has substantial burdens ahead of it. and if we're going to make good decisions, tough decisions and exhibit the courage needed for

the kind of future we want, we're going to have to put some sacrifice on the line here for our country's future. so i want to talk just for a bit about a couple of those issues. while there are always big issues -- and i've always been interested in debating the big issues -- my principal passion has been to support family farmers and small business folks and the people that go to work every morning at a job. the family farmers out there, who live on hope, plant a seed and hope it grows. and they risk everything. the main street business owner that this morning got up and turned the key in the front door and went in and waited because they've got everything in their financial lives on the line, hoping their small business works. and the worker that goes to a job in the morning every day -- every day -- and they're the ones that know seconds. you know, those workers at the bottom of the enomic ladder, they know second shift, she she

secondhand, second mortgage, they know it all. and the question is: who speaks for them? the halls of this chamber aren't crowded with people saying let me spe for those folks. the first book i wrote, the first page, a book called "take this joual of proceedings and shithis job and ship it," the ft page i wrote about franklin delano roosevelt's funeral. and as they lined up in this capitol to file past the casket of the deceased president, a journalist was trying capture the mood of people who were waitinin line. and he walked up t a man, a worker, who was holding his cap in front of him, standing there with tears inis eyes. and the journalist said to this woing man, well, did you know franklin delano roosevelt? and the man said, no, i didn't, but he knew me. and the question is, it seems to me, for every generation in this chamber: who knows american workers and who stands up for the people that go to work every morning in this country?

as i said, there are big, big issues that relate to workers and farmers and business people and others in this country. and let me just mention a couple. you all know and we know for america t succeed, we've got to fix our schools. 30% of the kids going to school aren't graduating in our high schools. that can't continue. we can't have schools that are called dropout factories. we need the best schools in the world with the best teachers in the world if we're going to compete. we need substantial education reform. we also have to get rid of this crushing debt. we know that we can't borrow 40% of everything we spend. we know better than that. all of us know that. we've been on a binge and it's got to change. we can't -- we can't borrow money from china, for example, to give tax cuts to the wealthiest americans. somehow we have to change all of these issues.

it's time for this country to sober up on fiscal policy and leadership from this chamber as well. we need a financial industry -- a financial industry that stops gambling and starts lending, lending especially to those businesses that want to create jobs andant to expand. we need a fair trade policy that stands up for american workers for a change and promotes "made in america" again. we're not going to be a world economic power if we don't have world-class manufacturing capability. and it's dissipati before our eyes. this is all about creating good jobs and expanding opportunities in this country. it's not happening with our current trade policy. it's trading away america's future. and we know better than that. on energy, we've ridden into a box canyon. 60% of the oil we use comes from other countries, some of it from countries to don't like us very much that. holds us hossage and we can't continue -- hostage and we can't continue that. we need to produce here at home of all kinds of energy. we need to conserve month, we need more -- conserve more, we need more energy efficiency, we

need to do all of these things to promote stability and security in this country. and let me just say on one other issue that i've intent a lot of time -- spent a lot of time working on, deals with american indians. they were here first. we're talking about the first americans. they greeted all of us. they now live in third world conditions in much of this country. and we've got to do better, we've got to keep our promises and we've got to honor our treaties. this congress, let me just say -- and i've had the privilege of chairing the indian affairs committee -- this congress, however, as tough as it has been, has done more on indian issues than in the previous 40 years. we passed the indian health care improvement act, the first time in 17 years. we passed the tribal law and order act that i and others helped write which is so very important. we just passed yesterday the special diabetes provisions that are so important to the indians. we put $2.5 billion in the economic recovery act to invest in health care facilities and education and the other things

