to the filters in the flight control system. we have talked about them subsequently. we saved ourselves a good bit of embarrassment by coming back and trying to land with less than ideal weather conditions. later on, when we got into the orbit flight program, she was to gain like experience and maturation on systems like the apu's and the hydraulics and the computers and how they play to get in a real flight. the program consisted of three different types of flights pep boys there was one of -- flights. there was one with no pilot on board. then, the active program, where

the -- where she stayed maiden, we did not separate, but removes the surface slightly to began to get the data on how effective the services were, actually. then, there was a free flight program. it started out as 11 flights, was reduced to eight flights, and then to five flights. it was no indication at how successful we worry and obtaining data. i think they were anxious to shorten the program up and transfer the resources. we did fly five free flights, three of them with the telecom on, which greatly reduced drag, and allows you to fly a much more thought, more benign profile. we have a lot of time on that flight. it was a very leisurely flight.

whereas, it kept your attention, and you will see that in the film, i think. one, that i would like to make before i get into this film thing, and im thin feel everyone feels this, but i am convinced that we will look at the program and say she was the finest, most capable workforce that we will ever have the privilege to put into our space-bar. [applause] >> in fact, i will go online. if we ever build something better, and eat my words, and i will do it in front of you. i did not think if we did do it, i'm getting pretty old, so we will have to do it fast. [laughter]

>> now, i have alluded to the fact that we tried to share the piloting task. i have a short video, and as a short, it lasts about two minutes and 20 seconds. it is not a section cut out of it. it is the entire flight from separation until landing. you'll see a dog spot in the upper left-hand corner. -- a bogged said last on the corner. we got that soccer on take off. ucker on take off. when you need thing we figured out we could still -- it was difficult to get the desired inputs, the stock and puts, and the runner kicks, and stuff, and

still maintain the basic parameters that we wanted to give the engineers the data from, like maintaining a certain angle of attack. it was very difficult to do. aside from getting too snivel a flight on the first to -- seated f-16's, richard and i were able to try out the technique of one of us holding the input, what the other one put in the test data on. you will see that in the film. richard is trying desperately to hold an accurate profile and manage energy, and i am doing my best to disturb him by putting these inputs in on the way down. [laughter] >> ok.

now, i want to show you what the film looked like. if you could go ahead and roll of film. here we go. here is the bug. we just separated from the 747. we nosedived off of the left. richard is pushing over. he has the stick. we are going to touch down. i've lost sight of the touchdown point. i was getting ready to do the input, and that is what i saw. he headed the police over 230 degrees pitch. we were coming down like a brick. we are accelerating to the next data point. we are reconfiguring with speed record you will see a broader kick. -- rudder kick.

doug cook helped to develop these maneuvers. i have the stick finally. i'm starting the pre flair. dick is getting ready to put the gear down. we are floating up to a touchdown. when we touch down, we still have directional control data points that we wanted to get. you'll see the nose veer to the right. i engaged it to see how sensitive it is. then, dick and die, was differential breakage, -- and i, which differential breakage, we did not practice letting off good enough. it was not noticeable from the ground cameras. we ended up close to the center.

we were able to split the time. one more thing that i want to share -- we were known as the serious crew, the christian crew, if you will, as i recall. we had a theme song. it was our all modern. you might remember the country- western song "lucille." we have nicknamed the 747 lucille, because it did not have a name. on the second flight, which was much more benign, we would agree we would pull one on him, and if you could but admiral richard truly's mike, we did not practice this, but you know the routine. we broke into "you pick a fine time to leave me, the seal --

lucille ♪ with 400 crop in the field this time they're hurting is for real you did they find time to leave me, lucille ♪ [applause] [laughter] >> thank you very much, joe, and dick. you are up, brewster shaw. >> that is tough to follow, for sure, columbia was tough. was the first launch vehicle of any kind that on its first flight of all of the flight elements it. people to orbit and got them back safely. it continued to do that for a long time, and god bless john

and bob for giving us a chance to follow them into orbit. and the first stage, all of the orbiters are pretty much the same. because of the solid rocket motors, they are so rough. during the second stage, the porters are a nice, smooth, polished. especially on columbia, they had about 7,000 tons more of structure. it was a stiff vehicle. when i compare that to atlantis, you can feel the oil can just a little bit. columbus was this rock-solid thing all the way to orbit. what a great ride that thing provided us. my experience is with the four smart guys with us doing space web one. we had to deal a lot of maneuvers. this was early in the program.

the software had not been refined. we have to do these maneuvers one at a time. you typed them into the commuter -- computer. it took something like 15,000 keystrokes. we spent a lot of time punching up little buttons. the real interesting part of sts 9, a relative to the orbit or itself, and i do not blame this on columbia, it is the nature of the beast. it is five main purpose computers, four them run together, and the fit is a backup in case you have a generic software problem. up and running, find a machine, and gpc 4 was

running the system management stuff. we have been flying of the 25- pound thrusters for the whole flight. we will enable the primary thrusters, and when they fire in the back end, it is not too bad, but when they fired in the front, it gets your attention. we got to a dead band with auto pilot, and one of these things fired up front, and immediately we got a big x, which means the computer has failed. gpc 1 held. failed. we got out of pocket checklist and started going through the mail function. six minutes later, another big x.

we have two of our computers failed, and nobody is home fly in the ship from a gpc standpoint. we activate another computer, and get it under control, and we start talking to the ground, and do what is called a dump. memory, and to a program load. 1, we never got a recovery. two was online. the ground did not feel comfortable, so they waive the soft for about four revs, and there were one to analyze the situation and take the proper action. we have this time to wait. john had been up since we're running 12-hour shifts, with three people and once in, and three on the other, john had

been up a long time, so he went downstairs to try to take a little nap. he lives down there may be two or three hours. finally, he comes up to the flight deck and he was very angry with us. he said i tried to sleep, and you guys are making all this noise. when i told them that was not us banging around, that was the major unit beating itself to death, his eyes got about that big, because now we have two gp c's with a problem, so we have to set ourselves up for entry in a different configuration. but, we did that, the ground give us the right instruction, and we got the same setup all right. then, we flew entry, and it was pretty nominal from that standpoint until the nose gear

hit the ground after we landed. when that happened, gpc toyota will sell all over again. that is okay, because there are others. we just rolled out and stop. an unusual thing happened turin the post-lending operations, when i was getting ready to shut off the exhilarate power units, which are the units that makes hydraulic power to run your flight control systems. one of them declared an under- speed failure shutdown. so, we kept going through the process, and just as i was shutting off another one, have had an under-speed felder shut down, and john and i did not know what that was about. we got a call later run that one and two have the same failure, the failure of the shaft, then had spewed

hydrazine all around in the back , and it started a fire back there. we were burning from about 40,000 feet down, and then after a shutdown, more hydrazine came out and finally detonated, making a real mess in the back of columbia that they had to fix up before we could fly her again other than that, -- again. other than that, it was pretty swell. [laughter] it was a real thrill to have the opportunity to fly with captain john young, a man whom i have the greatest respect for, and i sure wish him well. he led us into space in the space shuttle program, and that all of the human beings we have offered the opportunity to experience the thrill and the privilege of space flight with the system.

i think i must be out of time. thank you. [applause] >> that brings to mind the old line, of of and that, mrs. lincoln, how did you like the pledge? -- the play? >> and i'm here representing challenger, which was named for a research vessel that left for smith, england, in 1872, and changed the course of science. in three years, sale and across the world and doing the oceanography and the mid- atlantic and the pacific. challenger, the space shuttle, was in our fleet less than three

years. during that time, in less than three years, she flew 10 missions, and, of course, was lost on january 28, 1986, as we all know. her loss change the course of space history, and it has all this -- also change the course of my history, because i was pulled out of where i was in naval space command to go back and be responsible and at headquarters for recovery. of that is another story for another long panel. in those 10 missions, frankly, it was a hell of the right. she launched the first teachers, the first woman, the first african-american in space, and that picture of bruce on the

first untethered eva with the stars behind him. for dan, who is in the right first that meant the most to me, i cannot speak for dan, but we got to make the first night launch and night landing of the space shuttle program. we did this because we had an indian satellite in the payload bay. we have to launch at about two o'clock p.m. in the morning to get the satellite to the right place. if you do the right mechanics, one week later, you will land somewhere around two o'clock in the morning. j might be here somewhere.

he reminded me of looking off into the night sky and sea and lightning. we were surrounded by thunderstorms. i was convinced we're not going to go. i told the crew that current high was almost asleep at the nine-minute hold, and suddenly they said you are coming out of the nine-minute hold in one minute. [laughter] >> to make the first night landing was a real privilege, not only for the test pilot, but with gel, i had flown first enterprise, which made all of this possible. then we had backed up john, and flew sts 2. here was an opportunity to open a capability for the rest of, program, and it reminded me --

of the program, and it reminded me of my first landing with duke hernandez. i was kind of nervous and he said dick, do not worry about a thing. it is just like coming aboard ship in the daytime, you just cannot see what you are doing. [laughter] >> but standing in the way of making the night landing for dan and me was the fact that we had a heads up display in challenger that we have not have in colombia in the early days, and frankly, it was, we felt like, for the job at hand we wanted a simple display that was simple, and not cluttered, so we could just concentrate on getting this bird home. we just thought it had to many

bells and whistles. the second thing that was in no way was we did not have a night lighting system, so during the couple of years before flight, we redesigned, with the help of many engineers and other guys in the crew office, we redesigned a heads up display, and got the support of the office to change the program, and we were satisfied with that. the other thing, the lighting system, we look that flares, and carrier systems, but it was just not bright enough for the distances we were expecting to see. so, after working, and a lot of people up here and in the audience help us by fighting

against these lighting systems on the ground. i never looked in my log book to see how much night time we got, but it was plenty. in addition to dan and me spending all of our time on this, i have to give credit to mike smith, who was killed later in the challenger vehicle. both in the hud and the lighting system, mike did yeoman's work, and we would have never solved the thing without him. we ended up with a really simple system that was made of automobile headlights, red and white, and for the pilots in the audience, it was very simple care if you're on the correct

