policy. we'll talk but his recent report on gaps in test scores. "washington journal" is next. >> and live picture of this morning of the capitol hill office of rep gabrielle gifford. we expect more folks to turn out throughout the week. outside the capitol flags continue to fly at half staff and they will continue to be that way by an honor of the shooting victims of arizona. president obama, we will watch him at the white house live here on c-span. we will continue to take your

calls and get your reaction to the shootings. lots being written about the political rhetoric and the security of members of congress, gun issues and the like. we will give you a chance to talk about those and any other issues involving this story. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for independents, 202-628-0205. the lead editorial in "usa today" has this headline.

host: first call this morning, dallas, tx.

caller: it bothers me a little bit that people are focusing simply on political rhetoric as the cause of this shooting. is it not really the cause of the anger -- rhetoric is the problem. people are losing their jobs and their pensions. it seems to me that route causes me to be addressed by the press and congress. host: thank you. maryland, good morning. caller: that man was 22 years old. he was not losing a job, savings or anything. his life was about to begin. the problem is this right-wing fanaticism. jesse kelly, sarah palin, all of this gunsights, it comes to a

head. this 9-year-old child, i wish i had been standing in her place. i would have given my life. that baby was born on september 11, 2001. i was 42 years old that day. this breaks my heart. it has nothing to do with the economy. it is right-wing fanaticism. this hatred towards blacks. i am black. this hatred toward immigrants. we need to stop and take a moment of silence. no more right wing, no more rush limbaugh. no more sarah palin. host: republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. your reaction to these shootings and where things might be going from here? caller: i would hope that they might be going down a more secure level for all of our

government employees in the congress and senate. to have a congresswoman there with limited security is mind- boggling. when you have people running for president, if you are running for president you have security. people will object to you that might want to harm you. people in congress are making decisions. people in the senate are making decisions. host: have you ever been to one of these events? caller: i have not. host: what is your sense about the separation between the member of congress? what do you think? caller: i disagree about that.

you certainly need to have some field officers there prior to the event. that would have prevented the president of security usually takes these loons away. host: we will spend the first 45 minutes taking your calls. we will take live looks outside of the office of rep gabrielle giffords. outside the capitol flags fly at half mast. mentioning security on the hill, "the washington post" rights --

host: more of your calls coming .p over the 45 minute s we have john stanton on the line. he was a house reporter for "roll call." what is your assessment of the security aspect of the story? caller: security for members is always a difficult issue. but there are 535 delegates. the idea that the capitol police

will be able to provide security 24 hours per day for all of them seems on realistic. particularly given the budget right now. there is talk about cutting members personal office spending levels. cutting the overall spending level for the congress. all of that is going to cost a lot of money. the new talks seems to center around making it so that lawmakers in at capitol police soldier on with state and local officials coordinating better. when members have an event back in their district, locals know that they have a presence there. but it really is going to be a big question that -- that the members are going to have to grapple with. host: one of the headlines declares leadership stalling in

the week of tragedy. caller: this is an interesting aspect. the congresswoman was very much beloved by her colleagues. most people had never heard her name. but people on the hill really liked her. she was one of the rare members in the house that tried to avoid the ugly politics that had become a hallmark of what was coming through congress over the last few years. i think that it struck a chord with people that she was the one who was attacked. some of the rhetoric that was used, whether or not he was conservative or liberal, capitalist, socialist, whenever,

the feeling in the capitol community is that at the least the rhetoric that people have used may have contributed to the overall atmosphere that this man was living within an operating within. they are not going to do the health care bill this week. no one at this point wants to fight with each other. host: health care is off the table for this week. what else should we know about? caller: today they will not be in session. tomorrow the house will be in session in a formal manner. wednesday they will come in to discuss the strategy and resolution, discussing the situation in arizona.

members are going to unanimously agree to and will see tribute's all day. host: we read about gun legislation being pursued as early as today. caller: members are certainly starting to introduce bills, limiting campaign ads. there was a famous use of labels i. sarah palin has become the most famous for it. democrats have used it for years. republicans have used it in mailers and fundraisers to pick out their opponent. legislation is being pursued to limit that. i do not know that it will get far.

freedom of speech and all of that. you can expect to see bills like this in the next couple of days. host: thank you for your time this morning. you can take a look at the special editions of "roll call" this morning on their website. the lead edition has a quote from the speaker. host: we are taking your calls and reaction to the shooting this morning. independent line, atlanta. caller: prayers go out to the representative and her family. and all of the other victims. i would like to approach this from two directions. i have called in before about fox news with their rhetoric, hatred, and bigotry.

bill o'reilly talking about muslims being the party -- the problem. glenn beck telling everyone that the liberals are coming and we need to get ready. these people spread hate and bigotry. they do not serve in the military. callot, john bolton, sarah palin, none of them served in the military. on the constitution, there was a man on their a couple of days ago, roger pylon. this man distorted the constitution. they tried to sanitize the constitution. it is a great document, but it has flaws. it was written by a lot of slaveholders. thomas jefferson had slaves until he died. and they tried to sanitize this. also, avgee someone on today to talk about it.

alexander hamilton supported the general welfare. saying that they could use it for whatever they wanted. that was supported by the report on manufacturing from december 5, 1791. these conservatives spread so much hate and it is time to stop them. i support the sheriff. fox is going after him out, trying to tear him down. host: william kristol will be done in half an hour. at 8:30 our guest will touch upon the shootings and related legal issues and give a view of the supreme court's second half of the current term. anthony is on the line. republican line, good morning.

caller: how are you doing? unfortunately we could be talking under better circumstances. i wish to congresswoman the best of luck, along with the other 16 victims. i just hope that we do not overreact, like some callers are doing already. we had a very unpopular politician in the 1970's named wallace. he was shot. blantyre point is that we did not go crazy when president reagan was shot to the point of clamping down on our own people without trusting them. horrible things will happen. this psychopath probably would have done this regardless of if he had a gun or if we had made a lot or if there were 20 cops in the room. he slipped by everyone and ran

in there. it is going to happen. even with metal detectors these psychopaths will find a way. for the first time in my life i have been happy with congress in the handling of this issue. being calmer, in morning, not spreading the hate. the last caller talked about rightwingers spreading hate. bringing up television people that had nothing to do with this tragedy. there is no specifics. you just hear them say that they are hate mongering. host: the front page of "usa today."

host: front page of "the new york times." host: "the wall street journal" says -- host: democratic line, maryland. your reaction? caller: thank you for taking my call. i have been concerned about all of the people that drink that and had thed retea nerve to call themselves the tea party. lness, i hope that sarah

palin and john boehner -- holding a hostage to protect tax breaks for the richest 6200 people in america who do not need those tax breaks, when you lie about the content of the health care bill -- being so disagreeable that you trash the patriotic values of america of which all of us are so proud. talking about free speech and then shoot an innocent person for not agreeing with you? we need to dial down the rhetoric. we need to remember what it means to be an american. it does not mean that we

murdered those that do not agree with us. i think that republicans need to gain a healthy respect for the truth without being willing to trash, like, say anything they think look at them into office. i think that the tea party people need to get sober somewhere and find out what it means to be patriotic americans. host: live coverage of the president's moment of silence for the shooting but them's 11:00 here on c-span. we are waiting to hear more medical briefings from the hospital, as well as anything else the sheriff or law enforcement might be putting out as far as investigation. we are also covering jan brewer, who will give her state of the state address in arizona. a previously scheduled event. we are told that the content of the event will be changing in

light of the shooting. that is at 3:00 here on c-span. fort worth, texas. your reaction? caller: i think that it is sad that that happened. i do. to anyone. i do not think that that person had the right mind. and i do not think that we need to start jumping to conclusions about who is at fault. there is certainly a lot of rhetoric from both sides out there. i do not believe in that. i do not condone it. i certainly do not understand what is really going on in the united states right now. seems to be a great deal of tension between people. there is a lot of information out there. people are getting so much from different places.

you have a person that was probably not have stable to begin with. they couldn't be. you do not have a right to take the life of another. even as the republican i do not believe -- we do need to tone down a bit. we need to settle down a bit and think about what is going on before we jump up and start trying to push through legislation that is not really going to do us any good. i feel greatly distressed about the shooting. it bothers me a great deal to see something like that happen. host: new york, independent line, thank you for waiting. caller: first of all, we can see what is coming when we listen to the media. folks like rush limbaugh talking about democrat bastard's meeting to be wiped out.