that are necessary in indian country. we just passed the cobel settlement which deals with the problem that's existed for 150 years in which looting and stealing from indian trust accounts went on routinely. and president obama signed the bill last night at the white house at 5:30. those five things are the most important elements together that have been done in 40 years by a congress dealing with indian issu. but it is not nearly over and we have to keep our promises and honor our trust agreements. so the point is that we face some pretty big challenges, but the fact is, our grandparents and great-grandparents, they faced challenges thatere much more significant as well and they prevailed. the noise of docracy, as you know -- all of us in politics, especially know -- the noise of democracy is unbelievable. it is relentless, incessantly negative and it goes 24/7. and we've got bloviaters onth

out there all over the country trying to make sounds from the chest be important messages from the brain. they take everying from anything from all corners of the country that seems stupid and ugly and way over the line and they hold it up on their program and say, isn't this ugly? sure, it's ugly but it isn't america. it's just some little obscene gesture somewhere in the corner of our country. it's not america. there's this old saying, bad news travels halfway around the world before good news gets its shoes o. that happens all the time. this country is full of good. it's full of good things, good people, and good news. every day people go to work on bud, create and invent and they hope the future will be better than the past. u know, there was a book called "you can't go home again" by thomas wolfe and he said there's a peculiar quality of the american soul, a peculiar quality of the american soul, that they have an almost

indestructible belief, a quenchless hope that things are going to be better, that something's going to turn up, that tomorrow's going to work out. and somehow that has been what has been the hallmark of american aspirations. i want to just finally say this. when i graduated from college with an m.b.a. degreend got my first job in the aerospace indury at a very young age, the first program or project i worked on was called the voyager project. and we were, with martin marietta corporation, building a landing vehicle for mars. that was 40 years ago. that program was discontinued after about four years. but five years ago, the new program resulted in firing two missiles, two rockets from our country, one week apart. we aimed them at mars.

one week aparts, the rockets lifted off with a payload. when they landed 200 million miles later, they landed one week apart on the surface of mars. the payload had a shroud and it opened up, and a dune buggy drove off the shroud. a dune buggy about that big. started driving on the surface of mars. first one did and then a week later, the second arrived and they were named srit and opportunity. five years ago. spirit and opportunity. we drove them on the surface of mars. it was an american vehicle. it was supposed to last for 90 days. we're ill driving those dune buggies on the surface of mars five years later. spirit -- very much like old m men -- got arthritis of the arm and so they say it hangs at kind of a permanent half salute. and spirit also has five wheels

and one wheel broke and so the wheel didn't break off but now it is digging a trench about two inches deep arnd the surface of mars. and the arthritic arm just barely gets back there, and it buries slightly deeper into the surface. and opportunity fell asleep few weeks ago. it takes nine minutes to get a signal to mars. so they sent a signal to a satellite that we have circling mars and had the satellite send a signal to spirit and spirit woke right up. and so it is that two dune-buggy sizessed vehicles are driven on the surface of mars driven by american genius. my point is, first of all, they were aptly named during

challenging times, spirit and opportunity. manufactured to last 90 days and driving on the surface o mars five years later. if american invention and erican initiative can build rockets and dune buggies and drive them on the surface of mars, surely we can fix the things that are important here on planet earth. i'm about to say this isn't rocket science, but i guess it really is. this country, it seems to me, is an unbelievable place. and this is all it seems to me a call to america's future. where we've been and what we've done, all of these things together ought to inspire us that we can do so much more. george bernard shaw once said life is no brief candle to me, it's a splendid torch which i'm able to hold but for a moment. well, this is our moment. is is it.

i have -- i have -- if i might tell you that about 15 years ago i was leading a delation of american congressmen and senators to meet with a group of european members of parliament about our disputes in trade. and about an hour into the meet, the man who led the european delegation slid back in his chair and he leaned across to me and he said, mr. senator, we've been speaking for an hour about how we disagree. but he said, want to tell you something, i think i should -- you should know how i feel about your country. he said, i was a 14-year-old boy on a street corner in paris, france, when the u.s. liberation army marched, and he said an american soldier reaed out his hand and gave that 14-year-old boy an apple as he marched past. he said, i will go to my grave remembering that moment, what it meant to me, what it meant to my family, what it meant to my