glide slope, you saw two rides and two whites. if you started going low, you saw three and four rents. if you were high, you saw more and more whites. then, we put them lined up directly down the 10th, the way short of the runway, in turned them on, so they put a beam of light right down the runway, and as bright as they were, i mean the actual amount of light you could see was measured in a handful lumens. you could see. for flair, we had a takeoff on a navy carrier lighting system that essentially was called a ball park, of all the show you

if you were high or low, or showed you that your on the more shallow glide path. -- you were on the more shallow glide path. we flew the flight. we ended up at the 40 degrees, up at the stars. to start the entry, and as we went on, we noticed a funny thing. the stars began to damper, and they went out. i glanced over at dan, and i thought going blind at this point is not a good idea. then, they started changing colors and all the windows. later, we realized dead we were seeing ionized gas in the -- that we were seeing ionized gas, and during reentry we saw out of the windows every color

of the rainbow. you could not see outside except for that. we finally got down to about notched seven, and it was a white hot looking out the shuttle windows. again, we thought, ok, it is time to let us see, and suddenly, just like this, it went away. we were in a steep left bank. i looked out, and it was the most gorgeous view of the california coast -- los angeles, san francisco, santa barbara. we rolled back up, and way out in the black because there was no moaned, i could see those neon lights. -- moon, i could see those neon lights. we crossed over at 50,000 feet. at mach one we put it into manual. we flew in -- are around the

circle, and now what was the moment of truth as to whether the lighting system was really going to work. we rolled out, and it was the most beautiful sight to have ever seen. right there, in the center of the hud was two reds and two whites. by this time, that was all we could see. we finally got a low enough, about 3,000 feet or so, where the top -- the frame on the top of the window covered the runway. we could not see that. we kept driving down to pre- flair. we started this slow free-flair, the runway came into sight, and we landed, if i remember right, 50 feet long, and half a notch

slow from 4,000 feet out. so, it was a hell of all right. [laughter] -- of a ride. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you, dick. eileen collins? >> good afternoon. it is really an honor with -- to be up here with shuttle commanders, and i have great respect for the superior work they did before i flew the shuttle, but before i even came to nasa to make the shuttle so much safer as the years went by. i am here to talk about discovery. i want to say a little bit about the history and the things discovery did. she was the fourth built on the contract went out in 1979, and was delivered to kennedy space center in 1983. discovery has flown 39 times, the first flight in 1984, and

the last flight was just last month, march, 2011. some of the more famous missions -- she launched the hubble space telescope, flew the return to flight mission after the challenger accident, and also left of the columbia accident, and discovery perform the first rendezvous with the russian space station,. the oldest person into space said john glenn -- carrying the oldest person into space in john glenn. discovery has cumulative days and space of almost one year, almost 365 days. of its missions, 13 of them have been to the international space station. discovery has flown its last flight, and soon you'll see it

up close in the smithsonian. we have been asked to answer two questions -- is there something about your is that makes it different than the others, and sell a personal story about a mission that you flew? the first part, is there something in it, other than the history, they're pretty much the same. the only differences in the payloads that are flown, and that will change the weight and the center of cabot -- gravity, and occasionally they will change the panels and the circuit breakers, but other than that they were pretty much the same. from a pilot's point of view, as far as flying, and our other differences in the handling qualities, or if you put yourself in one of them, would you be able to guess which one you are flying, i would say no, due to the great work that was done by joe engle and his group.

the 5 digit the fine qualities were stable and predictable by the time i flew. -- the flying qualities of the were pretty predictable. when i flew columbia back, we were pretty empty, and you notice the flight controls are a lot more responsive. maybe it is a bit easier and more predictable to fly and land. but, with a heavyweight, with the full load and logistics' macho, i noticed the delay. fortunately, all of those characteristics can be programmed into the software in the gulf stream that we fly to train. so, regardless, the pilots are

very trained and well-prepared. you can see the landings we have made over the history of the shuttle program have been safe and predictable. i have a few minutes left to tell a personal story. i flew my first and my fourth flight on discovery. this is about my first flight, which flew in a separate, 1995. the highlight of the flight was our crew was to perform the first rendezvous to the russian space station. the plan, when handed to the crew, was that we would close to 1,000 feet -- 1,000 feet, and we would test the flying and navigation qualities of the shuttle in close proximity to their space station, and we started negotiating with the russians. the crew was involved. we had to learn a little bit about how to speak russian.

we mostly used translators to get the russians to trust your. you have to drink with them. unfortunately, it was part of their culture, but we did start negotiating at 1,000 feet. we thought that was too far to really complete what was in our test plan, and to really find out are we safe, prepared, and ready for a docking flight that would take place that summer. through all of that negotiating, we got them to come down to 300 feet. we look closer, and said that is not close enough. we negotiated down to 100 feet. the months went by, and we realized we needed to get closer, so we negotiated down to 30 feet. when we launched, that was what the plan was. on launch day, very smooth, no malfunctions, main engine

cutoff, no malfunctions, and then we get a master alarm. one of our jets' head fell off. we reset the master alarm. we said that, but third master alarm, and another jet failed. the third failed because it was leaking, and it turned out this just happened to be facing in the direction that the russian space station was going to be our close approach, and it was leaking hydrazine, which is toxic, and we do not want to steer the substance of the space station. we did not want to contaminate the solar rays. so, the rendezvous was canceled, after all this work we have done. the ground teams did a fabulous job in houston and moscow.

we did everything to shut the reactor because the manifold to evacuate it, turn the jet toward the sun, try to break it out. we finally got the leak down to a trickle, but leaks in space look like snow storms. you remember john glenn's fireflies? that is what i was thinking during the like a geyser, and we got it down to a trickle, although it never totally stopped. over the four days, the u.s. and russian teams negotiated, and the russians agreed to go in and do the rounded view. we did it, and it was successful. it was on this point on discovery that i actually realized that the russians really did want to do this flight test as much as we did.

their strategic goals were the same as ours, and it was really to cooperate and pave the way for a more expanded human spaceflight program. that negotiation we had done was really just their style, their culture. we learned how to work together. that mission reminded me that sometimes small failures can lead to some pretty important lessons learned, and our relationship with our cold war rivals origin the russian management, the engineers, while not perfect was and is strong, especially between the as mott's and the cosmonauts. part of discovery's legacy is the role it played in international cooperation and diplomacy. thank you. [applause] >> fred? >> thank you. i had the privilege of flying at

length of for my last mission. the story of atlantis is very rich. it flew 32 missions, and it will fly one more time. it took the call on this module to the international space station, destiny to the international space station and visited the russian space station seven times, which is a record. atlantis had several records. had the shortest turnaround time between landing and launch, 50 days. it had the fewest of the interim problem reports -- ipr's. it set the record, and on its next mission, it broke the record. it has always been a very clean

airplane, and everybody who has flown it has really enjoyed it. i have to augment that before every flight i go talk to the main engines, and i go out on the pad, and actually talking to the bells. some of you may laugh, but the engines respond to me. i can't tell you it has worked because -- i can tell you that it has worked because i've never aborted or had to unload, and i know some people have to do that, and if they were taken my advice and talked to the engines, that never would have beckoned. [laughter] when i talked to atlantis, a big engine said ok, we are ready to go, and we launched. it is very interesting. on my mission there were two

experienced folks on board -- 3 experienced folks on board, and three rookies to fly with rookies is quite an experience to read -- and experience. when you are sitting on the pad, and one of them asks me if we are in space yet. [laughter] >> as a commander, you would not want to say idiot, no. [laughter] >> you would say something like well, not yet. [laughter] atlantis was a beautiful bird. shaw talk about the way it goes like this was the main engines on it. it was a smooth airplane. it got to orbit right on orbit. we had no burns necessary to get

us into a circular orbit. our main purpose was to deploy the satellite. this picture you have probably seen 100 times if you have looked at any airforce publication or aviation week, or any other publication that shows satellites, this is the defense support program satellite, and it is the only one launched by the shuttle. i love this picture, because it shows the harmony between space, the black stuff you see on the left, and earth, the blue, and his beautiful atlantis with the satellite in there. if you look very closely, in the big nozzle of the satellite, you can actually see the reflection of earth.

with rookies, and on this particular flight, we have a very interesting crew. three of us were married. three of us were bachelors. so, before every flight, the significant other was issued something called a primary contact badge. it was interesting. for the three of us that were married, it was pretty obvious to our significant other was, and that person could visit us during the time we were in quarantine. dan was the office director at that time, and he had the opportunity to decide what to do with these bachelors. so, i think he gave, just like i did, and we issued these badges

to any significant others that these three best sellers would like to see, so every day, -- bachelors' would like to see, so every day, a new set would, in. -- would come in. [laughter] >> been a good commander, i would watch them come in and out. it was never the same. if it was a particular day, you would have two or three. i will not name the names of those. operations were pretty standard. we have the defence support program that we launched immediately, but then we had an army chief warrant officer with us, con -- , and in -- thom henning, and his purpose was to determine if he could look

through the windows, and down and -- on an area in the earth, to assess the battle situation, and report back to a military commander. well, clearly, that did not work. when we came home, i was asked to visit the air force space commander. of course, i knew he knew it was not going to work, but he wanted to demonstrate to me that he had capabilities to see much finer than we could with our naked eye, so he showed me a lot of that. he said that in this particular case, the target was obscured, and the satellite could not see what was on the ground. >> i said but, sir, have you ever had a person in space look down and verify that you could not see it from space? >> of course, he paused a

moment, smiled, and that was the end of that conversation, and that program. atlantis was an amazing bird. we came home. tom hendricks was my pilot. we were supposed to land at kennedy, but because we lost an inertia measurement unit, we came home early and we want to add words. g.o. show you his approach to lending. i believe that was done 05. if in doubt, there were several runways there -- if you note, there were several runways. as we were turning to file, my palace said fred, the notice when you are landing on? i said yes, and a little bit further -- and i said tom, i

know where i am going, but this is what you get when you have a rookie flying with you. it was a great time i went back and talk to atlantis three weeks ago, and it asked me if i had heard that it was going to make the last image of its last mission. i said i heard rumors, is it true? and he said a couple of high guys told me that. so, i found out today that atlantis is essentially going to be stored at kennedy after it lands in june, scheduled for the 20th of june. the last thing he said to me was that i certainly hope this is not the last human flight we make in america, and i know you guys out there and willing to make sure that does not happen. thank you a. -- are going to make sure that that does not happen. thank you.