sarah palin, the targets and the bull's-eye, we know about that. the journalist this morning talking about democrats handing out fliers with cross hairs on them. i do not get those from democrats. but i do get those from the nra. they are known for pushing republicans. when he talks about the democrats' handing out flyers with cross hairs, i do not remember seeing that. it is dominated by the nra. i am sorry that this happened. this is terrible. if we eliminate exposure representatives of the lucky and alpha talked to them anymore. -- exposure to representatives, we will not be able to talk with

them anymore. host: from "the new york times" this morning -- host: west chester, democratic line, good morning. caller: i think that the people that spew this hate rhetoric, like sarah palin, she is the one who talks about reloading against certain congress people that need to be targeted, they

need to be held to the same standard. the military has but watch out for this american cleric in yemen to assassinate him for his rhetoric. why is sarah palin not being arrested for her rhetoric? she is virtually, literally doing the same thing as that cleric. people are acting on her words. just like that cleric. host: the lead editorial in "the wall street journal" this morning --

host: chicago, james, republican. what do you say this morning? caller: the congress people going overboard, more so than the senators, who do go overboard somewhat, but really

what we need this year, with president obama talking about taking on our enemies, that is a whole other step. a commander in chief spelling of like that. to hear him speak like that was so over the top. how is he supposed to be a person that calls for peace? that is my point. i have heard no one say anything about that. during the primary in arizona they made that statement. host: sandra, independent caller. your thoughts? caller: my prayers go out to the people yesterday. but outside the fact that the young man was mentally ill, the

congresswoman is defending the left and the right. i know that she was a politician, but the point was that she was mentally ill. i do not think that it is because of your political views. it is because of the way that he saw life. i do not think that they will be able to really provide police protection for all of the congressmen or congresswomen because of this event. like the people that went into the post office and shot the people in the post office, you cannot protect all of the post offices because of one person's mental instability.

the suggestion that the young man had the problem. host: the photograph here is from "usa today." gabrielle giffords and john boehner at the ceremonial swearing-in in less week. caller: it is amazing to me that i did not know about the representative through c-span or other news channels. it sounds as if she was a wonderful rep. the problem as a person that loves politics like i do begins in my mind the hard way, at those town halls. when people gathered and began to stand, scream, yell and disrupt. as a political person that follows this stuff by started to

see something that was odd, different and frightening. elderly people going to see their congressman, pushed aside in treated so badly. as much as i have been listening today to people say that it is not political, it certainly is. an abortion doctor was murdered by a crazy man who had political feelings. this happened, as well as several other incidents of hate crime and political belief. i am a strong believer in what i believe in, but not violent. i think the town halls will come to an end. host: you have touched upon the headline, sort of, that walter shapiro wrote about. will congress ever be the same? keep going. caller: right here in my neighborhood, when he was running for senator someone went

through his garbage. right in front of his home and went through his garbage. that is strange and twisted. and frightening for his wife and for him. this is not something that just happens. you will have to excuse me. i have a son in iraq fighting for our rights and our right to speak. right now i am emotionally involved with our freedom. watching them read the constitution on television the way that they were without knowing what it says. carrying it around in your pocket does not mean anything to meet. living it, like senator byrd used to do. host: more headlines, from "of the new york daily news."

host: another editorial this morning, "the washington post."

part of the assessment focuses on guns. host: dennis, republican line. nevada, good morning. caller: another factor involved in this that no one has been talking about, this man, this perpetrator had been using psychotropic street substances. we do not yet know whether he was using prescription medications because i do not think anyone has had the presence of mind that is in a

position to check into it. but one of the nose side effects of psychotropic medications is abnormal thinking. this person is clearly an abnormal thinker. check the web site, ssristoriees.org. host: independent line, some lewis. carol. caller: hello? they destroyed her office. were they crazy as well? but to say that this is political is ridiculous. i know that there is a clip where she says that she believes that things that people say have consequences. i was wondering if c-span could show that. do you remember when they did

general petraeus and everyone had to get on the floor and say how they thought it was awful? i think that they need to get on the floor to say how awful it is that people put targets on politicians. host: to that point, here is an op-ed from "the washington post." they go on to point out things that she said in the past regarding incidents towards her. a couple of other voices in the papers today. from "the new york times" the title of the op-ed piece is "climate of a." -- climate of hatred."

host: jesup, maryland. democratic line. caller: one thing that i wanted to mention that was compelling to me was the little girl that died. my heart goes out to the families of everyone. this little girl was brought into the world. can you imagine having a baby on that day, the way that everyone was feeling? to have her killed by a terrorist? he called himself a terrorist. bill riley wants to spew rhetoric, but this is a wake-up call that terrorists come in all colors and all walks of life.

while this man might have been mentally ill, this does not excuse what he has done. i do think that the rhetoric on both sides needs to be toned down. time to stop this, america. we need to have professionalism with congressman, politicians. both sides have stooped to levels that are so low and we do not know what the impact is on folks that are mentally ill. the best thing to do is to check it and stop doing it before someone else gets hurt. let's use this little girl as an example to remind us that terrorism comes in all colors

and religions. this little girl, it is a shame. host: betty, greensboro, north carolina. caller: i was thinking, you cannot cure the patient with the wrong medicine. trying to make this a political issue is not solving anything. we are a free and open society and to this kind of thing is bound to a happen. this is about mental illness, something that can afflict anyone in america. my brother was a psychiatrist who had many mentally ill people that were released on our streets as a result of outpatient treatments. people that should be contained within facilities. when they contacted the authorities, but were ignored -- ignored.

one man shot himself and his wife as was this little boy. this is just the tip of the iceberg. guns did not kill people. people kill people. and currently the center of the robert byrd center for studies. have we seen this before? caller: every time that happens , it seems like we have to remember it all over again. huey long when kennedy was

running for president as a member of the senate and there is a long history of different kinds of violence amongst members themselves or against them. in the form of bombings at the capitol. and this individual was stopped host: do you think about history or anything else that you would like to announce his starkly in terms of discord?

caller: where we meet elected public officials and are open you cannot protect people completely in the based on what there is a deal with it is out to maintain meeting with people. you cannot protect them completely. this is a free society. the other way to do it is to turn the capital into a

completely secured facility with people not being able to enter. we have attempted compromise. we have increased security around the capital. it is an armed camp. more so than it ever was in the past. in the house chambers, five members were wounded in 1954. there was talk of wall and of the gallery with bulletproof glass. lawmakers thought that being separated from the symbol. security is more secure, but they are still wide open. host: thank you for your insight this morning. st. petersburg, virginia.

bob, your reaction to the arizona shooting? hello? and it not all of them -- this country, fox television, i hope it will like it worse but it probably will. when gasoline hits $5 per gallon, when the people around here cannot for -- cannot afford fuel as is and they can look into their last.

pointing fingers, writing that --

host: this is the last call. hyattsville, maryland. caller: my comment before my quick question -- i did not hear the latter that this young man wrote. what exactly did it say? something about him knowing what he was doing? host: why do you ask? caller: because the republicans are saying that just because he has a mental illness this man does not know what he is doing. this man knew exactly what he was doing. this was a safeway in the middle of the day. this man got in her face and shot her dead on.

with rush limbaugh, glenn beck, this has everything to do with politics. that is my comment. coast of the suspect goes before a federal magistrate today. we will continue to follow the story the day and the president will have a moment of silence later today. we will have that live here on c-span. coming up later, jeff rosen will talk to us about legal aspects of this case. originally we asked him to come on to talk about the founder and editor, william kristol.

plenty of more time for your calls as well. ♪ >> there is a new way to follow congress. the congressional chronicle. find a full video archive of each member. part of the c-span video library. washington, your way. >> middle school students, a school students, time to upload your video the two-hour documentary competition. this year's topic -- washington, ens. through my land

the documentary competition is open to students in grades 6 through 12. for complete details, go to our web site. >> "washington journal" continues. host: at the table, founder and editor of "the weekly standard." >> "washington journal" continues. >> "washington journal" continues. -- william kristol, what is your take away here? guest: this is a terrible thing. i wish her and her family the best, i know her well. host: many have been going after sarah palin and those that speak in certain terms about certain politicians and parts of the country.

what do you think of that dialogue? guest: a disgrace. sarah palin. even if he had been a follower of first, what would that prove? of what if he was a follower of some left-wing politician? the man does not even mention her. the way this is being done is mccarthyism, honestly. on the other hand, it is a reliable and people should be ashamed of themselves. some people are ideologically motivated and even then is not fair to blame conservatism.

in general we tried to tamp down and not use crazy rhetoric. at times these metaphors are used. people use war metaphors for politics. sarah palin is not the only person that ever put a target of a congressional district. everyone has done that. liberals, conservatives. i take the attempts to politicize this and use this as a disgrace and says there is a current state that leads from one to the other. take that a step back. guest: first of all, do we think this would have changed if we have a calmer debate over health care? gabrielle giffords is a moderate

democrat and a defender of the second amendment. vitriolic attacks from the left of conservatives. did they cause this? i do not think so. i think that responsible people should encourage others to use less of the inflammatory rhetoric. those of us who went through the last 10 years and the last attack on george bush, who alleges that -- allegedly consciously lied to get young men and women killed. but this goes both ways. the idea that it began two years ago is ridiculous. host: they ask this question over the weekend -- will congress ever be the same? guest: i think so. this is a terrible thing. virginia tech was a horrible thing.