country. and i just sort of sat back in my chair thinking, here's this guy telling me about who we are, what we've been, and what we've meant to others. it's pretty unbelievable. but it's nothing compared to where we can go and what we can be as a country if we just do the right thing. this senate has a lot to offer the american people. and i know its best days are ahead. that splendide torch, that momet is here. and i feel unbelievably proud to have been able to have served here with these men and women for so long and i'm going to go on to do other things, but i will alway watch this chamber and those who will continue to work in this chamber and do what's important for this country's future and i'll be one of the cheerleaders that say, yay, good for you. good for you. you know what's important and you've steered america toward a better future.

i thank my colleagues. i yield back the remainder of my time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. conrad:i rise to pay tribute to my colleague, senator byron dorgan. this is his last day voting in the united states senate. he is retiring after serving the people of north dakota in the united states congress, the house and the senate, for 30

years. byron's record of service to north dakota goes even beyond that. another 12 years in state office. so a total of 42 years of serving the people of north dakota. i want to first say that i'm not objective when it comes to byron dorgan because he's my best friend. we have been friends and allies for all of those 42 years. in 1968, i was running a campaign to lower the voting age in north dakota and first met byron dorgan, a young tax commissioner, very young -- in his 20's -- appointed after the previous tax commissioner took his life. and byron had extraordinary responsibility thrust on him at a very young age. the youngest statewide official in our state's history. and byron disposed of those responsibilities with real distinction, becoming recognized

as the most influential state leader, even more influential than the governor of the state, by a major publication in north dakota. mr. president, i met byron dorgan in that year and was so struck by his ability, his charisma and his vision for our state and our nation that i thought this is somebody i want to work with in my career. and we started a friendship that has lasted to this day. in 1970, i was helping run the reelection campaign of senator quin t*eu n burdick -- quintin burdick. my wife and i spent time with he and his wife in the years that followed, became very close friends. in 1974, when i got back from

business school, byron called me and asked me to come to his office, and i did the day after i returned home. and we took a walk around the capitol grounds of the state of north dakota, and he talked to me about what he saw as the future, future of our state, things that were happening in the country that needed to be addressed and how the two of us might, working together, change that future and make a difference. and i agreed that day to be his campaign manager for the house of representatives. in that campaign earl pomeroy, who just ended his service as north dakota's lone congressman, was the driver. i was the campaign manager. byron is always quick to point out it's the only election he ever lost. and he always said that it was the fault of the campaign

manager. i always said it was the fault of the driver. and earl always believed we would have won if only he had been the candidate. mr. president, those were incredible days. i remember so well that campaign, the three of us, we bonded in a way that i think is very rare in politics and served together, and served together in a way that is unusual. there was never the kind of competition that often exists between members, but there was always a deep friendship and a real partnership. and we were allies, fighting for north dakota, fighting to change the country, deeply committed to each other and to our state. after that campaign, byron asked me to be his assistant.

weeks later hired lucy colutti. lucy years later became my wife, so i've always credited byron with bringing us together. we were also kwroeupbd by my college roommate -- joined by my college roommate who became another assistant to tax commissioner byron dorgan, a young man named jim lange, a personal friend of mine, absolute genius, and the four of us worked to build the political party in north dakota and to change the political landscape. those were incredible times. we fought great battles for a coal severance tax in north dakota, for an oil severance tax, things that really helped build a financial base for our state. and in 1980, byron announced he would seek north dakota's lone seat in the house of representatives. i ran to succeed him as tax

commissioner. lucy, who by then was somebody that i had great respect for, was his campaign manager in that race for the house of representatives. and byron was successful and i was successful in a year in which no other democrats were successful in our state. we snen ha then had a period ofx years before the senate race in which byron was in walkers i was in north dakota, and we campaigned together -- byron was in washington, i was in north dakota, and we campaigned together day after day, weekend after weekend, month after month, all across america building a movement, a movement that resulted in my running for the senate in 1986. it was really byron's it un. he could have chosen to run, but