>> band? >> the testing incurred any time you talk about shuttles, the discussion comes back -- thank you. anytime you talk about shuttles, the discussion comes back to people. there was a programs and named a new orbitor , and it included not only suggesting a name, but also a science project that would go with it, and that was really the determining factor to the will schools one. the name and never came out, and was named after captain kirk's ship in which she seldom run the world. it rolled out in may of 1991. was gorgeous target was pristine. all of the tile were on the parent if you remember columbia, it kind of looked like it had

that exists, and it was a real testament to the people that put it together, realizing that the people that have put it together had probably worked on another one, but there were no more, and we're probably going to be laid off. it was interesting, their attitude. they got together and had one hell of a party. management was not invited. i guess i did not qualify because i was invited. they showed up in tuxedos, limousines, cowboy boots, levi's car and just had one heck of a party. and, they were going to go out in style. the first flight was launched in may of 1992. the primary mission was to recover and repair. also, back then, the space

station was going to be built tinkertoy style. we had one eva. the first rendezvous in attempts to capture the satellite -- we had a bar that was designed on earth. it was only supposed to work. the first time we can't capture the satellite, we were not successful, and on that first day, we had three tries before it was tumbling out of control. we backed away from that, and we were feeling kind of debt. you have a 108 -- $180 million satellite, seven people on the crew, and you do the math. three minutes later, we got good news because the ground crew had gone the satellite back under control, which meant we had another chance we went back the second day, changed our processes, and tried again. this time, we got six shots at it before it was out of

control, and we could not capture it. then, the team, once again the people, decided to take a day off and start a new plan. going back to the left captured, it goes back once again to the people that designed the vehicle, because dead baby food really great. the satellite was the most -- baby slew who really great. it was truly amazing design and worked really great. getting back to the people. we had the crew and our seems on the ground trying to figure out what we would do in the next day, and we came up with a plan to send three people out to do and eva, and use their good, old-fashioned hands to capture it. everybody concurred with that plan. it would be a long story to tell you all we need to do to make it possible.

if we plan to do it that way in advance, we would never have gone approval, but we did it in one day. the satellite had a bit of a wobble. you could fly at dawn, and just cause. we moved up, three guys granted, the motor on, and the satellite is still out there working right. we had one moreeva left, and went out and did some of the mission for the repair. brewster shaw talk about all the problems he had with computers and apu's and the like. and never worked on its first flight perfectly. that was important because we were busy with the satellite. we could not -- if we have to mess with a bunch of computer problems, it would a been a bigger challenge. once again, the people that built it did an outstanding job.

since then, and never has gone on to fly many successful missions, and it is a true testament to the people that put it together, maintained it, and operate it day in and day out. it is a shame to see the shuttle's coming to a end, but just as those people who had the party after endeavor rolled out and were getting laid off, the people we work with on a day-to- day basis, their noses to the grindstone, they are determined to do a good job, and i have to admire them because they have been a great team for many years. when a lot of them leave, it will be a big loss to our space team around the country. thank you. [applause] >> now, at 5:15, these and two additional shuttle commanders will conduct a news briefing in the new education auditorium, which is on the lower level of

the exhibit center. you go there, and take the elevator one flight down. seating is limited, but all symposium residents are invited to sit in. commanders, on behalf of our audience, i think each of you for sharing your experiences today, and we also extend our heart-felt appreciation for your service to this nation and its space programs. this and gentlemen, let's hear it one more time for the all- star team of space shuttle commanders. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> from nasa tv, we are looking live at the space shuttle endeavor. the launch of the endeavor, said to be the final mission of the endeavor, was scrubbed for to

date. the launch director told nasa tv a short while ago that the launch would be no earlier than monday at 2:33 p.m. eastern. engineers have problems with two heater circuits associated with the auxiliary power units. again, it has been scrubs to no earlier than monday at about 2:30 p.m. eastern. we expect a news conference coming up this afternoon from nasa. 4:00 p.m. eastern. we will have that live for you at c-span.org. president obama was expected to come to cape canaveral and watched the launch today. he will still have their, and for the space center, but obviously not see the launch. he started his day in tuscaloosa, alabama to view the damage there. he is joined by the mayor and the governor of alabama.

>> mayor, come on over. >> well, michele and i want to express, first of all, our deepest condolences, not just to the city of tuscaloosa, but to the state of alabama, and all of the other states that have been effected by this unbelievable storm. we took a tour, and i have to say i have never seen devastation like this. it is heartbreaking. we were just talking to some residents here who were lucky enough to escape alive, but have lost everything. they mentioned that their neighbors have lost two of their grandchildren in the process. what you are seeing here is the consequence of just a few minutes of this extraordinarily powerful storm sweeping through this community.

as the governor was mentioning, tuscaloosa typically gets a tornado during the season, but this is something that i do not think anybody has seen before. in addition to keeping all of the families who have been effective in our thoughts and prayers, obviously our biggest party now is to help this community recover. i want to -- priority now is to help this community recover. i want to thank the mayor for his extraordinary leadership, and i know she's burgess has to deal with a lot of difficulties. -- i know the chief burgess has to deal with a lot of difficulties. police resources, emergency resources -- those two have been effected, but fortunately the governor has done an extraordinary job with his team in making sure that the resources of the state are

mobilized, and have been brought in here. i am very pleased that we have a fema director who is as experienced in responding to disasters, even of this magnitude, as anybody, and we have already provided the disaster designations. we have already provided the disaster designations that were required to make sure that the maximum federal help comes here as quickly as possible. crag is working with the teams on the ground to make sure that we are seamlessly coordinating between the state, local, and federal governments. i want to make a commitment to the communities here that we are committed to doing everything we can to help these communities rebuild. we cannot bring those who have been lost back. they are alongside got at this

point. we could help, maybe a little bit, with the families dealing with the grief of having a loved one lost, but the property damage, which is obviously extensive, that is something we can do something about. so, we will do everything we can to partner with you, mr. mayor, with you, governor -- the governor was pointing out, this community was hit as bad as any place, but there are communities all across alabama and this region that have been effected, and we will make the same commitments to make sure we are doing whatever we can to make sure the people are ok. that would be like -- [laughter] >> you stand still. >> i got him. >> where is secret service when you need them? [laughter] >> finally, let me just say

this. as you walk around, we were just talking to three young people over there, college students at the university of alabama who were volunteering to clean up toward one of the young ladies actually lived in this apartment, but was not here at the time of the storm. what you are struck by is people's resilience, and the way the community has come together, and that is a testament of the leadership of the governor and the mayor, and also inherent as a part of the american. to. we go through hard times -- american spirit. no matter -- we go through hard times, but no matter how hard we are tested, we maintain our face, and look to each other, and help each other. i'm sure that spirit will continue until this city is all the way back. mr. mayor, he was pointing out there is a lot of national media

down here now, and the mayor expressed the concern that perhaps the media will move on the in a day, or a week, or a month, and that folks will forget what has happened here, and i want to assure him that the american people, all across the country, are with him and his community, and we will make sure that you are not forgotten, and we do everything we can to make sure that we have rebuilt. if so, with that, governor, would you like to say a few words? >> i want, and, mr. president, i would like to say thank you for coming and visiting alabama. as you fly over this, it does not do it justice until you are here on the ground, and i want you to know how much i appreciate that. we ask for -- we mobilized the state, we declared a state of

emergency early on, even before the first tornadoes hit, and then we mobilize our national guard the first day. we then asked the president for eight, and asked him to expedite that, and they have done that, and i want you to know how much i appreciate that, mr. president, because all of these people appreciate that some much. we have eight counties across the state that have been hit by major tornadoes. this is probably the worst one, but we have others. as you go across the state, you see this same evidence of tornadoes all across the state. so, there are people that are hurting. we have two hundred 10 confirmed deaths in the state of alabama. we have a number of people missing at the present time. we are going to continue to work in a rescue-type mode, but we are now more in a recovery mode. thank you, mr. president. >> you will keep him off of me turned >> i am going to keep him

off of you. >> yes, sir. [laughter] >> let me just say i am so proud of our first responders in this state. our mayors, our county commissioners, our police, our firemen, they have done a fantastic job. a ema people -- now we have the federal government helping us. when local, state, and government works together, we can get things done. welcome to alabama. we want you to come back and go to a football game when things are better. thank you for your help. >> i will gladly come back. mr. mayor, why don't you say few words? >> governor, mr. obama, thank you for coming today. the last 24 hours have been

the most trying times in this community's history. since this tragedy began, i have been using romans 12:12. rejoice in our continent hope. your presence has brought a confident hope to our community. thank you again for coming today. >> thank you for your leadership. two points i would like to make. we have a congressional dedication -- delegation here. i will make sure they have the resources needed to help rebuild. they are local officials. we will work with the mayor and the governor to do what is needed. finally, i think the mayor said something that was profound as

we were driving over here. he said, what is amazing is that when something like this happens, people forget all of their petty differences. politics, differences of religion and race fall away when we are confronted with the awesome power of nature. we are reminded that all we have is each other. hopefully, that spirit continues and grows if nothing else comes out of this tragedy. let's hope that is one thing that comes out of it. thank you, everybody. >> president obama and alabama state officials in tuscaloosa and some of the video of the president on the ground in that city.

on c-span this evening, we will turn our attention to campaign 2012 coverage. our coverage gets underway at 8:00 p.m. this evening. there will be a presidential summit on job creation. mitt romney, tim pawlenty, herman cain, michele bachmann, and rick santorum will appear. we will have it live for you on c-span. we also have it on c-span radio and c-span.org. >> live sunday, the white house correspondents black-tie dinner. our coverage includes highlights of past dinners and your

comments from facebook and twitter. live on c-span and add c- span.org. we will have social media comments and live video. >> this weekend on "book tv," p and. on science get the entire schedule online at booktv.org. sign up for a book tv alleged. >> the university of arkansas held a conference to review the presidency of george w. bush and compared them to the clinton years and the obama administration. this panel of academics will

produce a book. this event runs just under two hours.