this is a big in the open society. with a high murder rate and to many disturbed people where terrible things happen. but college and university is going on despite the killings of virginia tech. congress will go on and gabrielle giffords is the first to say that it should. i do not think that they will declare the necessity for a huge apparatus to be in place to protect officials. i think that people are overreacting to this. it is generally a mistake to pick one incident and try to write legislation or predict events days later. a terrible thing that happens and i do not think it will change congress. host: the public mind, good

morning. caller: i wanted to make a couple of quick points to illustrate why people on the right to not trust the mainstream media. first of all, i do not blame politicians for this guy. they are all pointing at sarah palin. president obama said -- they bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun. during the fort hood shootings everyone said not to rush and i do not think that that is what he was thinking of when he used this, and metaphor. i really think that people should not jump to condemn

politicians or activists on either side. i would say that the same is true of movements on the left in america. millions of citizens organizing themselves with very little violence over the last few years. shouting and heckling. movements, are these movements run by an same individuals? they can be. does that mean that the environmental movement is illegitimate? or that anyone who supports the legislation should be scrutinized? and though. should we be careful about our rhetoric? yes.

comparing politics to war? perhaps. this guy was not reading political web sites. caller: good morning. let me take a step back here. something that has happened in this country is -- number one, we have discovered that barack obama is a disaster. he has no idea what leadership is. he likes the flow around. he will not lead. he had an obligation one year ago to come out to protect our country against the charge of racism.

he failed us. he said nothing. he still says nothing. just a risky way of doing things has failed. he had an obligation to come out and take a stand against and the this is in the past. this is a beautiful country. your comment? guest: i did notice that in his weekly address a few weeks ago he commented on other than what

the president said in the past and it is hard to tell and he overdid everything with health care. nancy pelosi, harry reid, they were not controlled very well. leading to electoral repudiation in november. i wish that on the issues that i care about, like afghanistan -- where i support his policies and

he talks more about other issues that i think are important. guest: i think they have said the right things. i happen to be in touch with a couple of republican congressmen and they were very shaken up by this. it is a terrible thing. i think that all americans. i think that most people have that appropriately and will continue to do so.

host: back to the question of the debate, the lead editorial from "the new york times." i think paul krugman is much anger than any other politician. he attacked sarah palin this weekend with no evidence before he knew anything about the shooting. he said on saturday, on their website, it is likely he is a conservative. it was conservative rhetoric that caused this, but of course, that turned out not to be true. that is mccarthyism. we do not have any evidence that

this guy is a communist, but how can you separate him from people that might have liberal point of view with the communist agenda? host: next phone call.: caller caller: if anybody has spread that kind of vitriol, bill kristol is one of them. he brought his sweeper in today to get rid of all of it. he is also accusing the democrats of doing the same thing, but i do not know of any example of that. it is disgusting to have to listen to this guy, and i am a retired naval officer. this is disgusting to listen to this man.

host: well, he has been listening. guest: then turn off the tv. host: fullerton, california. caller: on the shooting in tucson -- it stands not so much from people's belief in the tea party, sarah palin, but what i think it is is the right wing movement being a scapegoat. what is significant about this is it reflects the political and economic instability, and i think the real cause of this divisiveness in our nation, people are feeling they are not in control. we have been fighting a war for 10 years that does the seem to

be resolving itself. i think people feel like government is losing control of the situation. nothing seems to be improving. i know mr. kristol referenced mccarthyism. when people sense their own world is changing, they tend to become hysterical and overreact. pointing the finger at the tea party, sarah palin, screaming racism, is all symptoms of this hysteria. it reminds me of the salem witch trials. host: political economic instability. guest: one of the worst things that could happen out of this would be the further heating of political rhetoric.

certainly, i was on tv yesterday and tried to say inappropriate things. to their credit, the president, speaker brainer, nancy pelosi have set appropriate things. i believe it was the left that job on this thing -- but what if a republican congressman was shot? maybe he was just looking for is local politician and was not motivated by any political thought. lee harvey oswald was a communist. that does not mean people who are socialists, people who are sympathetic to the palestinian cause our responsible for all actions. maybe you could plausibly tie

something together their but here there is no ideology at all. it would be terrible if our political discourse gets further poisoned by talks about this assassination. we can have a reasonable debate about security, policy issues, like gun-control. i would not do it the day after. it would be better to reflect on a sensible legislation, but it is not ridiculous for someone to say, let's look at why he got so many shots off quickly. maybe we should look at the assault weapons ban. that is the kind of reasonable response. but to be demonizing, not just a few americans, but 30 million people who voted on the republican side, or on the democratic side, left-wing democrats, or for that matter,

from the left -- it would be very bad. it would be bad to exploit this tragedy even more by those who have an interest in demonizing, which hunting opponents on either side of the spectrum. host: earlier, you said a that these events will increase the distance between constituents and their congressional representatives. guest: i think we have an open society. there are a lot of things one can do.

the next time a congressperson has a town hall, police may show up with local force. you hate the idea of copycat doing something. there are mass murderers at workplaces, universities, military bases, unfortunately. i don't think we want to become some sort of garrison fate where people are sheltered from each other. host: wilmington, north carolina. kent is on the line. caller: i could not agree more with mr. kristol. i think we are probably from the same peer group. i grew up in the 1960's. my fear is this country has

neglected the mental health of its citizens for so long, these kinds of occurrences come up far too frequently. the fifth rail, to me, politically, is some sort of component of public health care that includes our mental health. the cost of deepen -- keeping people in jail is just a band- aid on the titanic of the generals public mental health -- of the general public mental health. it baffles me that there is no political representation for the ingrained violence that i see in america. i am sure mr. kristol lived

through all of the assassination attempts. every time this stuff clickers, -- occurs, talk is abundant, but any plan for the general mental health of our citizenry is soon forgotten and we wait until the next bend. -- thing. we have to take a step back from what we say publicly. i do not believe our terrorism is nearly as to visit as our public interchanges are right now. host: bill kristol? guest: i am no expert in mental health policy.

there was a debate about 10 years ago about whether or not mental health would be required most insurancein both menta plans. this man was mentally unstable. his community college actually asked him to leave. i do not know if they referred him to a clinic. it is hard to force people to seek help. i guess this guy had not been reported to be a clear threat until he took those terrible actions on saturday. it is hard to know how a better mental health system -- maybe it would have -- but it is not clear from the facts of this case that a different mental

health policy would have made a difference. host: mount airy, maryland. richard. democrat. call, i am a 77-year-old korean war veteran, fairly well- educated, and i think you are being a disingenuous apologist. no democrat could run for office. did not bring up gun control because it is political suicide. no democrat is going to reference guns, talk about killing the other party, and be successful. the republicans, on the other hand, they see the second amendment that way. i am a hunter but i do not need a glock 9 that shoots 30 rounds. it is ridiculous.

there is not one instance where democrats are talking about guns. there was an awful lot of bitter references about arizona, and it is just not true. no democrat is going to use that symbol because it is political suicide within their own political party. guest: both parties have used the cross hairs to target certain districts. the use of the word "targeting" is pretty common. that does not mean that you should go around murdering. honestly, it is not the case. it is also not the case that many democrats are not interested in gun-control laws. carol mccarthy, the democrat

from long island, is about to introduce a bill in the next few days. there are gun control republicans, there are second amendment democrats. gabbie gifford was a pretty strong supporter of gun rights. she may have been supported by the nra. i do not think she was doing this for political reasons. other democrats have differed with her. people are entitled to different views on gun control. it does not mean that they are being insincere. al gore ran with strong gun- control positions, i recall.

host: take us back to arizona, talking about the story. the share spoke over the weekend. -- sheriff spoke over the weekend. the governor will be making her state of the state address today. a previously scheduled event. what is the tone for her to strike today? guest: she will strike the proper tone -- unity, deplore this terrible act, of violence of all kind, extremism of all sorts. i have not been to arizona much in the past few years. i cannot judge how he did the politics are. j.d. hayworth was targeted by

some democratic opponents, advertisements targeting him as a vulnerable republican, and he lost. there is not much evidence i know of that murder had anything to do with this debate. i do not even know what his views are. having this conversation shows how ridiculous it is. there are ideological assassins. even in those cases, it is often illegitimate to plan an entire point of view because one fringe guy takes -- uses of violence when he should not. nut.ust seems to be a knoc

host: burke, virginia. caller: it is surprising that mr. kristol is all this sudden ambivalent about gun-control. guest: that is not true. i have always been ambivalent about gun-control. not every conservative agrees on every issue and not every liberal. go ahead, i am sorry. caller: i would have a disagreement with that, but this is turning into a witch hunt with guns. this has been bothered me for a long time. whenever i hear democrats claiming a martial language in the political arena, i find them just as guilty. i would like to point out something that no one has brought up. there was a movie called "the

assassination of george bush." as far as i'm concerned, it is an attempt to incite such an act. when i looked for it this morning, it is missing from the internet database but i did find a story about it. i do not recall any of the liberal politicians saying what a horrible thing it was to release a movie called "the assassination of george bush." web sites would use the word bushhitler as a single word all the time. we do not need to be on the defensive here. guest: i do not think anybody should be calling for the assassination of politicians or calling an american hitler.