he decided not to, and so i did in a race that many thought was impossible for me to win. i started out more than 30 points behind the incumbent. he had over $1 million in the bank when i got into the race. i think i had $126. but byron dorgan was my ally in that race every step of the way. i think very few others would have done what he did for me. i think very few other members of the house of representatives, having somebody else leapfrog them to come to the senate, would have put themselves on the line as much as byron dorgan did for me in that senate race in 1986. but he was with me in every corner of the state fighting tooth and nail an uphill battle in which, as i said, i started out 38 points behind. but on election day, i won a

very narrow victory winning by about 2,000 votes over an incumbent who had won his previous race with over 70% of the vote and a man who really liked like a united states senator, mark a mark andrews, 6a very powerful speaker. yet i was able to win thrais in a squeaker. never could have without byron's extraordinary assistance and spowmplet ansupport. and so for a period of time, i was in the senate, he was in the house. then in 1992 i announced i would not seek leaks to my seat, because i had made a pledge in that 1968 campaign, and the pledges i made was that i would not run for reelection unless the deficit were dramatically reduced. if you review 1992, you know that the deficit was at a record

level. after the first bush administration, deficits were at record levels, and so i announced i would not seek reelection, in keeping with my pledge. byron dorgan announced for my seat, and there was lucy helping to run byron's campaign for what was my seat in the united states senate. a remarkable time in our lives. and then later this year, senator burdick, the other senator from north dakota, died. the governor called me and said, kent, you've got to run to fill out the two years of his term, otherwise north dakota is going to lose all of its seniority in wul fell swoop, going to lose all of senator burdick's more than 30 years of srnghts going to lose byron's years of seniority in the house, as he's running for your seat in the senate, and we'll lose your six years of seniority if you don't trown fill out the term of senator burdick.

i've always remembered that thee media in north dakota took a poll on whether or not i should run to fill out the two years of senator burdick's term. and even an overwhelming majority of republicans thought i should run. and so the governor told me there would be a special election after the regular elections in november, and he said, look, you've kept your pledge, you didn't run for reelection for your seat. byron is running for election to your seat. you would be in a special election in december, and so i agreed to run. so byron and i were running simultaneous campaigns for the united states senate in 1992, he for my seat in the regular election, me for the special election in december, and once again recrisscrossed north dakota campaigning together -- we crisscrossed north dakota

campaigning together across the state and both of us one big victories in 1992. and from that time forward, byron and i, until today, have served together representing the state of north dakota. best friends. what a remarkable story. i can still remember one of the publications here on the hill -- i can't remember if it was "the hill" or "roll call," when the two senators from mississippi were fighting for majority leader position. it ran a cartoon that said, "why can't the two senators from mississippi be more like the senators from north dakota, friends forever?" and byron and i have been friends forever and will be friends forever. after the 1992 race, we both served north dakota and, unlike so many delegations, we did everything we could to support each other. i can't think of a time there

were ever angry words exchanged between byron dorgan and earl pomeroy and me. it was when many people back hold called "team north dakota." and we have been a team, as close as you could be. during byron's time in the senate, he's been a fierce fighter for policies that benefit advantag average people. also somebody very suspicious of corporate power. he passionately opposed what he thought were misguided trade policies that contributed to jobs moving oversage. he was one -- overseas. he was a handful of senators who warned against the consolidation and the excessive risk that would result from repealing the barriers between commercial and investment banking. he warned at the time in what has become a famous speech that if we passed that legislation,

we would face a financial crisis in the years ahead. that prediction looks prescient today in light of the financial collapse of 2008, and he was a leader in fighting for farm policies to benefit family farmers and family -- ranch families, rather than corporate agriculture. and in the midst of it all, he wrote two books, "take this job and shove it" or "take this job and ship it" and "reckless." mr. president, most important, byron according to hadn't a vision, an energy, and a persistence that has played a huge role in building the prosperity of our state. robert kennedy once said there