>> he has just completed a volume, a manuscript on the obama administration. currently, he served as chair of the department of political science at purdue university. the floor is yours. >> thank you very much, don. and thanks on behalf of all was at the fulbright's center. i am personally pleased to be here again at the university of paul gosar -- university of arkansas. we are here to talk about george w. bush. in the latter stages of his presidency, bill clinton bemoaned the fact that his presidency was devoid of the

great challenges that marked a great president. george w. bush was not so handicapped. he had many challenges. he lacks the wherewithal for greatness and possibly even competence. he came into office in the most inauspicious of circumstances. a drawn-out election outcome that was decided by a bizarre decision by a 5-4 supreme court majority that lacked grounding in constitutional law. someone had to be inaugurated on january 20. the result was that a close election was preceded by the democratic base as a corrupted outcome. and bush as an illegitimate president. get over it, the republicans

said. but it was not so easily gotten over. given the results produced by the election outcome, bush came into office as a conciliator. his victory speech and his inaugural speech had heavy emphasis on reconciliation. things went south by the second year. the toxic political climate was fed by hyper partisanship. the bush administration political gurus did little to relieve that during the administration. their strategy was to hold the base together and been microscopically cater to particular sets of groups that may not have made up their minds.

they were concerned about the mobilization of the base in the 2000 election. 2002 brought some ugly midterm campaigns. all of this fence off of the toxicity of hyper partisanship hyper-- fed off the toxicity of hyper partisanship. bush was consumed by the toxic swamp of party polymerization. his presidency was the most deeply polarizing one in modern -- which was consumed by the toxics want of party polarize asation. he failed frequently to follow through, failed to ask important and skeptical questions. if you do not ask the most skeptical questions of yourself and others, you are likely to get yourself into deep trouble.

he contrasts poorly with his predecessor bill clinton and even more with his successor barack obama, both of whom were delivered to of presidents. in the end, bush had plenty of challenges. he had a few of them well, a leading office in the midst of a catastrophic recession that he little understood, a fiscal mess that he and his party policies of spending without revenues contributed mightily. every president has his own strengths and weaknesses. he has some that you know about. his sense of certainty, lack of reflection or skepticism, and inability to master fundamental

facts became deeply problematic. he could have learned from his father's prudence, but he did not. most of us would be wiser if we did. after all, sometimes father knows best. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, bert. our next speaker comes to us from simon fraser university in canada. his ph.d. is from the university of british columbia. he is an expert on american political institutions and particularly on american foreign policy. his most recent work is on the foreign policy of george w. bush. he will talk, among other things, about the bush foreign

policy and the bush doctrine. alexander? >> thank you very much. it is a great honor and privilege to join my colleagues in the audience today. i can assure you there are many canadians to carefully look at what goes on in the united states. i am one of them. i came from europe in 1979. i started studying the united states and canada and i have not stopped since. i have students who are nervous about the united states. they are worried about a takeover or this or the other thing. they have a long list of things to complain about the united states. i say to them, would you rather be poland with russia as your neighbor? we are canada and we are blessed with the best neighbor in the world. we take seriously what takes

place in our politics in your foreign policy. it is a privilege for me to benefit from the scholarship and intense discussions that we have had in the last two days. george w. bush stands out to me as a decision maker or mr. decider. it was interesting to me that his memoirs are called "decision points." he sees himself as someone who will become, over time, more appreciated for what he accomplished. he sees himself as harry truman the second. the famous book on harry truman was published 40 years after the truman presidency. bush thinks of himself -- i suppose he may say to himself --

say in his own words as misunder appreciated. -- misunderappreciated. it is interesting to dig into his decision making process. we will find that it is very un even. it is puzzling. bush was often over confident and over determined. that is not necessarily a liability. provided you have a good process. indecisiveness can be just as much a problem as overthe termination. if you study bush's foreign policy decisions all the way

from the one on north korea and the one you might remember from march 2001 when the chinese fighter jets collided and all the way after 9/11 into are rocks, you will find that some of his decisions -- into iraq, you will find that some of his decisions -- colin powell was the person most famous for pushing back. when he benefited from that, his decisions were good. when he did not and he went with too much confidence and everybody was too loyal and kept their heads down, then we see some poor decisions. the worst one was what we see as phase four operations in

iraq, that is the decision on how to manage iraq after the invasion. it has become a case study on how to mismanage iraq after the invasion. it is the costliest decision in my mind that bush has made. bush was no doubt polarizing. in our scholarship, i think we have to be careful about the two arguments that are out there in abundance. on the left, there are a lot of people have conspiracy theories and psychological theories about how bush is completely -- about what is completely beyond bush's capacity as president. on the right, you have over- loyalty, including among christian conservatives. i can speak as a christian

conservative myself. we have to learn, but no confidence in princes. just because bush is a christian president, that does not believe he is going to do the right thing. he needs just as much good advice and criticism as everybody else. i am hoping that the republican party and the democratic party will log on from the bush presidency. polarization is a real problem. as a canadian, i dare say something to you about this. i will try to warn you americans that you have a problem we have lots of our own problems. do not let me try to be arrogant or anything. but you have a problem. this is the problem, if you do not know it. your system is polarizing more and more. every four years in everything she years in congress, you gets

more and more polarization. you have two political parties that are ideological war machines that gets at each other all the time and get less and less done. as a president, it is enormously difficult to pass a piece of legislation. what do we see presidents do? presidents are beginning to use all their strategic and tactical things like executive privilege. they are starting to play different game than what the founders of the constitution wanted. what americans need to think about, especially students that will be the next generation of leaders is that, in philadelphia, it was the art of compromise. it was bargaining that create your constitution and your system, your great republic. unless you rediscover this arts, your republican is in great danger. i am hoping that you will

revise and consider the challenge so that you do not end up with a system of government that can only do blocking and more blocking and more blocking, that you have a system of government that can govern. we canadians need you to be a world leader for another hundred years at least. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, alex. it is delightful to have a perspective that is outside of the normal dialogue of american politics. our next speaker is bob. he is there already. he is the holder of a share leadership at the university of arkansas. he has a ph.d. from the university of minnesota. he is the author or editor of a

number of works on the american presidency, including the second term of george w. bush. he is currently at work on a book on the obama administration. bob, the floor is your. s. >> i will recognize michael author, who is in the audience. i want to thank alex for a wonderful talker. i think our political system is getting more like academic politics. we fight so much because the stakes are so small. i look at president obama who has kept president bush's 3 crisis managers on the economy and has kept his policies in iraq and afghanistan. it has been fascinating to watch. i have members of my family who really cannot stand president bush. i edited a book saying the bush presidency was a failed

presidency. i constantly say i am defending president bush. i have a friend of mine who says that i am constantly defending president obama. i do not think i am. when we make these judgments, i would hope that we would have some modesty. we are not sure how history will review these things. we are not sure which decisions president bush made will not look so bad and which ones will look very bad. we tend to judge presence in terms of who is making the judgments. the public is right of center and cuts conservative presence more slack. we can to cut liberal president a little more slack. it is because we are human beings. we are not bad human beings. we just need to be aware of these pisces -- biases.

a friend wrote a wonderful essay in judging bush were part of what he does is look at actual statistics. he says on the one hand or the other hand. that is a good way to look at these things. i want to agree with alex. i do not think the decision process was necessarily good or bad. they were incredibly on even. some were very bad. the decision to invade iraq was not a particularly good decision. some were great. i thought the president did a wonderful job managing education policy. when he passed no child left behind, i thought it was stupid. now i have spent time defending it. one thing that strikes me is that president bush did better

when dick cheney was not involved. you can make a case that some of the more noted failures in the bush administration happens when which cheney and donald trump's held short circuit the decision process -- and done outcomes fell short circuit did -- donald rumsfeld short-circuited the decision process. this was an area he had some comfort with. he negotiated easily with rebel democrats like ted kennedy. he got a fairly good bill of confidence. the secretary of education has said that repeatedly. how do we make sense of this? experience is one way. dick cheney's involvement is another way.

too often academics undervalue the importance of ideology conservatives -- too often, academics undervalue the importance of ideology. conservatives believe foreign dangers must be countered and there is evil in the world. the problem may be that they overlearned that lesson and saw force as the thing you use first rather than the things you used last. let me back up. the bush administration is going to be judged in iraq, to " my friend david. i think that is the huge foreign -- in iraq, to quote my friend david. i think that is a huge foreign

policy failure. 9/11 changed the way the administration viewed itself and everything else. it changed itself from a domestic policy administration to a foreign policy administration. we have to look at how easily we went into iraq. in the run up to our engagement in afghanistan, people were saying we would need a couple hundred thousand troops to win. people were saying it would take three or four years to overthrow the taliban. we went in with a light footprints and won easily. people were arguing that iraq is a different country and it will not work that way. the relative ease in which the u.s. military won in afghanistan led the administration and others to overestimate and misunderstand how easily the iraq invasion would be. it is something we need to think

a lot about. we need to think about present bush's personal characteristics. my friend wrote a chapter on that in a book. bush is a bright guy. we have his s.a.t. scores. he is smart enough to be president. he is 26th out of the president's. he tends to see things in black and white -- he is 26th out of the presidents. he tends to see things in black and white. he is extremely loyal generally. you tend to think of loyalty as a good thing. deutsche bush is a good husband and father. most -- george bush is a good

husband and father. most politicians are not. rumsfeld did not serve him well. good leaders have to be ruthless. you have to fire people who are not working out. i have to fault president bush for that. moving to psychological issues, if you look at iraq, he has led to foreced and unforced errors, to use a tennis metaphor. there was a book called "the threatening storm." it was a good book making the case for invading iraq. the american cia was sure that saddam hussain had weapons of mass destruction.

we had good reports from the former iraqi intelligence chief. they told us he had weapons of mass destruction. it made sense if they refused to let inspectors in. you have to look at the impact on the events. there were things that saddam hussein did that did not seem easy to predict. after eight years of a ruinous war, you do not invade kuwait. saddam hussein's bid. that led -- sit down hussain said done -- saddam hussein did. here is the u.n. force -- the unforced error.