i agree. there has been individual efforts to take advantage of this terrible tragedy and somehow discredit conservatives or the tea party. that is why i began this morning by saying it was somewhat outrageous, mccarthyism. "the weekly standard" is not going around demonizing people over this. we take a look at mental health policies, gun policies, something that is sensible. have a policy debate. the attempt to exploit tragedy is really troubling. people talk about political rhetoric.

i would rather focus on this. host: naples, florida. jean. caller: nobody knows if this was political. anyone who commits mass murder has a mental problem but mr. kristol seems to be backpedaling now. i have never seen such hate since president obama was elected from beck, hannity, limbaugh, and when you to pick up their guns and fight, the sort of thing is bound to happen. there are so many wonderful republicans and democrats. it is time for them to do what mr. kristol said and turn off the television. stop giving people like him ratings. stop giving them money. we do not need legislation to come down the rhetoric. we just need the american people to say we have different

views. that is what makes this country a great country. a great country. guest: that is what most politicians say. it is not fair to say that this has nothing to do with sarah palin or michelle bachman. the fact that they could somehow be responsible for this is unfair. i just criticized michelle bachman about 10 days ago for not raising the debt ceiling. she is involved in political debate. she is not inciting people to violence. host: we have about 10 minutes left with our guest bill kristol who was booked before the shooting over the weekend. "the weekly standard" -- happy

days. you write about the debt. you are writing about the but they are going to take on the debt ceiling? guest: we are looking at the new republican majority, looking at how we can get government under control without doing things that we think would be substantively or politically foolish. this debt has been accumulated over a long time. i do not think using the debt ceiling is a good way to go about this. when they pass the debt ceiling increase, that is fine, but it should not be held hostage to legislation.

host: what do you make of promises about open government, open process in the house? the gop is going to put this on the floor without any amendments, votes to repeal. what do you think? guest: i have been a strong supporter of appeal and we should have an up or down vote. there will be time to debate every aspect of health care. republicans will move to show what they might replaced obamacare with with a couple pieces of legislation, and there will be time to debate and offer amendments. i think the republicans are move for repeal. i think obamacare was a terrible mistake.

host: that was going to happen on wednesday, but they have adjusted the schedule. the couple of things, before we wrap up with phone calls. a shake-up of staff at the white house. what do you make of the changes that are happening? guest: bill bailey is a good choice. he is a moderate democrat. we will see if he can really influence president obama's policies. he is a strong leader internally and he chooses the policies he wants to pursue. i think the tax deal will help the economy over the next few years, if we can get spending restraint. then the question is the regulatory burden. agencies have been out of control. particularly, in the bush administration. bill daley knows a lot about the

private sector. at the moment, private businesses are nervous about using capital. there is capital on the sidelines. one reason is because there are decisions that need to be made in government. host: back to your party, the rnc. you vote for a new chairman this week. what do you think about michael steele, and who gets your vote this weekend? guest: i do not get a vote this weekend. i did not think michael steele was a particularly good leader. he said some pretty foolish things.

i know slightly the people who are running. i think the two candidates are ryan priebus. who was formerly general counsel. i know there is a michigan committee man who is also looking at this. he is a good man. i know him the best. if i was a member, i would vote for him, but i do not get a vote. host: last call for bill kristol. middlebury, connecticut. going: gun-control ain't to go nowhere because anybody can get a gun. if i want a gun, i can build one in my basement. you just talked about oil companies. aren't they one of the biggest

industries we have? but we only have so much oil in the ground. if we suck up all of that oil from the ground today, what happens in 10 years when china needs more oil? going baby, and drildrill ain't to work. natural-gas has a lot of potential but we are dropping so much chemical into the ground. well, what happened when i cannot even drink water out of my spigot any more? guest: i am no expert on the details of energy policy. there are huge natural-gas finds in pennsylvania, which are promising, and would help to improve our energy problem.

i am actually optimistic about that. we have oil, coal, natural gas, solar, wind -- you are right. we need lots of different kinds of energy to keep this going. and we need jobs. host: next phone call. texas. republican caller. caller: i am afraid we are missing the focus on this shooting. this guy was hoping to kill someone and he was arrested for drugs. how was he able to buy a gun? it reminds me of this virginia tech situation where this guy underwent some mental detainment but was still able to buy a gun. the focus should be on making sure our legal systems are

functioning to the extent we are able to bar people who are unstable from getting a gun. guest: i think that is a reasonable public policy question. it occurred to me, too. we do not know how he got this done legally. there should be things that gun sellers are supposed to look at. some of this reporting is second-hand but he seemed to have been a regular drug and alcohol abuser, a young man in high school. why were illegal drugs so readily available in his high school, but affected that have on his mental state? host: "the wall street journal" control ut guestthe gun

situation -- birmingham, alabama. c.j., independent. you are on with mr kristol. caller: i am concerned about what we are teaching to our young people. it seems we teach young kids to deal with difficult matters in different ways. people get very defensive when they are on the wrong side. there is a thing called responsible media.

if you take any media culture class, it shows you we can have civil discussions but we have to start from the foundation of an even scale. the inconsistencies about knowledge, like death panels when you are talking about health care. when you do not call out your own group as well as the others , then we all have a responsibility to make sure that we do our part. we can point out problems of the other guy but we need to be true to our own as well. guest: we need to be judged by what we say and write. i am happy to be judged and for criticized by what i write in

"the weekly standard." i have said alicia things and you are right, personal responsibility is a key component of a civilized society. it is also important not to blame people who are vaguely not on their side. we have tried to criticize extremism on both sides when appropriate but we do not spend 40 pages every week calling out responsible things by everyone said on tv or in print. the left does not have to do that either. to say. one last point, because there is so much focus on this killer. he is not representative of american young people. thank god there are relatively

few murders like this in america. i really think we should not generalize too much from one terrible event. . we have incredibly vigors discourse. -- we have incredibly big tourist discourse. -- vigorous discourse. 99% of the debate has been healthy and appropriate. millions of citizens had participated in the political system. we should not be demonizing our society because of this individual.

host: bill kristol. thank you for coming on. later in the program we look at education policy and the 100th of congress. jack jennings will be with us. after the break, we will speak to jeffrey rosen of george washington university. we will talk about the shootings in arizona and also look at the return of supreme court. >> "politico" reports several lawmakers are already changing their security arrangements. the republican from utah and heath shuler of north carolina say they will now be carrying their guns in home districts for protection. both hold a conceal and carry permit, but will not carry in the district of columbia. also reporting that democrat carolyn mccarthy of new york plans to introduce legislation banning the high capacity

ammunition that the gunmen used on saturday. house speaker john maynard led a conference call yesterday with more than 800 lawmakers, spouses, and eight, saying the shooting could serve as an impetus for congress to lock arms in unity. he announced the capitol hill security leaders would provide a security overview this week. he said, we must rise on the occasion for our nation and show congress at its best. those are some of the latest headlines. >> thank you, mr. president, vice-president. you have honored me and my

family by giving me an opportunity to serve the nation. >> you can use the c-span video library to learn more about the newest additions to the obama administration. just two of the 100,000 people you can search and watched online at our video library. it is washington doorway. >> middle and high school students, it is time to upload your videos to the c-span studentcam documentary competition. send your video in by january 24 a chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. there is $55,000 available in total prizes. the competition is open to students' grades 6 through 12th.

host: jeffrey rosen is here, a professor of law at the george washington university. as the look at the shootings, what is the most important legal issue you are looking at? guest: there are so many. it raises a number of legal and constitutional issues. it brings up the question of whether hate speech was responsible. it was interesting to see at a polarizing speech on the internet, director moeller is also looking at that. i think it is a corporate to look at that, to figure out the motives of the shootings. it would not be a corporate to suggest legally the shooter could be prosecuted or because of inflammatory speech. there is a strong tradition in america of punishing speech only with imminent lawless action.

for example, assassination how- to manuals have been prosecuted under the second amendment, but other than that, which can only say that it is deplorable. host: we are already hearing a lot about gun rights, legislation being proposed today. guest: of course, arizona and has one of the most generous gun laws in the country. they allow concealed weapon to be cared without a permit and they also allow you to carry a weapon to bars. i do not think there are constitutional restraints to what is suggested in the wake of the tragedies. the supreme court has said the second amendment right to bear arms is an individual right and therefore has to be strongly respected. but both cases involve pounds of gun ownership inside homes.

the arizona regime is much more generous, certainly congressional efforts to regulate guns would not raise constitutional difficulties. the basic thought is the supreme court does not seem to be inclined to pick only but the most restrictive gun laws. host: the supreme court is returning for its second session. the phone numbers are on the bottom of the screen for our guest, jeffrey rosen, a professor of law at george washington university. twitter.com/cspanwj caller: democrats, 202-737-0002. republicans, 202-737-0001. independents, 202-628-0205. we booked you before the shooting here, but a couple of questions come to mind.