are those who look at things the way they are and ask why. i dream of things that never were and ask why not? that's really the way byron approached service to north dakota. he didn't see limits. he saw opportunity. he looked at our university system and technology industries and saw no reason they couldn't be built into the red river valley research corridor that could power the economy of eastern north dakota, and he set about making it happen, and he has succeeded. he looked at our energy industry and saw no reason why north dakota couldn't the energy powerhouse for the nation. through his position on the energy committee and the energy and water subcommittee of appropriations, he helped build north dakota into one of the leading energy-producing states in the nation. and he looked at the growth of

the knowledge industries and the internet and saw no reason north dakota couldn't be wired with the same 21st century telecommunication telecommunicatioinfrastructureae used his position on the commerce committee to get that done as well. the results of his work can be seen in every corner of our state. modern highways and air terminals, new and improved water frarks a booming energy and agricultural economy, high-tech companies springing up everywhere across our state -- the strongest economic growth in the nation, the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. by any measure, north dakota is doing very well. most of that, byron will tell you, is because of the hard work and good judgment of the people of north dakota. but, among them, no one has

worked harder or smarter on behalf of north dakota than senator byron dorgan. mr. president, let me just close by saying, i don't know of a harder-working or more productive person than byron dorgan. he produces extraordinary amounts of high-quality work. he is type-a squared. but he never forgot his roots. byron dorgan grew up in regent, north dakota, a town of 300. he often reminds us he graduated in a class of nine, and he was in the top five. he's proud of that background. he's proud of that heritage. he's proud of our state and proud of our nation, and we're proud of him. i will miss byron dorgan's partnership here every day, but

i know he'll be with us, because byron dorgan will never be far from the fray. mr. president, byron dorgan has served this body well, served the nation well, and served our state extraordinarily >> up next, interviews with pete hoekstra and bill huizenga. then representative james oberstar followed by "washington journal." five candidates have put their names forward to challenge incumbent michael steele as

chairman of the republican national committee. c-span's original documentary on the supreme court has been updated. sunday you'll see "the grand public places" and those only available to the justices and their staff and you'll hear how the staff works from all of the justices including the newest justice, elena kagan. the supreme court, home to america's highest court airing for the first time in high definition sunday at 6:30 p.m. on c-span. >> this year, nine-term representative pete hoekstra decided not to seek re-election and to run for michigan governor. he sat down with us for half an hour. is spending a

half hour with us. he first came to congress in 1992 and back for the lame-duck session. that is it for you. what is that like? >> it is kind of liberating. it is a wonderful job but my wife and i and our family is excited about what the future may bring. >> you thought you had a bid for a public office. what are your future plans? >> we are looking at a number of different options. there are a number o different options out there. we are sorting through what those might be. it stems from perhaps working with a think tank, have stewing some tv and media analysis on that national security issues. those are the kinds of things we are considering right now. >> our goal is to talk about

congress and recorded history with you. let's start with the response about what congress was like when you came here in 1993 versus what it is like today. what has changed? >> a lot of things are the same. i am not sure much has changed. we are coming back two years after i got to congress in 1994. we went through a republican revolution. the first time in 40 years republicans were in the majority. we are in 2010 on the eve of a new republican speaker comg in to office. i am watching these eight freshman republicans coming in to washington. it is like i have been through that. i think a lot of the things i experienced the first time i came to d.c. are not all that

different than what these freshmen are going through. they are being pled from different ways from the two parties to lobbyists and members of congress. my successor i talked to about what he needs to do to get on the committees and lay the foundation for where he wants to be in four years. a lot of that is the same. >> when you look back on the 1994 congress, the first majority in how that transcended over the years, what do you think went wrong as the years progressed? >> what happened is we had a very successful run from 1994 to 2000. we have a democratic president who is more than willing to work with the republican congress.