people in washington were saying this in the run-up to the war. we would need a minimum of 300,000 troops. we would need a carefully thought out occupation strategy that donald rumsfeld did not agree with and did not do. we did not have plans for how to employ the iraqi army. the iraqi army was disbanded. he told these people who are armed, go home and keep your guns. there is no place for you in the new iraq. president bush acquiesced with this decision without questioning it. as a result of that decision, the president fails to fundamentally rethink how we were doing the iraq war and how to change it. for those unforced errors,

things that president bush should have, could have as question about, ultimately made the iraq war a fiasco. had it gone well, had we done the occupation welcome we could have made iraq into a democracy with little bloodshed and it could have led an era in the middle east. it did not happen. i think president bush deserves a lot of the blame for it not happening. i will leave it at that. [applause] >> thank you, bob. now we have the pleasure of welcoming someone home. he is currently associate professor at -- she is currently associate professor at duke. she went to stanford to get a

phd. she is the co-author of a book entitled "the hard count." she is co-author with todd shields of a book called "wedge issues." that won the prize for the best book in political psychology. she was an associate professor of government at harvard and the founding director of their program on social research. >> thank you for giving me an excuse for coming back to the university of arkansas. you cannot see it, but i have a razorback necklace on. i will be happy to answer questions about the bush presidency and draft facts if

that is more interesting to the audience. my focus of research is on public opinion and campaigned in elections. i will focus my observations on the bush presidency on those areas. what i would like to do is mention three myths about the bush presidency. the first myth is that bush public -- that bush polarize the public because of his personality or his leadership management style. we all know that conventional wisdom. liberals in the northeast could boot-wearing aot republican. he campaigned on being a uniter,

not a divider. that is what i would like to focus on. i would emphasize the point that i was asked not to show any numbers at four reports. these are based on empirical evidence. there are a number of reasons we should not blame the polarization we observed in the public on which the person. the first is that there was a historical trend in polarization. looking back over the last several decades, we have seen incredible polarization about every politician and present. it is the case that bush is currently -- i suspect obama will soon be -- the most polarizing present in the history. he is following a trend that we have seen started many decades back. the second reason it is not just bush the person is that if we look at polarization in

public opinion over the course of bush's term in office, it follows a consistent trend we see under every presidency. what this reflects is the learning about the man holding the office. you might be surprised to hear after a high-profile presidential campaign that there are people who do not have strong opinions about the person who wins office. you often find 20% of people who are not offering an opinion or evaluation of the person who wins. during the first term in office, those people come to have an opinion. those democrats and republicans who had an opinion, as information is learned, they tend to polarize. there is an inevitable bias in processing the information they received.

if we look at bush and the practice -- and the patterns in the presidency, we see a similar trend. it was slightly more pronounced in the bush presidency because of the iraq war. what we found -- i am sorry, 9/11. 9/11 focus the public in a way that we have not seen. after 9/11, people formed opinions because they were paying a lot more attention to politics generally. the third reason is not just about which the person, but because of changes in information and the media environment. had al gore won both of the electoral college and the popular vote, we would have seen the polarization created by a new informational environment. i want to explain that a bit

more. i think it has not been acknowledged enough by scholars. it has had an effect on government and campaigns. present candidates and all candidates narrowcast their engagement with the public rather than broadcast it. you have heard the term micro targeting. it is something that was present in the 2004 presidential election and that which perfected. obama did the same thing. the ability to micro target narrow messages, individualized and personalize to each individual voter reflects changes in the information environment and changes in computing power. people do not realize that when vote, thatr to

information is collected into a statewide data base. it is passed along to the parties and the candidates. those data files contain your name, your address, in a lot of states, your party affiliation and your voting history. if you voted in the previous election and the election prior to that. that information is married from consumer data files, thousands of variables about wherwhether you own or rent. they do extensive polling about what your type of person would be interested in in terms of the issues you would be interested and care about. you are going to receive an individualized and personalized campaign message that is different from the person

sitting next to you. it is different based on the things you care about. the consequences of this is what we saw in the 2000 election. the presidential candidates took positions on 75 different issues in the campaign. 75 different issues in direct mail, not in television advertising. we are not having a public and sustained the based on 75 issues in the campaign. people are being told what they want to hear based on the issues we already know they care about. what this means is that the fragmentation of campaign dialogue means that people are voting on the basis of different things. you are being told -- christian conservatives were being told in 2004 that the stake in the election was moral values. at the same time, other people were being told that it was tax policy. small business owners were being

told that taxes were the big issue. this has negative consequences. it makes it difficult to interpret the meaning of an election. a lot of you are too young to remember the 2000 election. those of us who can may remember the debates in the 2000 election about whether it was a moral values election. that was what the election was about. it was not. the reason for the confusion was that some people were told that was the stake in the election. another point of fragmentation in the campaign dialogue is that it contributes to the polarization we are seeing. the candidates have incentives to take positions on more issues and on different types of issues. if you are broadcasting messages to an electorate that is diverse, you are going to talk about problems, the economy, education, foreign-policy. the content of narrowcast

messages are wage issues, gay marriage, social security, -- wedge issues, gay marriage, social security, the environment. in a congressional race, the michigan republicans were sending direct mail to snowmobile owners saying the republican candidate would be the best for snowmobile policies. there were a lot on the american plate at the time. i am not sure if snow mobile policy was what people wanted to think about or what was at stake in the election. micro targeting makes it difficult to be a successful governor. you have made a variety of different promises to a variety of different constituencies. then you have to try to pass

policy. if we remember bush's second term, he came into office and said, let's reform social security. the christian conservatives were like, that was not what you told me this election was about. terry schivo issuen the came up and people were saying, why are you being distracted about this issue? it makes it difficult for us to interpret if there is some type of mandate being sent by the election and more difficult for someone to govern. aboutgo to the last myth bush. the second was that bush the person was responsible for the polarization. and it was a myth that bush won

in 2004 because of moral values. that is not the primary reason why he won the election. we have an article making that case. finally, there was a lot made in 2004 about how which was catering his policies and campaigning to the base voters and ignoring everybody else. the reality is in politics today, no one can win by catering to the base. there are not just democrats or republicans enough to elect someone to be president. this strategy was being used to try to win over purse wadable = persuadable voters. ro boyce saidve -- people said rove was focused on the base

voters. every politician goes after the persuadable voters. thank you. >> thank you, sunshine. i am sorry to be the timekeeper for our speakers. we want to move to the part where we involved the audience in the discussion. our next speaker comes to us with a ph.d. from catholic university. he is the author of a book called "the president shall nominate." his co-author is not with us today. he is on a state department speaking tour in china, vietnam, and korea. it gives him the chance to say, whatever you disagree with, the other fellow wrote. >> thank you. i want to switch gears and talk

about presidential power specifically as it relates to executive privilege. president bush adopted an expansive view of executive privilege. he took maximum advantage of circumstances during his presidency to increase presidential power. this was based on an underlying theory of unitary executive. everyone is a unitary executive. we do not have a plural council running the executive branch. unitary executive means that all executive authority rests with the present. the second issue with unitary executive is that it is a matter of degree. how much authority does the present have to exert? increasingly, presidents -- how much authority does the president have to exert?

increasingly, presidents have been exerting more and more power. executive branch information is protected from disclosure. to congress, the press, and the public. executive privilege is a constitutional privilege. it is grounded in the article two. this comes from a supreme court case called united states versus nixon, dealing with watergate and the aftermath. executivel in his privilege use was to take back presidential power. what his in ministration saw was that post-nixon presidents have exceeded presidential power to congress or they allow presidential power to lapse. the administration saw that as a failing of post-nixon presidents. there are a number of high- profile executive privilege cases that i could discuss

today. there are two in particular that are representative of bush's theory of the presidency and his use of executive privilege during his presidency. those two are an environmental protection agency executive privilege case and u.s. attorney firings. they both happen during the latter stage of his presidency. one was regarding documents from the environmental protection agency regulating gas emissions from motor vehicles. this executive privilege went well beyond the traditional confine of executive privilege. traditionally, executive privilege can be claimed on a quintessential presidential function. the president is exercising his pardon power, or the power to

nominate. that is grounded in the constitution. what bush was doing here is he was claiming executive privilege on an agency decision that was not grounded in the constitution, but in law, specifically the clean air act. it was a decision not legally made by the president. it could only be made by the environmental protection agency administrator. it was a faulty view of law and the constitutional law as it relates to executive privilege. it is one primary example where what bush did, even though he interpreted the law and interpreted the constitution in a way that was somewhat misguided, it was ultimately a success story. this happened at the end of his administration. he is able to run out the clock. there was a particular house

committee run by waxman. he said, you have to turn this over. we are carrying on oversight function. bush claimed executive privilege and the mentally the clocks stopped. he leaves office and he is able to expand executive privilege. the underlying rationale is fundamentally flawed. the second case has to do with u.s. attorney firings. this began after his second term victory. the bush administration and the department of justice did a comprehensive overview of all the u.s. attorneys in the united states. they decided to remove a dozen u.s. attorneys. the press got wind of this and they decided to launch an investigation.

there were questions of misconduct over how the process was run and the basis of the decisions. where they fired because they were executing -- they were prosecuting a case that the bush administration did not want? when these investigations started -- this is the thing about interbranch exchanges. congress asked for something and the bush administration says no. they stonewalled. the bush administration decided to claim executive privilege. eventually, things came to a head. the house judiciary committee decided to issue a contempt citation. while this is going on, the department of justice issued a legal memo. this memo claimed that current and former presidential aides

have absolutely immunity from compelled congressional testimony. this is an absolutely remarkable statement to be made by any president. it is one that is unprecedented. it has no basis in the law or in history. no president -- even if you are talking about somebody declaring executive privilege on pardon power -- has an absolute immunity from compelled congressional testimony. but the bush administration is claiming this. the house of representatives decides to vote on the contempt citations. the contempt citations have to be enforced by the district of columbia attorney. the same day that the vote occurred, the department of justice and the white house said, we are not enforcing this contempt citation. what is the white house left to do? they have to empower their lawyer to go to the federal

courts, into the washington, d.c. court system to get a judicial order to enforce the contempt citation. that is exactly what they do. the d.c. district court judge issues an opinion that rejects the theory of absolute immunity. it says there is no such thing in law or history. it is baseless. by the time this is going on, it is 2008. the administration is running out the clock. it is late 2008 and the bush administration decides to appeal the case. the circuit court issues a stay. they issued a brief opinion same mo is allot. -- all moot. bush is leaving office and there will be a new congress. there will be new political branches. let them work out a compromise.

in the epa case and the u.s. attorney firing case, bush was able to expand executive power -- unilateral executive power. again, history and low were not on his side. although bush's claims f were false and contributed to a downgrading of this privilege, there was an impact his time in office will have on executive privilege and his successors. actors will become politically difficult -- actions will make its difficult for other presidents to claim executive privilege. so far, president obama has not made a formalized claim of executive privilege.