the mental state of the perpetrator, how the courts treat people with mental illness. what is your take on that aspect? guest: the standards for in sanity are extremely high. you have to be able to not appreciate the difference between right and wrong. it is impossible to say from these early reports, but nothing we have seen so far suggests an easy case for insanity. this young man had paranoid fantasies, was concerned the government was trying to control his speech, he was interested in the gold standard, but these are all standard tropes of the extremist rhetoric on both sides of the spectrum. his public defender, who represented both zacarias and sally and the oklahoma city bomber, is comfortable with

highly charged defendants. host: before we get to college, go back to the supreme court. what are the top cases we are looking at in the early weeks? guest: of course, the supreme court is recess in early in order to express condolences. there are a series of interesting cases. there will be a case involving the establishment clause, religious freedom, a case involving john ashcroft. the most interesting cases have been argued and will be decided soon. there was one recently that is relevant to our current debate involving arizona's immigration law. this was something that

representative gifford and the sheriff had heavily criticized. state law has been considered a clash with federal law because it allows arizona to choose which immigrants not to fire, and puts them in charge of immigration laws. it seemed like it could have been a 4-4 split during oral arguments on the basis that arizona needed to enforce this because the fed's had not been doing the job on their own. if it is tied, it would uphold the lower court in would be a victory for arizona. host: let's get to our phone

calls. richard. you are on the air. caller: is the second amendment really -- what is the word? all of a sudden i am going blank. is the second amendment really an anachronism? at the time it was written, it was meant to be a defense against an overwhelming government who was coming with rifles, artillery, bayonets, of course. now, the government is armed with nuclear weapons and things that are unimaginable. should we then have things that would protect us from our forbearers government? if not, should the allowance of gun possession be thrown out?

guest: it is a great question. at the core of the supreme court decision, identifying this individual right is it an historical dispute. should this amendment be seen as meant to protect militias and anything that related was not protected, or was the founders' concern protecting against an overwhelming government? five conservative justices said it was a broad, individual rights and should not be limited to militias. what you bring up is how hard it is to translate any constitutional amendment into an age with new institutions. the framers could not have imagined the scope of weapons available. there is so much more of a monopoly on weapons than the has today than the colonial governments were.

either you have to shore up the individual right to bear arms in order to counteract new technology, or by contrast, now that the fed's have so much power, it is inappropriate to try to counter them with arms and you should basically limit this to self-defense and militias. the constitution does not clearly tell us one way or another. it just provides a framework for discussing these issues. host: peter is from tucson. good morning. caller: [inaudible] i have no idea why he came out and said what he said yesterday.

also what he was saying, part of there are laws for fully automatic weapons and things like that but your ordinary citizen need special permits. as far as your right to carry arms, there are all sorts of laws. host: the caller touches on the first and second amendment. guest: it is important to remember that representative gifford is a strong supporter of second amendment rights and would not support the sorts of laws that you are talking about, which would restrict gun rights

entirely. was the sheriff wrong to suggest that this was a speech that could of been responsible for the assassination? there is an interesting column in the "the new york times" which reminds us that many of the tragic political assassinations in the past decade have not had a clear political connections. lee harvey oswald, although there was a lot of john birch creek in the air, he was more of a supporter of castro. we do not know the motives of the speaker, but there seems to be a connection between his political views and this assassination. if that is right, the caller would be correct to suggest that

this was politically motivated in any way. and we are not like pakistan. in a country like pakistan, you have political leaders who are assassinated because of their opposition to the merging of church and state, and that was supported by the army. this was a lone madman, for all that we can account. let's hope there is no closer connection to hate speech. host: santo from east point, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. everything everyone is talking about actually contributes to this. he had mental problems and drug problems, but he also has a youtube video where he talks about conspiracy theories, mind control. he was an outsider.

one girl who had made friends with him said that he had met the congresswoman in chicago in 2007 and asked her a question. he said, what she said to me did not make sense. with all the hate rhetoric, mental and bonus, the sloppy gun laws in arizona -- outside of detroit, that would never happen. i think a lot of us have contributed to it and we need to come together, no matter what the circumstances. we need to do something. guest: it is an eloquent plea for us to come together. it is heartening that members of both parties in the early condemned this in strongest terms. senators including john mccain made clear how wrong this was. the house decided to postpone

some of its controversial political moves such as the effort to repeal health care. i would not make this a legal point to say that hate speech made him do it, but from a cultural point, it is a reminder that words have consequences. our poll rising political culture can lead to terrible clashes and is an opportunity to come together. host: you mentioned the high court would be taking a break. how long will that last? guest: i think just today. host: taking a step back, looking at what has happened since october, how has the year been? guest: of course, we have two new justices. watching their different styles has been fascinating. justice sotomayor has been very

active in her questioning. most recently, they filed separate decisions about capital defense, insisting the court review capital cases, which puts them at odds with justice alito. justice keychain has not been sitting on many cases because of her involvement. on those that she has been, she has gone to the heart of the legal issues, defining it in its clearest terms. i love seeing her do that. i also love the fact that we have some number of justices. there was a case about california's effort to ban violent video games. justice scalia and alito were arguing about what james madison may have thought about violent video games. justice kagan chimed in talking

about her own experience with british games. i think that is important. host: you touched on a case about john ashcroft. guest: it is a technical case that i will not try to resurrect but it puts the obama administration on the side of defending john ashcroft. stafford,s hear from virginia. glenda. good morning. caller: there has been a lot of assassination before arizona. there was no tea party, no sarah palin. what i want to talk about is the sheriff, he is on cable tv and he said on national news that they are prejudice and bigot. i am sure president obama was

glad to hear him say that. when the governor was trying to get the deputy to ask for ids of people who are suspicious, there is a lawsuit against them, about civil rights and all of that. democrats and republicans should call the white house and demand that sheriff turn his bed in. where i am from, he would have had to. -- badge in. guest: that statement did provoke a lot of criticism and support in both directions. he mentioned something about the tea party. i think it is so heartening. it is clear this man was not a member of the tea party and nothing in tea party rhetoric could be associated with this violence. they have a strong

constitutional vision. it really has to do with democratic political change. they want to elect representatives who will abide by the constitution. they are also filing lawsuits arguing against things like health care and financial regulation reform are unconstitutional. whether or not you agree with them is up to you. we can distinguish that kind of rhetoric with this kind of violence. the debate on whether or not the sheriff should have blamed bigotry or not is a legitimate one, but i am glad to see it is not having any legal consequences. i am so hardened that there is no suggestion that actual tea party members would be responsible for this kind of tragedy. guest: our guest has worked at

harvard, yale, currently a professor of law at gw university. his most recent book is "the supreme court, rivalries that shaped america." our next caller is from chula vista, california. caller: good morning. i am a moderate republican. this woman was a moderate democrat. i like to talk about hate speech. it really boils down to an attitude that someone has four other people. -- for other people. i see this coming up with the t party and the ideas that they disagree with, vilifying those ideas and making them responsible for an act that they would never condone, never encourage, would be totally

opposed to. such people are verging on hate speech themselves because they are vilifying the people instead of having a reasonable discussion about the idea. guest: i think that is well said, not engaging in hominem attacks. it is heartening that the congresswoman herself had so many people who respected her across the aisle. just look at how this tragedy -- how unpolitically targeted it was. one of the judges that was shot was loved by both sides for his bipartisan fairness and decency.

you are right, this was not random violence, in the sense that representative gifford was targeted, but they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. it is important not to suggest that political rhetoric was responsible for this. host: in your legal mind, take us deeper into the idea of security for federal judges. we talked about members of congress. how well our federal judges secured, are they secured when they travel? can you explain that for us? guest: the supreme court is protected by the federal marshal service. when a supreme court justice goes out, they will be accompanied by one or two marshals, driver, security persons who will be with them at all times. most federal judges do not have

that kind of security. this judge just walked up to the shopping mall and was waiting in line like every other citizen because he respected representative gifford and wanted to thank her on behalf of the judiciary. unless you are in the middle of a trial, most judges do not. host: these judges have received numerous threats. we have read them all weekend. do you see things changing? guest: i do not know if we are going to rethink security for judges. it is true, these attacks in america against the judges are rare. there was one a few years ago, but thankfully in america, our culture does not target judges for assassination in the way that absolutist governments in other places do. there are a lot of federal judges.

the idea that each one should have security at all times is unrealistic, but there will be a debate as to whether or not it is appropriate for them to be completely unprotected. host: next phone call for jeffrey rosen. you are on the air. caller: i have two questions and a comment. my first question -- and this is nothing personal, just to get it out. jeffrey rosen, are you jewish? guest: i am, what does that matter? caller: i am not against them -- host: why do you bring it up? caller: in my opinion, europe, russia, the entire world is

concerned about the occupation of palestine with israeli jews. host: i am not sure where he is going with that. let's go to market in new hampshire. caller: good morning. i apologize for my fellow american on the phone. i am 42 years old, white, three small children, and i work six days a week and i am losing everything. we look at our colleges, our judges, our government. we spent eight years with code pink, the war, and now that obama is president, the media discusses none of it as far as they did with president bush. i think our colleges -- you look at them and say they are conservative or liberal.