rolled back taxes and we restrained spending. we had a solid economic growth and balanced the budget. we are getting the kinds of things done we hope the next congress can do with this president. what happened in 2001 was a couple of things. 9/11 changed the fiscal dynamics of the country. the economic impact of 9/11 drove down government revenue and economic activity. it made a difficult econoc environment. i came in 1992 on the premise that smaller is better. that one of my passions was let's return control of education back to states, back

to local school districts. you may remember the crowning achievement of president bush in his first year was the passing of no child left behind, which i could not believe any republican was in for. but it passed through the house of representatives overwhelmingly. and it more than doubled the federal government's role in k- 12 education. we lost sight of what our principles were rather than being aindependent voice in the house. we became more parliamentary saying it is our job to follow the leader of our party. we would have been much better off saying we will stay true to our principles and we have a president who is a different branch of government. he has his agenda and we know who we are. when we agree with the president we will work with the president.

we don't let president bush dictate to much of what the agenda was in 2001. >> harkening back to 1994 with incoming speaker newt gingrich, you are part of the inner circle. i recall his reading list and his desire to open up the congress. a lot of new thinking ideas about how congress would operate. he did not stay in power. as time went on some of the members had ethics issues. tell me what you think happened to that desire for change? >> i think we became too comfortable with being in control. we lost our focus and we ended up with more of a commitment to doing what we thought w necessary to stay in control,

that that became the overriding concern rather than doing and staying focused on what our principles work and our core values. i think if we step closer to our core values we would never have gone through that process of being in the minority for four years. the public said you are no longer with us. when you are a representative if you are not listening to your constituents they had a clear process for saying we want someone else. that is to vote you out of power. >> the incoming leadership team has some newer members. do you think among them there is a sense of lessons learned? >> i think so. john boehner and i worked together on the education committee in 1993. we worked on the contract with america.

in that same period john was elected into leadership and was conference chairman. then he lost that post and regained that post. for him to go through that valley, he understands the concept of lessons learned. we could not have a more experienced person moving into the speakership than what we have with john boehner. he does understand perhaps more than any other republican member of congress what it is like to have had the opportunity to lead and to lose it. it happened to him personally and he h seen it happened to the conference. as h is preparing to lead this new congress in 2011, we will have someone who personally went through that experience and has watched these republican conference be in the minority

elected with the speaker newt gingrich in 1995 lose in 2006. now he will be the speaker in 2011. he will hopefully be able to share his experience through the leadership he will bring to the republican congress and the house of representatives. >> i am guessing you don't agree on any policy issues. give me your thoughts on nancy pelosi's term as speaker. >> i think when she was bigger she had a huge majority and 179 republicans. you had the 60 votes in the senate for the last couple of years. i think the democratic leadership got to be arrogant, they recognize they could push their policies through without republicans. while we did not agree on her

politics, i disagreed on her process. she really cut republicans out of t role of being policymakers. it was all in the hands of hurtt leadership team. they brought that stuff to the floor and did not go through the regular process. kind of like here it is. she fuel a lot of the energy because republicans were saying we have knowle -- no role in policy. the only way we will get a role is to go back in the majority. it is cleared speaker pelosi has no room for conservatives. she not only some ways fuelled the electorate, she also energized republicans. it is the only way we could thought we could get a voice back. >> is that different than the

way the house gop treated the democrats? >> i think so. i am sure they will have examples of where we did some of the same things they did to us. i think for a period of time the process was much more open. john boehner said we will give more authority back to the committee. i think that will be good for the institution and john will carry through. >> what do you think some of the initial tests world -- will be for the neweadership? >> clearly spending. and i am expecting we will get to the new year and will have a continuing resolution through january into february. this new majority will have to finalize spending plans january through september. then we will have -- it will

come down to wt issues they will reform. health care reform, many folks will want to know what will happen. will you repeal it or modify it? they will be interested in taking about -- i will look at education. a lot of these folks have the same values of education i have, which is small government and power -- which means they will have to not only repeal health care but i hope they repealed no child left behind. that will be very difficult. that is the key task of whether we believe in in powering the public and parents. one of the most important things we have this education. that will be a test. we have all the issues with