he has refused to allow top level policy advisers to testify in front of congress. obama has been uncooperative in a senate committee investigation dealing with the fort. hood shooting. it is resistance even in a current president hu claimed transparency to cooperate with congress. obama's white house counsel even said, we do not want to diminish presidential power. this was a remarkable claim from a president who said he would be open with congress and he would do things differently than bush. this pattern is with my assessment that bush made executive privilege claims politically unacceptable in the short term. the push back on congressional investigations are going to go underground. in the end, it is too soon to

determine which's legacy. he has left presidential -- in the end, it is too soon to determine bush's legacy. he has left presidential power more powerful in the end. thank you. [applause] >> the last speaker is the professor of political science at carleton college. like everybody else, he has written a lot of books about the presidency and various presidents. he asked to be last, assuring me that in eight-10 minutes he could wrap it all of -- 8 to 10 minutes he could wrap it all up and provide a satisfying conclusion to what we have all heard. well, give me some

satisfaction. [laughter] >> thank you for having me. i came through a snowstorm in minneapolis to be here. i want to thank my fellow panelists. they have been helpful to me in the last couple of days. one of my book products has been about theory out how our political system is dysfunctional. they have given me boat loads of information. sunshine, in her comments, she was helpful in describing the relationship between michael targeting and government. that is something i have not developed in my mind before. it is an important link. the growth of presidential power is central to what i want to talk about today. i want to start with a quote from bert. he had a good comment the first

night we met. he said the other night that president often come in wanting big change. as he said, big change on a continuous basis is a mirage. it cannot be done. a lot of modern presidents are haunted by the ghost of franklin delano roosevelt. youa, hink to get a and, yo need a new deal. it was in the second debate with john mccain, barack obama was at, you want to reform health care, you want to reconfigure foreign-policy. can you do this all at once? he said, yes, i can do this all at once. that is what george bush was saying and what george bush --

and what clinton was saying in 1993. president cannot do it all at once, but they often try to do it all at once. i would like to illustrate the difficulties they have in doing it all at once. there is some research i have done on presidential political capital. george w. bush in his first press conference after being reelected said, i have political capital and i intend to spend it. it is popular support for the president and support for the present in the congress. in some of my recent research, i have examined a series of indicators and presidential political capital since franklin roosevelt since 1937. having a lot of political capital is necessary if you are going to bring about a big change on a continuous basis. you need a lot of political capital.

what i have discovered is that presidents since 1965 have a shortage of political capital. lower levels than before 1965 and more variable levels than since 1965. presidents since 1965 have had lower job approval, you work partisans and less voting support in congress, unless approval of their party, and have usually encountered an increasingly adverse public policy mood as they govern. job approval has dropped reflecting greater polarization in presidential performance, which has been discussed here today. the performance of fellow partisans in the public is lower and has become more volatile across presidential terms and presidencies. support for president in

congress is lower and more variable. the number of presidential partisans in the senate has fallen and has become more volatile. presidents have been seeking to accomplish a lot with political capital that is in smaller supply. if you are using fdr as your model, i have news for you. the world has changed since 1965. s haveresident ha discovered has gotten them into trouble. they fall into the presidential power drop. what is the power drop? mitch has already described some of it. while political capital has been shrinking over the last several decades, present powers have been increasing and presidents have been seeking to increase their powers. the frustration of working with

diminished political capital leads you to operate unilaterally when you can with power. the problem -- here is the risk for president -- over reaching, over confidence. it produces disastrous political results for presidents. let me read a little maintaining political capital is hard and frustrating worked for presidents these days. president encounter widespread constraints, push back from congress, course, interest groups, etc. presidents have been grabbing more of the powers, appointments, command of troops overseas, reorganization authority, executive orders, citing statements, executive privilege, why house tsars, all

these things have been developing. the basic calculation becomes this for many presidents. i lost my political capital, my power to persuade, so i will just order things. and clay more powers wherever i can. why not use the power what you have it, the political capital has vanished. when you use those powers, you can destroy a further your political capital. richard nixon's presidency is the signal example of this, i would argue. his assertions of formal power further endangering him and actually ended his presidency. i think jimmy carter took his political capital for granted, and by the time it was gone, he paid a price in 1980. reagan gradually lied on more

political power and i think iran-contra is partially explained by that. george herbert walker bush's popularity dropped by the time he got begun the time he failed to get reelected. bill clinton chronically face the political capital shortage. he later in his term found his powers formerly under attack by congress. his use of work -- bush's use of war powers and iraq helped to destroy a lot of his political capital and produced a very difficult second term. just to talk briefly about bush in this regard, several traits that the panel came up with over the last couple of days that i think contributed to bush was the tendency to burn up his capital and assert his power, a short agenda, absence of follow-

through, and big ambitions. we sort of agreed on most rates. you put that in this situation, and you have someone who is going to be pushing ahead and a certain powers in away that burns up political capital. to me, this is the central political problem barack obama faces. his political capital has already struck. his job approval is not in the mid-40's. in a situation like that, what is the comfortable course? let's assert some power here. i don't have the capital to persuade people. i am going to have to do some unilateral power assertions. i would just leave you with a few questions about this. when does this cycle in? if each president starts pushing for more power, at what point does our governmental system become presidential? i don't think -- i think hamilton would be ok with that,

but i know james madison would not have been okay with that. it is not something foreseen by any of the founders. even hamilton in his wildest vesey's could not have enjoyed this much. can we bring into a cycle were at a political frustration, president's claim more power? i think it produces some unbalance in the national political system. the constitutional implications of this are very large, as mitch was indicating with the unitary presidency. i hope you ask some questions about this and anything else that other people have brought up in the panel. it has been a wonderful experience for me, and we look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you, steve. i clearly am satisfied, for a while, at least. it is your turn.

we welcome your questions. please come to the microphones with questions or requests to discuss something the panel may not have yet put on the table. don't be shy. >> i am an international relations major from argentina. i had a good time listening to your great presentation. my question is, how would you evaluate bush's the link with the arab-israeli conflict? with the arab-ng israeli conflict? >> we know that canada is a good ally for the u.s., but during the iraqi war, it was not an

ally. would you explain that position? thank you very much. >> perhaps i should go first on that second question on iraq. why did canada cannot support the united states in its decision to invade iraq in 2003? it was a very controversial decision in canada. a lot of people were very worried about whether we were doing the right thing by saying no, thanks. in the end, it comes down to a fairly simple explanation. namely, you remember perhaps that colin powell and tony blair were very adamant about

advising president bush that if he was to consider military action, he should do so with a clear united nations security council resolution. that, by the way, was an example when bush listened carefully to powell and decided to take the route of going through the united nations, which cheney did not agree with. at the end, most other countries in the world believed that the united nations security council resolution 1441 required one more step before military action was possible. so when the bush administration felt it could not get the vote on the next step and decided to go ahead with the coalition without united nations security council resolution, canada essentially said if the un is

not part of the road, then we are not on the road. mind you, meanwhile, we had a lot of -- a fair amount of canadians helping underneath the radar. so there was politically -- it was politically impossible for us to contribute openly, but in fact, militarily we were there to some extent. now, you noticed that the next government after the liberals, the conservative government of stephen harper, they realize how sensitive this was, because for a long time, the people in the pentagon would not pick up the phone when we call. that is literally true. i talked to people in the pentagon who told me that this is what happened. so we were quite nervous because we were calling them all the time about stuff, and sorry, called this play is on.

-- call display is on. our conservative government in 2006 said we have to fix this image, so we basically rebuild our army since 2006. we have been serving in afghanistan and there have whatever doubts there were in the american might reject a think we have compensated for its -- i think we have compensated for it by serving beside you and continuing to do so in afghanistan. >> would others on a panel like to comment? arab-on't think the israeli question is a very good one. one of the things we see in president bush, psychologically he does seem to have a tendency toward adhd. he never did quite as well in school as was suggested, and i think the roadmap announced

shortly before the invasion of iraq, for reasons of international politics, i think it was a good plan. i think it needed a lot of american energy from the american president on down and a lot of follow through which the administration did not provide. that is one of those examples of the president coming up with a decent plan with others, but not really bothering to implement it. >> there is also the fact that there is a pop require powerful israeli lobby as well -- a quite powerful israeli lobby as well. i think it is particularly important for the republicans to pick up that segment of the population, of the u.s. population in particular, but

also the evangelical christian population that is deeply committed to israel and to the status quo. >> i am not sure the israeli lobby block the road map. i think there is a lot more to it. >> i think some of the analysts here have noted there is a lack of deliberation at many stages in the bush administration, and i think that carried across also in the international sphere. there was not a lot of coordination with either allies or enemies in the islamic world, as evidenced by just not taking into account some of the historical context in places like pakistan and afghanistan when making decisions about foreign policy. that has also been a problem not just for the administration, but going forward for the american military establishment and the

political system as well. >> other questions? >> thank you for coming in doing this discussion today. would you agree necessarily that during the bush presidency, american foreign policy was characterized by a desire for the u.s. to take on the duties of what some would call a world hegemony while in the obama administration it is the opposite, where they have taken a back seat concerning libya and other issues? with that being said, do you think this trend will continue, and also, will that be good or bad?

>> i can say something because of the word foreign-policy. i do not buy the idea that george w. bush was trying to establish world hegemony at all, nor any oil from iraq, or selling of family vendetta. all those explanations do not cut its. there were some people in the administration that had ambitions about world hegemony, but i don't think they really carried the day with george w. bush. my concern is not with american strength but with american weakness. i think relative american weakness, relative to the radicals out there and the challenges out there, and your economic resources and your fiscal management, the weakness of the united states is a much greater challenge and danger to international relations than too much strength.

i think president obama used great restraint in libya. he has faced tremendous amount of criticism over health care and is under a lot of stress in terms of the deficit and so on. would have been tempting for him to do something in libya to change the agenda, and he showed a lot of restraint. i think that is good, so far. the only vulnerability there is that most of the world, including us, are wondering what does he really believe? what does he stand for? what is the bottom line for him? how does he see american security? what does he think the threats are? we are happy with his restraint, we are happy with his careful, delivered to approach, but we do hope there is a bottom line there somewhere.