the same thing with judges. guest: it is dismaying. this was par for the course. he never mentioned the liberal justice or conservative justice. nowadays, it is considered par for the course. we have lost something in the country without the sense of common purpose. the internet may have something to do with it. maybe it is in moments like this when both parties can come together and realize how dangerous it is to forget that words have consequences and to have some kind of coming together. this is a free country. people can say hateful things. the previous caller, i guess you

could call that hate speech. people should be able to present hateful views. listee -- relished their raucous of political debate. thank you for your reminder of the importance of bipartisanship. host: we have a republican on the line from maryland. caller: i have a question and a comment. my comment would be, i know a lot of times an event happens and the first amendment and the second amendment always seem to get thrown out there like that is the reason. the first amendment is not a reason -- people should -- people should not shoot up a crowd of people. a crowd of people will knock it shot up if people have their

first and second amendment rights. i don't understand how the second amendment -- if anybody should have guns or guns chicken band -- four guns should get ned -- guest: this was the question at the center of the violent video games argument that the supreme court heard late last year. the question was, does crazy kids moreames make likely to commit violence. legally, our supreme court has agreed with you. unless you can prove watching the video is going to immediately make you go out and commit a violent act, you cannot ban the speech.

it is a safety valve that makes people less likely to commit violence. i do not believe we should assume for his a direct connection. host: missing, david, a democrat. good morning. -- michigan. caller: i have a comment about the news stations like the left new stations and the writers new stations. they both have such different viewpoints -- and th. people take these viewpoints to heart. there are news junkies. these politicians have these averages viewpoints, too. people do taken to heart. i remember when news was news, not an hour show of some of

these viewpoints. it is out of hand on both sides. i pride might -- i find myself watching this stuff and i have to turn it off and watch something else so i concur my head. thank you. guest: the first consequence of your observation is, thank you for c-span. it makes platforms like this all the more precious in our democracy. it is a reality. everybody who watches this network knows it. people watch polarizing views and are more likely to have their own views becoming more extreme. juries that deliberate in like- minded groups will become more extreme after deliberations. if you spend all your time in a bubble just watching a liberal

station or a conservative station, your views will become more extreme. it makes the rhetoric more extreme. you cannot force people to watch c-span, although justice scalia has unleashed a suggestion. he said he opposes cameras in the courtroom. he thinks people would watch only snippets. if you have a federal marshal in every home that would force people to watch from beginning to end, he would be for it because then they would understand the entire argument. there could be some first amendment difficulties. host: not to mention how the gets paid for. -- men's and justice scalia you mentioned some justice scalia. what is it constitutional original the iism? guest: what an interesting

topic. constitutional or regionalism is the belief that it should be interpreted in light of the original understanding of its framers and ratify hours. justice scalia has been suggesting the universe might have to change if original was were resurrected. there would be no death penalty restrictions. you could -- no restrictions on banning abortions. he said the framers of the 14th amendment did not think it protected sex discrimination or sexual orientation. the court was wrong to ban both of those things. this article try to pass, what else would have to change? justice scalia said there are some things he would not resurrect. was approved, and

justice scalia said he did not want to bring back flogging. justice clarence thomas is willing to go further than scalia. both scalia and thomas believe the first amendment did not agree to have a complete wall of separation between church and state. he did not want a ban between the established churches. this would allow unregulated religious expression. scalia said, i am not willing to have these decisions applying the decision to the state. i am not a nut. he said thomas was a little crazier than i am. thomas will overturn any decision he thinks is wrong and judge scalia would not do that.

that article basically said that conservative originalists -- many liberals said if you took history series a, many of these cases would point to progressive rather than conservative results. there could be protection for bans on sex discrimination. i think our discussion this morning confirms issues like gun rights to sex discrimination. there are strong arguments on both sides. it begins the debate, but does not ended -- it does not ended. let's get to a couple of calls. lynchburg, virginia. independent. caller: it is sad that when tragedies happen, we start to

judge sentenced a's gun laws -- laws.n state's gun i personally grew up and new york where gun restrictions were more restrictive than they are here in virginia. i just think we need to start blaming the people who are responsible for the shootings instead of certain laws. host: thank you. barry is on the line, a republican. caller: i wanted to talk about one. point. it is one of those interesting topics that makes me -- or the suspect talks about mind control. it kind of makes you wonder with all the technology they have

these days. a kind of makes you wonder if they are doing it. you had pink floyd in the 1960's. the kind of makes you wonder -- maybe there should be mined patrolling. you never know what kind of people are out there -- maybe there should be mined patrolling. are they putting thoughts in people's minds and making them do things? guest: in response to the first call, arizona allows for weapons in bars, which is unusual. i did not suggest that law was responsible for this shooting. it is unlikely to be unregulated, an individual's right to bear arms. it would not apply to a permissive laws like arizona.

mind control, there is another interesting note in "the new york times." it is similar to a position someone describes himself as a judge and has the website talking about how the government is trying to control the schools. the schools determine the language and grammar and this is a form of mind control. host: 1 viewer tweaets -- where most markets before the public good? guest: states cannot past economic legislation unless they affect the public good and not individuals. those court abandoned after the

progressive-career decisions which have the court striking down a minimum wage laws on the grounds they did not affect the public good. that is an interesting claim that conservatives favor the market. the supreme court tossed business decision -- the supreme court's business decisions. 80% of the business decisions are unanimous or nearly so. these are not polarize liberal conservative 5-4 decisions. liberals shared a suspicion of regulation by litigation and tend to favor more business in just rather than economic populist views. maybe that is right. it is not a conservative court. host: we're reading that health care law might be winding up in the supreme court. guest: the great constitutional case of our day.

will the supreme court strike down health care? justice thomas has embraced the view that is so narrow that it might strike down health care as a form of economic inactivity rather than activity that cannot be regulated by congress. none of the other conservative justices have embraced thomas' view. when you think about the conservative justices, you can identify three different strands of conservatism. thomas v. tea party conservatism. -- thomas v. tea party conservatism. then there is judge alito and judge roberts, the pro-business conservatives who tend to side with the -- i do not think they are anti-health care.

figuring out where they will come down and whether judge scalia will come down is difficult. all the cross currents of conservative legal thought may needs in this case and it makes it hard to predict. host: lexington, kentucky. napoleon. caller: hello. i wanted to say thanks for c- span. what i would like to say is a light to offer my condolences to the people hurt in arizona. this has been building up to this thing for a while. i remember back when the president's first got elected. some of the -- in washington, there were memos from the tea party in bringing guns to the

rally. i was wondering, why or how could we even think of -- why would anyone think of bringing a gun to a rally if they have a grievance with the government? guest: bringing guns to a rally -- i gather it is legal in arizona to carry concealed weapons. this giant bought his weapon legally. if congress -- this gentleman his weapont legally. it restricts the places that they can be used. host: built on the independent line. -- bill. caller: automatic weapons are

designed to kill people. there is no other purpose. for hunting, it is ridiculous. their sole purpose is for killing people. my next comment -- sarah palin, when she targeted the people with cross hairs that were running for congress based on their voting for obama's healthcare and her comments about reloading. do you think these are appropriate comments? guest: on automatic weapons, it is not clear that the supreme court decision would prevent bans on especially built assault weapons. the constitution does not distinguish between sporting and killing people. the court seems to recognize that the dangers kinds of weapons without legitimate

purposes may be able to be regulated. as for sarah palin, there is a note in a column that republicans have come up with examples where these cross hairs have been used. sarah palin said they were surveyor marks. any attempts to blame sarah palin for this is inappropriate. people on both sides will think twice before using inflammatory signals when it comes to political debate. host: robert, republican. caller: good morning. it is a terrible tragedy. i was a police officer. this incident, i think -- and you could probably give some history. i think the aclu back in 1980 -- there were held too long and

all that. if this young man has what appears to be a mental illness, do you think the court might open up the hearing and cases, may be a process to do good would be good for a small percentage of people. guest: it is a series of complicated policy issues that the caller raises. it is true that some of the the -- it wasonal ways t precipitated by lawsuits. whether it was a good policy is strongly debated. this gentleman does not fit into those decisions. despite his troubling behavior, he was not institutionalized. it was not like he was prevented from getting help because of any legal decisions. it is true that the policy

debates that could be triggered by this tragedy might be a corporate grounds for institutionalized people. host: connie. caller: mr. rosen, i wanted to ask your opinion on something. when the second amendment was written, we work a small country. the gun was to protect your property and your home. and i'm from west virginia. when i grew up, i learned to hunt and use a gun. i worked in security. i used a gun. not everybody should carry a gun. hot-headed people, people with mental problems should not. our country -- we have over 309 million people living. if you live in an area like the city where people live on top of each other, and they are able to

get a gun easily, i think it should be different laws that make it a little harder. host: thank you. final thought. guest: i think is a good point. president obama has said the right to bear arms is an individual right. it does not mean that you cannot have all kinds of sensible policy restrictions and that you cannot ban that you cannot restrict it from the mentally ill from hot-headed people and all kinds of people that the caller suggests. maybe the supreme court can recognize that the ultimate gun regulation in this country will have to come from the political branches and not from the courts and to use this tragedy to be deferential as congress struggles to come up with a response. host: we have been speaking with jeffrey rosen.