national security. not only is 2011 a year where we will have a new speaker, we are also approaching the 10th anniversary of 9/11. i am concerned about what al qaeda has planned or what they want to get done as we leave at to the anniversary of 9/11. these men and women will have their hands full. >> 9/11 was a big change in career direction for you. i want to have you shared with me your recollections -- were you in the capital on 9/11? >> i was in my office and was expecting a group of farmers fr michigan to talk about asparagus. i was in my office. i guess i was actually meing with these folks. we got a call from my district

office saying are you watching tv? i am in a meeting. turned it on. i was here on the hill. >> there was awhile when we thought the last plane was bound for the capital. how did the day progressed for you? >> first, we did not talk about this. this anymore. trying to figure out what exactly was happening. i remember looking out my window at one of the streets and it is filled with people. some people evacuate in the capital. then you are out looking over the office building and you see this plume of smoke in this guy. yoknow that is the smoke coming from the pentagon. then a little while later the capitol hill police start coming

through all the corridors and saying evacuate the offices and go home. that is an inconstency for me because for 18 years i have slept in my office. this is my home. this is where i sleep. but they kicked me out as well. i had to find a place to go. it was pretty frightening because no one understood what was happening and who was doing at and what else might happen. >> i am visualizing the defense with all the members of ngress on the steps of the capital city in the national anthem. best -- is that a particular memory for you? >> oh yeah, and i think it was actually "god bless america." sure, itas an experience all

of us will never forget. you are on the steps of the capitol and the speaker was flown out and came back. it is a very emotional time. >> soon after that you had the intelligence committee and started to see thingothers will not have access to. how did your thinking about the world change with that experience? >> we talked a little bit about the white house in 1996. we felt that we had economic security. we were balancing the budget, things were going very well. and we felt that there was this sense of national security. the berlin wall had come down 10 years before that. it is kind of like the threats are diminishing and we can focus -then agenda that -

national security issues are taken care of. we found out the national security issues were taken care of. the threat we face was different than before. even until this day there is uncertainty about how do you confront, contain and defeat this threat from radical jihad tests? >> -- radicaljihadists? >> how did this partnership work between the two of you? >> it is like we were an old married couple. we fought on issues but we always found a way to get the job done. we did intelligence reform together. we did that with senators collins and lieberman. there were four distinct individuals. this is one of the things that is hard to do now with the environment on capitol hill. we deloped our own competence

on the issue. we felt comfortable if i was talking to jane about intelligence i respected her opinion. i knew it was well-reasoned and had a solid foundation. i think she had the same kind of respect for me. we had the confidence on the issues and a respect for our viewpoints on those issues. we have a genuine personal relationship -- we like each other. we traveled together, so we liked each other and were always committed to getting something done. on occasion we would do some of the political things, but underlying it was the french ship and the commitment to get something done -- the french ship to get something

done. we recognize why we were doing it or why we had to do it. but we never let it become the barrier to our friendship or the barrier to getting something done. >> does that happen more than the public knows about or was the situation unique? >> i think many of the people on capitol hill have those kinds of special relationships with members on the opposite side of the aisle. on any major piece of legislation, but the last couple years we have not seen it as much because one party had that dominance. but when you have a president of the other party, then you recognize you have to develop that camaraderie to get something done. if you don't, the other party doesn't have a leverage point. then sometimes those relationships don't get built.