>> if i can jump in, i think defense secretary gates made it clear that america is involved in two wars know, and if there is the third one, the defense secretary will resign and lots of other unpleasant things will happen. i think one of the great failings in the administration, and i think it is the adhd quality, president bush likes to style himself after president truman in some respects. something that harry truman did at the onset of the cold war was come together with previously isolationist republicans and make a very coherent case that the soviet union was a serious, long-term global threat. when you face that sort of 10 or 50 or 20 years strategic threat, you cannot face it with one political party. you really have to have something of a bipartisan consensus. after 9/11, there was a moment

when president bush could have done that with the democratic party. i think he was not inclined to and may be many of the democratic leaders were not inclined to, either. had he been able to do that and develop a 20-year strategic foreign policy consensus, our role in the world would be much more secure and our own military and state department have a better sense of what resources they need and how they should make long-term plans. i think that was a great failure. >> among many issues on which the parties disagree is probably also this one. the extent to which the u.s. should be unilaterally assertive or multilaterally involved with the world. i think george w. bush reflected the assertive side of that and i think particularly true when

dick cheney was involved in decisions, i don't think there was any doubt as to where he stood. all of this is also consistent with the notion that being a decider is equal to being highly assertive in terms of the american definition of its involvement in world politics. having said that, 9/11 turns out to be an absolutely critical event, i think, because if you recall, bush campaigned and came into office with actually a rather low profile of what the united states should be doing a broad, much lower than the clinton presidency had. obama, on the other hand, are reflected the democratic party's leadership view, which is you have to pick your fights very carefully. when you do, you ought to bring allies to the table, make sure

that you have a strong coalition. at this point, we were very, very over committed on both the military bases and the budgetary basis. obama has been cautious, careful, and of course the question still stands, which is what if the existing policy in libya fails? what do we do next? what we are trying to do is to get the main nato european powers to step up. the british are also -- also have budget problems and they are going to be spending a lot less on their military as well, so there we are.

>> a lot of the differences that may seem apparent between obama and bush are actually largely rhetorical. no matter what we say is our policy in the world, the u.s. is the hegemonic power in the global system, and that is not likely to change for another 100 years at least. for example, the operations in libya. a lot was made of british and french participation and come to find out, few hours after it all began, that 95% of the missiles had been fired by the u.s. and not the allies. i think it is important to understand that. presidential declarations are not always reflected of the actual magnitude of u.s. presence in the type of environment. >> i think libya is a good example of some of the broader themes that i was mentioning. the president goes into libya militarily without consulting congress in advance, unlike what other presidents had done, at

least notifying the leadership, so that as a power assertion and power projection. congress does not rally uniformly to the president's side. there is big partisan division about that. the public does not rally to the president's side. so it is a power assertion was immediate political cost, and that is my syndrome. >> with obama, there is a clearly different view of the world. if you look at his inauguration speech, he does acknowledge that the large portion of the world has been exploited by colonial behavior, not only of europe but also of america. we are starting to see that in his foreign policy, particularly in how he responded in egypt and even libya. i think we are starting to see that shift. >> i would partly disagree.

it is argued that there are actually six different foreign policies. one where we came in, we have to be modest elsewhere. there was the after 9/11 strike any enemies forever. there was the democracy building one. in the last two years, there was one of relative modesty again, and let's be very careful and incremental. you could argue that president obama is foreign policy is really a continuation of the last two years of the bush foreign policy, including leaving bob gates in charge of secretary of defense. >> tie what bob is saying to what alex said earlier about how bush's processes seem to vary, and his policies seem to vary also in foreign policy.

we have the stereotype that he is the big unilateralist cowboy that it was going to blow up the world. affleck, what is happening, six different foreign policies and varying policy processes, more so than any recent president. we are still trying to figure out why. >> i want to echo steve's point about the constitution and law. we are talking about unilateral presidential power. bushwood into iraq with an authorization to use military force. obama bombs in libya without the consent of congress, without consulting congress, and a few days afterwards, he sends a letter to congress where he mentions the war powers resolution but he does not invoke it. there has only been one president that did invoke it, and that was president ford, but that was after the military action in question. so no president has actually invoked the way the war powers

resolution was supposed to legitimately be exercised. it is surprising that you have a president in obama who said that during the campaign, that he would discuss with congress on an offensive military action, and libya is one. if you are bombing military infrastructure, it clearly calls for at least consultation with congress, as required by the war powers resolution, if not an authorization for use of force as required by the constitution. neither of those were done by obama. >> this is an emergency situation. deliberation is going to mean defeat, basically. not that i am justifying this constitutionally, but this is a dilemma that president's face. are they going to act in a circumstance in which to not act

means that you will in fact have been defeated. >> is this really an emergency situation? congress went on recess, and obama start bombing. he had two weeks' work civilians were being slaughtered. to me it is not an emergency circumstance. even if it was, he had ample time, two weeks, not only to consult the heads of the house and senate but all members of congress, and to seek congressional authorization. this is not as if we are being attacked. it is a stretch to say that what is going on in libya -- and i am not saying that civilian casualties are not something we should be concerned with, but it is not in our national interest to necessarily be the world's policeman, and it does not serve the constitution to not consult congress or seek congressional authorization. is the height of presidential power, what we are talking about.

executive privilege mostly is a domestic issue, but were power is something entirely different. >> obama was spending a good bit of time actually with nato, trying to get their forces to step up in this so that the u.s. role could presumably be somewhat more in the shadows or the background. >> i wish there were -- of which it was in the service of pop -- of some broader, agreed upon bipartisan doctrine. >> bipartisan dark prince require a mitigation -- require a doctrines mitigation. this may be the new normal. if you want a bipartisan foreign policy doctrine, you will probably have to go back to 1950.

>> i want to thank all of you for coming to our campus, but i have a question that is more domestic policy related. we have heard a lot about bush's decision making process, but can we talk about katrina? i would love to hear some insight from the experts about the decision making process there. i don't think it is subjected to say it is an utter failure. as a louisiana resident, i am haunted by it still. i would love to hear your insights and comments on what went wrong there, and how is that the new kind of function of the presidency, to deal with natural disaster in that capacity that becomes racial, economic, and political. >> i am glad someone brought it up. when we look at domestic policy, and even the issue of immigration, that issue and katrina deal with the issue of

citizens' rights. we knew we look at katrina and that failure of the government to respond effectively, what we are seeing is exactly what has been presented in the earlier discussion. we can see in his failure to form a cohesive superi agenda, and in his effort to somewhat change what he viewed as civil rights, with the concept of faith based initiatives, and reversing some executive orders that had been directed towards federal agencies about how to fund federally funded contracts. with hurricane katrina, when we look at 9/11, bush actually expanded his power when it comes to natural disasters as a result of 9/11, with the development of homeland security. so he strengthens his powers, but when we look at the time line of katrina, there is a billiard to understand the

plight of persons who work -- failure to understand the plight of persons who i call marginalized. we saw those marginalized communities and help their need was much larger than it hurricanes that hit florida and other parts of the country. there is an institutional factor as far as how we respond to persons who need government assistance the most? there was also a issue of cronyism. the man had already been weakened institution anyway -- fema had already been weakened institution. to have a disaster such as katrina really showed how ineffective that agency was. the failure does reflect this bubble that we have talked about for the last two days, particularly in who president bush actually spoke to advise and who he did not talk to, his understanding of the issues, and even looking at some of the

documentation about when he received information and how he responded, there does seem to be a perception that he did not have an interest or an understanding even when he was answering questions about the levees, and his response was no one knew that the levees could break. he did know. they were informed several days before the hurricane that the levees could possibly be breached. there again it goes to the discussion about his decision making process and i will not get into a psychological discussion about it with adhd. i will not go there. the barrier government to address institutional factors that contributed to these populations that need more in these situations of natural disasters. >> i think this was an unprecedented disaster and government bureaucracies

generally do not do well with unprecedented disasters. the year before hurricane katrina, the fema director wrote a series of memos about how all it would make the agency less effective. michael brown was looking for another job because he thought it was not going to work. michael chertoff was not an effective leader of the department of homeland security, and yet bush kept him on as a matter of loyalty. kathleen blanco who was not militarily cooperative with the federal response, deserves part of the blame on this. part of this is just the immensity of the disaster. there is a lot of blame to go round. >> in the short term, managing the crisis was not well done.

early 2005 was a bad year for karl rove, because they prefer to try and reform social security instead of immigration. in his memoir, he says i am sorry, we should not have done that. we should have tried immigration reform first and then worry about trying to reform social security. it became a lasting image of him looking out the window. >> the consequences of katrina on public opinion or quite severe. if we were to point to the thing that by the end of bush's term in office really drove democrats and republicans to extremes, one was the iraq war, which was much more gradual of the course of his term in office. >> the iraq war cost two points

and katrina cost 200 points. >> with katrina, it is certainly the case that here was the ifs.nce of bush's what- it is also a function of institutional issues and reorganization issues, and the fact is that in the creation of the department of homeland traditionalma's roles got downplayed. they were not in much of a position to address those. furthermore, there was a lot of blame to go around. the locals and the governor of louisiana, the mayor of new orleans, were not adequately prepared, either. so there was a compound did mess, i think it would be fair to say.

it was not exclusively bush's fault. he suffered a lot for it. he did have some role to play in the failure to respond adequately. >> let's add the army corps of engineers for building that awful levee system years ago. >> there are two particular problems we have not addressed. one resulted in a financial meltdown in 2008, with which we are still living. again, i want to emphasize that is also not exclusively bush's mess that we did nothing to alleviate it, but it was in part the mythology that if we don't regulate financial institutions, they will do everything right anyway. that was a big, big mistake. it is being only partially addressed, much more severely addressed elsewhere than it is here in the united states.

that goes back to the halcyon days of the clinton administration, but it was continued by the bush administration. the second thing is the fiscal irresponsibility of the bush administration. they spent a lot of stuff, the war in iraq, afghanistan, the prescription section of medicare. a lot of spending commitments with no revenue coming in and no plans to bring the revenue in. the big tax cuts, it is kind of interesting to say now, were justified on the grounds that we were a very prosperous economic climate. the money had to go back to the people. it went back disproportionately to the very wealthy, and now the argument is, we are in a

recession, so we cannot have the tax cuts and they are there for two more years. but they were passed only on a temporary basis on exactly the same grounds that obama got the health care act, which was to bypass the usual processes through reconciliation, requiring only majorities. that continues, frankly, to be at the basis of the fiscal mess we are in. it is not just too much spending. that is part of the equation, but it is also too little revenue. we are at the lowest level of revenue in taken about 60 years. -- revenue intake in about 60 years. >> policymakers always learn from history.