guest: it has been a pleasure. host: we have about 40 minutes left. we will talk about educational policy in just a couple of minutes. we have some more news from c- span radio. >> the sheriff in arizona earlier said his earlier comments, leaning political discourse for the shooting in arizona, were the results of this anger about the shooting, not in the agenda. he also commented on 22-year- old jared loughner, tried to assassinate gabrielle giffords, saying the man is not cooperating with investigators. he has not said one word. hillary clinton is a commenting on the shooting in arizona. while addressing students, the secretary called the shooter who

attacked congresswoman giffords an extremist and said people worldwide should reject radical ideologies. career parks came response to a question about the september 11, 2001, attacks carried out by al qaeda. cnn said that robert brady plans to introduce legislation that would make a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or a member of congress. he said the president is a federal official. you cannot do it to him. you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator, or a federal judge. and those are some of the headlines on c-span radio. >> thank you. you have honored me and my family by giving me an opportunity to serve you and to

serve our nation. >> you can use the c-span video library to learn more about the newest additions to the obama administration, just two of the people you can search and watch any time online, at our c-span video library. it is washington, your way. >> the c-span and networks. it is all available to you on television, radio, online, and on social media networking sites. we take c-span on the road with our digital bus and local content video. it is washington your way. now available in more than 100 million homes. greeted by cable -- created by cable. continues. journal:"

host: our next guest is jack jennings from the center of education policy. define the achievement gap. guest: it has been a national objective for the last decade or so to try to close the achievement gap. some progress has been made. the gap is still very substantial between the different groups, especially african-americans and latinos. we have to spend more time trying to raise the scores of those kids. host: we have the details of the study. one of your findings is that it could take decades to close some of these gaps. guest: test scores are going up in the country.

with the achievement gap, he still have the management gap if the scores on the bottom are not going up as fast as those scores at the top. this course at the bottom are not going up fast enough in order to close the gap. we have to direct more attention to try to help poor kids, latino kids, african-american kids do better. those kids should have a better education. poor kids are not in the best schools and they do not have the best teachers. the demography of the country is changing very fast. the latino population and poverty population is increasing. unless we help these kids, we are not going to take care of the needs of the country. host: you point out that arizona, florida, tennessee are showing the most improvement.

guest: they are developing a means to deal with kids and giving them extra attention, the extra teachers. they are trying to bring up the bottom and they are showing some success. they are not alone. people are trying to do this throughout the country. this is a call to say we have made some progress. we have to make even more progress. host: we do want to give the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen to let you know about the sun upper -- about the setup. jack jennings is our guest. he is with the center on education policy. here are phone numbers. 202-737-0001 for republicans. 202-737-0002 for democrats. 202-628-0205 for independents. we have a fourth line for educators. you can: on that line.

our guest is c.e.o. on the center of education policy. how long have you been doing the study? guest: this latest effort is within the last year. we have been able to look at all 50 states. there are a lot of things going on in education. the new congress will debate the funding of education and the no child left behind act, which is overdue for an extension. this congress is going to be busy for education. host: michigan, good morning. caller: good morning. do you think education as far as we're doing it now should be changed, maybe a different way of educating our kids? host: let me jump in and ask your thoughts.

caller: i think kids are learning a lot faster. i have 85-year-old and a 4-year- old. -- i have a 5-year-old and a 4- year-old. there is a different way of going about it. we need more funding. more funding should be put towards our kids. they are our future. we have to educate them so they can be ready for the future. my second comment was on gun control. with this terrible situation in tucson, i think less gun- control is better than more gun- control. the person that actually held the sky down was a ccw owner. he was there before the responders were. host: thank you. let's go to the education point.

he talked about funding. guest: the attention is on the shootings. on education, things are changing faster than people realize. the states are moving towards a common education standards. we have never agreed on what we want our kids to know. now almost all the kids -- all the states are saying they are agreeing on what kids should know. that means kids will be taught differently in the future than they are taught today. they will be taught different content. that is good for the country. the caller was talking about whether the means of teaching should change. i think he is on to something because kids learned differently nowadays. their attention spans are shorter. they move faster. they get stimulated easier.

teachers have to adapt to that. those changes are starting to happen. it takes awhile to bring about change. i think teachers realize that kids today are different than they were in the past. host: what about funding? what are you expecting from this new congress? guest: the republicans who have taken over the house have said they wanted to cut spending by $100 billion at the federal level. now they are saying maybe it will only be $60 billion that the cut from spending. they put the military off- limits. security is off-limits. medicaid and medicare. the only area of the budget they are concentrating on is an area where education sits, with a number of other topics. last week there were saying that would cut it by $60 billion.

if they do cut $60 billion and the cut all programs in that area evenly, it means about 40% or 50% cutback education. it doesn't necessarily mean it is what is going to happen in the senate -- and needs about 40% or 15% -- 14% or 15%. you need some agreement on funding. if the house starts out at a low figure, even if the senate wants to go to a higher figure, you wind up with a compromise of some type. the bottom line is going to be that we will see some kind of freeze in education, some type of cut in education. it is ironic. business and other leaders are saying we have to do better. we have to do more and make our kids work harder. we have to have our schools competitive.

host: caller now from california. wade is on the line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been counseling for about six years. i attended private schools as well as public schools. my folks did not agree with the education i was receiving in public and private schools. we switched to privates -- public school. i think a kid needs more incentive these days. they have more incentive not to go to school then they have to go to school. as far as funding goes, you can look at outside the grammar, middle school, and high school cutbacks that are occurring at the college will fall as far as tuition costs and what not.

i go back to my incentive point. these kids need to have incentives so when they graduate with honors from high school that they have incentive to go to college to get a decent education that is decent tuition and that they are going to make something of themselves and not to do with for their parents but to do it for themselves and their future families. these kids need incentives to succeed in life. host: thank you. he mentioned incentives several times. guest: california is the epicenter of this budget mess we're in. it is not a good situation in california. i understand his concern about funding. he does put his finger on an withrtant point

motivation. kids can do better if they are motivated. that is why we have agents who come to the united states from abroad. they are so motivated and their parents are so motivated, those kids do better. motivation is important. the reformers have not figured out how to motivate kids better. what the reformers are doing now and our political leaders are trying to use test scores as a lever to motivate kids. i am not sure that always works. sometimes they stopped at the school level. we had to spend -- we have to spend more time to motivate kids and to get them to do better. motivation and family background can trump everything. host: jack jennings is with the center on education policy.

cep.dc.org. is the website one of the points of the study is that boys are behind girls in reading in every state of the country. guest: nobody knows why. in our study, which looks at all 50 states, we found that boys are behind girls in reading in elementary, middle, and high school levels in every state of the union. in math, boys and girls are about equal. about 20 years ago, girls were behind boys in math. there were theories about girls having structural changes in their brain or positions in their brain which means they cannot learn math. girls proved those theories wrong. girls of caught up with boys in

math. boys are behind girls -- girls have caught up with boys in math. the was a study that looked at the most industrialized countries. they found boys are behind girls in reading in most industrialized countries. there is something that has gone on in our society, some kind of change in these industrialized countries were boys -- maybe they don't value themselves as before. maybe jobs have changed. maybe schooling has changed. something is going on, a broad social change. we have not devoted enough time to it. we hope our report would force people to confront the issue and say that girls have to do better. we still do not have equal pay for women in the job market. girls have to do better in terms of the professions they have not been able to break into well

enough. girls read better than boys. girls drop out of school at a lower rate than boys. girls are graduating from college and a higher rate than boys. now is a time to ask these deep questions -- what is wrong to try to figure out how to educate and motivate boys better. caller: good morning. it is interesting to hear discussion. it seems relevant to where i live. i live in a small city. they have tried every solution, every strategy to motivate kids. you still see that regardless of where kids come from, high achievers, low achievers, and you have people in the middle. growing up, a lot of the motivation is tied into relevancy. a lot of the information -- you

see the goals and test scores, but it is not relevant to children. are things going on back home? in their own committee? it feels like it is for someone else. until people start finding ways to involve people and make it feel it has something to do with their lives, they will not participate fully. guest: that is a good point for a number of kids. some kids are going on to college and graduating from college and getting jobs. it is not universally true. there is a group of kids and there has to be a better connection. we have to straighten out our schools first. our schools are locally controlled. you could have a good school and in the next community, have a bad school. we have not figured out how to teach kids the correct curriculum. we have these common standards. we have not figured out how to train teachers so that all kids

have access to good teachers. we have not figured out our funding. you could have a disparity between five or six to one. they have a funding advantage. we have not figured out how to solve the problems of making the schools fairer and better for all kids. we have to worry about getting kids motivated so that they can do better in the schools. host: dennis, welcome to the program. caller: the concern i feel that is going on with the nation right now is that parents need to step up and educate at the same time as the schools are educating. host: what do you think parents are not doing right now? caller: being more stern. host: how?