i think it happens more than what people give it credit for. and sometimes members don't want to highlight it. it is about focusing on getting these things done. it takes some time and energy. it is well worth it when it happens. >> with a few years of experience, how do you feel abt the intelligence restructuring? has it worked the way you anticipated? >> it has not worked the way i anticipated it. i expeed a smaller director of national intelligence that would be focused on strategic long- term issues. what do we have to do to develop human intelligence to do technical collection and those types of things? long term policy issues and structuring of the community. too much of the dni has become focused on things that were already being done. it has just become another layer

of bureaucracy. that is what some people want us about as we were putting it together. there is a real need for a dni for long-term strategic thinking, but if you put that in place she will create another layer of bureaucracy. and in certain cases the critics have been correct. it does not mean it is the wrong direction, it means congress has not been forceful enough in guiding the dni to where it needs to be. >> overall, with the agency -- we have seen reports of all of the agency is responsible for national security. we keep seeing reports of agencies squabbling. the kinds of things that at the time you told us you were trying to address. what is the public supposed to take away? >> i think cooperation is better than what it was leading up to 9/11.

there is a lot more information sharing but there is more that needs to be done. this is one of the things we needed a dni to focus on, the collaborative environment. there are some other things that have happened. we have kind of created a four- pronged agency. there is one force coming out of the national security council. then you have the dni. you still have the cia, which is pretty much an independent actor. then y have this new cyber czar. it is kind of like now we are back in the same position. we still have no one overall putting in place a strategy for the intelligence community. i am in favor of having a strong dni, and that is what the intelligence reform bill was

striving to do. we did not put enough clout into the bill to create the dni, so we still have a splintered intelligence organization. sometimes you will g these squabbles and it makes it look like the community inot working together. they recognize they have to and they recognize the threat. there is always more work to do. >> this has become a policy discussion. is there a lesson about congress to take away from that? >> yeah, i think the lesson is -- i have learned this a long time ago. that in congress we think the job is done when we pass a law or pass a bill to become a law. in reaty, that is where the work starts. i have worked for an office furniture company. i put together a marketing plan. when it got approve by senior management it was not like the work is done. it is like i forecasted we will

sell 100,000 units. let's get to work. we now have to sell 100,000. too often in the institution, the benchmark is passing the bill and getting the president to sign it. we have all seen it with the president signing the bill. the members who were instrumental in getting that bill passed. seat, we got it done. and in reality that is where the work starts. too often we stop at the bill signing d go on to something else. we should be focused on here is what this bill is intended to do. let's hold each other accountable to make sure it does what we intended it to do. >> you have a marketing background and when you came to congress that was tapped upon by the leadership in 1994. one thing that has changed enormously is the explosion of media. i guess the two-part question is

what is it like to be a member of congress when every rord -- everything is on record. the flip side is do you think congress is using the tls at its disposal to communicate with the constituen? >> whether congress is effectively using the tools, some are using it very effectively. there are other still trying to figure it out. with the explosion of med and these social media types of things, it basically means you are on 24/7. you cannot let your guard down because you can be at a party or a social gathering and you can make humorous -- make humor out of something and ican be taken out of context. and it can be devastating to the person who said that. it has taken some of the

spontaneity out of us as representatives. you are always on guard for what you may or may not do. you have to be very careful. but i think it is a wonderful explosion of information to the public. i am looking forward to being able to hear about what is going on in congress through the 24/7 media. and be able to understand what is going on and what my colleagues are going through. >> is it a better thing for the institution to have this explosion of watchdog websites and people keeping tabs on how people are voting and that sort of thing? >> having gone through a campaign recently and lt, and seeing how some of my votes were twisted, to kind of like i don't

like it. but it is the reality. i think i am a tremendous believer in the public. that when presented with information bad they are becoming more discerning as to what the immigration is. -- what the information is. and they are holding people accountable. i find it interesting in my race for governor the two of us that did not run negative ads finished first and second. i would have preferred to have finished first but when we were down and i felt good about the campaign we ran. i did not embarrass my supporters. i see you wrote a checked, man did you run a nasty campaign. the people who ran the nasty campaign is finished behind us. >> it certainly was not the experience nationally.

>> but i think as we move michigan may have been the exception to the rule. in this thing, the people who ran did not do well . >> over time, you are thinking changed on term limits. why? >> a couple of things happened. we did not pass it. we tried. we put in place, and it is hard to explain, a process that was better then sell proposed -- self-proposed term limits. we allow people to build up seniority ahe