caller: education comes in many different forms. the basics can be taught at home, as the same as your school. host: role of the parent, be more stern. and that is from a student. who knew? guest: i think there is a lot of truth to that. if they are motivated at home and have a home life with one parent -- look at obama. his mother made sure he would learn. she would not let them get away with weaseling out of his homework. even in a single-parent home, a parent can make a world of difference in making sure the student is going to do his homework. parental involvement is absolutely vital. i am not sure the government can

get involved in parental involvement to a degree that would affect masses of students. it comes down to parents deciding themselves that they have to pay more attention to how their kids are doing in school and asked their kids and make sure they are doing their homework. in our country, teenagers are frequently -- they frequently have jobs to make money to buy stuff. in other countries, they don't have jobs. their job is to do well in school. about if we're serious our kids doing better in school, that means we have our kids concentrate in school and have parents make sure they are doing well. host: we want to ask about income levels and your study. what to do find based on income? guest: poor kids are doing markedly worse the more affluent kids.

that achievement gap is not narrowing substantially. in the united states, we have a high rate of childhood poverty. this is higher than other industrialized countries. this is our achilles' heel. this is giving us trouble. poor kids frequently do not do as well in school. you need extra support for poor kids if you're going to make up for the disadvantages of poor kids, and we're not spending the money to do that. these test scores -- they do not show the role of poverty between the united states and other countries. when you consider the poverty, you find that we do pretty well with comparable groups, with middle class white groups, we do pretty well with kids in canada, new zealand. when it comes to poor kids, that is where we do not do as well.

other countries have a greater social equities that we have, when it comes to health care, employment. they have social supports that we did not have. here you're pretty much on your own. if you are serious, -- there is a good column by samuelsson and he points at that if we're serious about helping kids, we will not only make sure the schools to well, we will make sure that we reduce the rate of poverty and that will help poor kids with extra support. host: alabama, louise. caller: with all this stuff going on, we're trying to point fingers. my sister took a course on commercials. and the influence the commercials have on people. i am wondering if we should not look at commercials more and more.

i am concerned about this thing with mark twain and the inwn- word. are we going to take them out? host: two different topics. guest: with mark twain, the bible has some pretty strong passages that also would have to be censored. i think we have to take the past at what it is. that anyin wrote particular point in time. the house read the constitution last week. they tried to excise different parts that they did not agree with because they thought times have changed. i think we have to look at documents from the past and look at our past with a full face and say this is in fact what happens in the past. there may be reasons for it.

we should take a lesson from that. host: daniel is a student from san jose. caller: how are you guys? i have a question and comment. i am a student. i go to a great community college. some of us have experienced the economy as a student -- we are experiencing the education crisis in general. my question is this. i am wondering, it would be logical to consider consolidating the educational issue which could be considered a security issue? is there an argument that the

holdup? as far as standardizing everything, you would not have to have the parents accountable in their home life and also it would standardize everything, the curriculum, accountability. host: to it, danielle -- thank you, danielle. guest: she was asking for more standardization. we're going to some form of standardization. the states are are agreeing on common economic standards. host: you brought the story. it is in "the washington post" today. guest: there will be standardization in terms of economic content and testing and some accountability. you cannot standardize everything. different kids take different

ways of learning, different types of teaching. the united states is moving towards standardizing what is essential, which is what people should know and measuring how they know that. after that, there should be decentralization some teachers have much more freedom to teach kids depending on their needs. host: los angeles, democrat. caller: i have one comment and toto questions -- and two questions. what are your thoughts about the future of education? could you explain more about your views on "no child left behind"? host: what tier from fort worth

first -- let's hear from fort worth, first. rebecca. caller: we made sure that we had high expectations for the children. we had a great deal of staff development. you need to have staff that knows how to teach reading, math, social duties, and math. we have high expectations for the students. -- social studies. we communicated with the parents. they agreed that children were very successful. our school was one of 10 elementary schools that became exemplary of 79 elementary schools. host: talking about standards and high expectations. year earlier caller mentioned "no child left behind." guest: if schools do have high expectations, that is an

essential element to having a good school for all kids. what the caller described is a recipe for success. high expectations and treating kids with dignity. retraining kids -- retraining teachers so they are better prepared to teach better. with "no child left behind," that is a missed opportunity. with the last congress and the economic crisis, with the war's lingering and health care reform, there was not time to deal with it. iso child left behind" overdue. is the main national law that deals with education. it says states have to have economic standards, states have to test kids in grades 338 through 8.

there are consequences for schools and the have to change in order to become better. the problem with "no child left behind" is that it is a rough means of accountability. it compares one class one year to another class next year. "no child left behind" has to be changed to look at individual students and individual student growth from year to year. that would you can see that mrs. smith in one the great edit something to somebody's knowledge by the time they got to the next year. the lot is too crude -- the lot is too crude -- the law is too crude when it comes to accountability. has to child left behind" be rethought. the president has put forth a

good proposal to begin that conversation. there are political reasons and some other policy reasons. host: 10 minutes late -- left. good morning. caller: it has been an interesting program. a lot of the emphasis has been on the standards and accountability and discussion about students. so far, it rings true. an anecdote, if you don't mind. i wonder why there isn't more stringent discussion standards set for the teachers. .'m 73 years old we have six grandchildren, four grandchildren -- -- daughters. i was asked what life was like when -- it was very interesting. it is a great question. are recommended to all families. once you go through that, you

can have a lot of fun. four years later, i asked other grandchildren, i said let me turn the tables on you. what is left going to be like when you're my age to the all complained it is not fair foretelling the future. we had trouble getting it going. once we got going, they really rambled on. one said, we're all going to be stupid. it shocked me. she said, it is because our teachers are stupid. these are good schools by reputation. i said, why would to say that? "they do not know what they're teaching. they read from books." host: that is an interesting point about teaching standards. we have an educator on a line. michael, atlanta.

did you hear that last caller? that last caller mentioned teacher standards. you are an educator. caller: there is a growing move to tie teacher pay to test scores. there needs to be scrutiny and teachers. who are we going to replace these poor teachers with? there is not a huge movement of people in the united states who want to be teachers. the scrutiny that is placed on educators, the lack of pay. why would i become an educator? there is no incentive for good students in college. host: michael, thank you. there is the point about incentives again. guest: there are two sides of the story.

a teacher say who would want this kind of life to we don't get paid enough. if i know something about math or science, i will go into business and make more money. i think we have to deal with both sides. we have to raise standards for teachers. they should no more so they can teach better. we have to do this and it is beginning to occur around this country. the gates foundation, governors are all pushing the envelope said teacher evaluation is changing. evaluations are being run student test scores and performance and classrooms. that is beginning to change. we also have to make life better for teachers. we are not going to make the finest in the country teachers like to do in other countries, like finland and japan. we're not going to get the best unless we pay them more than

what they are being paid today. a number of us would not go into a school several blocks away from the studio because of the danger in that school, being able to park your car and to get into the school with safety. if we wanted to attract the best teachers, we have to pay attention to the lives they lead as well as how they are paid and demand a higher standard. host: robert, a republican. caller: good morning. i can tell you how to motivate the kids. i did it myself at home. kids are in school to get into the workforce. let's bring the workforce to them. when they get their report card, let's give them a paycheck. a's would be $5. we did this. i know we cannot afford this. warren buffett and bill gates

could kick in and it would bring their grades up. host: democrat. what are your thoughts? caller: we have a blizzard. host: good luck. be safe. can you turn the sound down? caller: you talked about the teachers and being able to -- what you think about the charter schools? we're trying to start a charter school here. the children will be taught by teachers with high standards. we talked about we are in the war but we're bringing troops home. why can we start making cuts? when i was in school, we had

music, with a theater, we had sports. but yet, the football is still going big and band is not there anymore. fear is not there and things like that to get the kids' minds activated -- theater is not fair. guest: paper performance is a mixed issue. there have been some attempts -- pay for performance is a next issue. there have been some attempts. it is not a sure solution. we'll see where it goes. charter schools are no better than regular public schools according so some major national evaluations that have been done. charter schools are no panacea. there are no guarantee that kids will do better. individual charter schools can be very good for kids. there is no guarantee that they will be better for kids.

parents tend to like them because they have a choice on where to send their kids. they like that. there's no guarantee that kids will do better academically. i wish them luck. there are a number of places that even get assistance. if they are willing to devote a lot of time and energy, maybe they will have a better school, but there is no guarantee. i think the will find all kinds of encouragement from state governments and foundations to help set up a charter school. host: stafford, virginia. caller: i am a university educator. i wanted to follow up with some of the comments of parents taking responsibility. one of the biggest things i noticed in the freshman is that they did not realize that when they get to the university, they no longer control the classroom.

in elementary school education, i have noticed with my fellow educators that they don't have any control of their classroom. parents are almost entirely control -- there needs to be restructured where parents understand that teachers need to have control of the classroom. guest: he has put his finger on a vital point. if you don't have order in the classroom, it is hard for kids to learn. that is a problem in a number of inner-city schools. it is also a problem with a number of other schools, not just the poor schools, with the attitude. the way to learn is to get interested in something. the structure enough to apply yourself so that