something that the failure to win reelection of president george herbert walker bush was never raise taxes. we are an aging society. as the baby boomers are aging, we are working less and requiring more in terms of medicare and medicaid, social security, etc. that is our underlying fiscal dilemma. it is the same as in asia and europe. neither party has done a good job in facing up to it. >> you guys pre-empted what i was going to ask about the economy. that is on the minds of many americans today. specifically in regard to the decisionmaking process behind the bailout and maybe not intervening in the collapse of

lehman brothers. just as overall economic policy from this whole presidency and how you think history will judge that. >> the decision not to intervene in the lehman brothers collapse might have been a crucial one in speeding up the financial collapse, but i think it was the ongoing conventional wisdom that one should not do that, because that is what markets are there to do. so it was not done, and the effect was to spread panic among the investment houses and the banks, and everybody was holding on to whatever money that had, not trusting any other financial

institution. in the end, that probably was a mistake, may be an unavoidable mistake, given the general take on what ought to be done. the bailout, there has been a lot made of that political. i would like you to consider first of all that the proposal -- initial proposal to do the bailouts came from the treasury secretary in the bush administration, hank paulson. it would have been catastrophic. i don't think there is any other word to use if there had not been bailouts of the financial institutions, one could argue about gm and chrysler, although i could say that was pretty important, too. if the argument is you don't do tax cuts during a recession, you also don't do -- don't fail to rescue rescue will industries

during a recession of this sort which would have just further deepen the recession. both administrations, the bush and the obama administration, have their hands in it. they both did the right thing, in my estimation, and we should be grateful that they did. >> let me just talk about the intellectual consequences. a lot of people then assume that bush made it impossible for john mccain to win the election because of the economic collapse. that is not the case, if you look at the dynamics of public opinion during the campaign. people were already riddles -- really settled on candidates. that had already settled on obama in large part because of the state of the economy prior to the actual economic collapse.

in terms of the criticism that bush has heard particularly from tea party types, that he made obama the winner on the basis of his actions during the campaign, there is not in the empirical evidence. >> not bailing out lehman brothers probably was a mistake in hindsight, but there is a serious moral hazard if the message is that if you are too big to fail, we will bail you out. we will get much less responsible behavior on the part of ceos and corporate traders. the second point is, when the bush administration was doing bailout, democrats were in some ways properly appalled. now the obama administration is doing essentially the same bailouts and republicans are appalled. i am kind of enjoying watching all of that happen. >> that brings up polarization

again. one of the things we have to worry about with financial reform is that it has not diversified or deconcentrating the accumulation of financial power in a few houses. that still exist. we still have a whole bunch that are too big to fail. that situation has not been structurally altered. whether it could be is beyond my pay grade. the broader problem of polarization that bob brings up is particularly important going forward for the president. we are facing some pretty momentous decisions this year about the debt limit, about a budget solution for either the short term or the long term. i think many people, myself included, would believe that probably the most effective and perhaps the only likely solution is bipartisan, get we have a blocking system with partisan polarization. i would not design a system like

this to solve a problem. >> to follow up on what steve is saying, we have to remember the subprime mortgage crisis that started all of this. i would agree, you need a bipartisan environment in which you can make pragmatic decisions. here is the united states, one of the world's biggest examples of capitalism, but in the mortgage market, it was a very poor example. here we had fannie and freddie, so you basically had the federal government behind people making very bad mortgage decisions. in canada, for example, or we have a very similar housing market, the banks did not have such a big government back up. they were responsible for the risks they took on mortgages, so they did not want to take the risks that you took. you have to run capitalism with a much more pragmatic form of government.

>> let's take a final question. >> i am an international student here at the university of arkansas studding political science and international relations. i would like to thank you all for coming. my question is centered around elections and the presidency, more specifically to the panel, i have enjoyed the presentations on the elections and the increase in executive power and also touching on the political capital which you all spoke about. how do you think these issues will affect the next presidential election in 20 tell, which will be starting in november -- in 2012, which will be starting in november? i just want to find out from

you, how do you think the polarization will influence the next presidential candidates and president obama going into his second term, and i would like to get your perspective on how you think executive power will increase in the next presidency, and if that will be a negative thing, and finally, concerning -- what remedies can be brought forward? but that is not something that is working in democracy right now, what would be a solution to president using their political capital to be more effective as a president? >> i can pick up on election spurs. we could spend hours talking about the next election and i am sure many of us soon will. at the end of the day, the big question is going to be the state of the economy, and what

are the indicators over the course of the next year? generally speaking, as we look back at history, this pattern of polarization that occurs within the course of a president's term, also tends to accompany an increase incumbency advantage. as the incumbents tend to be elected, whether you are talking about members of congress or president, it is really an exception when a president does not win reelection. there are a number of advantages running as an incumbent. in those cases where you do not have an incumbent winning, that is when we look to extraordinary events like a failed economy, or a failed war effort. there are these uncertainties that certainly make it uncertain

about the outcome, even though on average zero would put my money on reelection. >> obama is an extremely interesting in, and because of the coalition he developed. we have been talking about polarization. part of it will be a racial polarization. when we look at 2008, it was one of the most diverse electorate that voted. if we look at ohio and north carolina, he won because he had an increase of 300% of african- american voters. how do you get that sort of turn out when there is a sense that he has ignored the issues, like the unemployment rate, and then you have the backlash in the sense that he may address racial issues. how do you maintain white

voters on the issue of race and poverty? >> i want to pick up on perl's point. a former student of mine randy obama caucuses in 2008. he met my washing a program students last year. the first thing he said was, that will never happen again. it was unique in my experience as a consultant. there is no way you get the sort of enthusiasm we had in 2008. they sat on the fact that his research firm had been doing a lot of focus groups with young people. what the young people were reporting was, hey, we voted, deal with it. we are done. we voted, that is all done, we are moving on to the next new thing. we are not going to get mobilized for issues and so forth.

i think the obama campaign understands that and they understand it will not be as easy as it was in 2008. the other thing i want to mention is, remembering back to 1980, i new democrats to cross over in the wisconsin primary to vote for ronald reagan because they were sure he would be such a weak candidate in the general election that that was who they wanted. we just don't know what this bill is going to -- we have some sense of what it might look like, but we won't know until the fall. that is a huge imponderable, which makes estimating outcomes very precarious at this point. >> the ultimate implication of the president's increasing unilateral executive action is 535 representatives don't matter on a lot of things in governance.

when presidents can block oversight, when president can block inflammation sharing on public policy making, when they can make public policy and implement public policy in the white house and the executive office of the president, that really speaks of the profound implications of our republic. we were just debating earlier about libya and going to war without authorization or consulting congress. that is with obama. with bush, we have not even talked about the war on terrorism. right after 9/11, bush said that military commissions on his own. bush claims that habeas corpus does not apply in guantanamo. these are profound implications for constitutional republic. there is a new book called " executive unbound."

that is basically what it is, an executive unbound from constitutional law. >> i think we educators have something to answer for because we have tended to encourage a mind-set where we either at day of five or demonize of president -- we either deify or demonize a president. it would be more helpful if the president had an understanding of what the office can and cannot do. >> that does not sound like much of a reelection message. >> i am not running for reelection. [laughter] >> i think the 2012 election is going to be a bit of a struggle for obama. the democrats are probably going to gain some seats in the house, but probably not take the

majority back. i think the republicans have a least a 50-50 shot at taking the senate simply because of the arithmetic there. there are up and more vulnerable seats than the republicans are. keep in mind the polarization has a lot more to do with the activists and people who know more about politics than with mass public in general. that leads to a different kind of question. what do people know? sunshine is absolutely right that the election is going to hinge a lot on the economy. in a very classic book of about 50 years ago, the american voter, recall the character of the times. what is the situation right now?

people are very outcome oriented, not procedurally oriented. they don't know very much about what the authority of the president or congress happens to be. they are not following specific issues very closely unless they happen to be ones that are intends to them, like maybe guns or whatever. the question is that we have in all democracies because of the complexity of our system, an immense distance between what people understand that people in washington can do and what they can actually do. and what is actually going on. that is one of the complications of our political system. it is a very convoluted political system that is very, very hard to understand and to make people accountable for.

>> you have some sense of the difficulty and complexity of the issues we have been talking about for three days now. this discussion will continue and finally result in a book. let me end with the request and an invitation. the invitation goes like this. at some point in the future, come back for act three. we cannot tell you when that will be, but it will be called the fulbright institute blair center study of the obama presidency. i requested that you join me in thanking the panel for what they have done today. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> and nasa is hoping to try again monday to launch the space shuttle endeavor on its final voyage. today's launch was scrubbed because of some mechanical problems. we are expecting a briefing from nasa officials on today's delay of the launch that is set to come up at about 4:00 p.m. eastern. earlier today, president obama and his family had been headed to cape canaveral. they just finished up a tour of the kennedy space center, but there they started in tuscaloosa, alabama. the president in alabama to meet with local officials and tore the damage by the tornado. he is joined by senator richard shelby, the governor of alabama, and the mayor of tuscaloosa. >> michelle and i want to express first of all our deepest condolences not just to the city

of tuscaloosa, but the state of alabama and all the other states that have been affected by this unbelievable storm. we just took a tour, and i have to say i have never seen devastation like this. it is heartbreaking. we were just talking to some residents here who were lucky enough to escape alive, but have lost everything. they mentioned that their neighbors had lost two of their grandchildren. what you are seeing here is the consequence of just a few minutes of this extraordinarily powerful storms sweeping through this community. as the governor was mentioning, tuscaloosa typically gives a tornadic during the season, but this is something i don't think anybody has seen before. in addition to keeping all the

families who have been affected in our thoughts and prayers, obviously our biggest priority now is to help this community recover. i want to thank mayor maddux for his extraordinary leadership. chief burgess is having to deal with a lot of difficulties. one of the challenges is the assets of the city, a fire station that we passed on the way in, police resources and emergency resources have also been affected. fortunately, the governor has done an extraordinary job with his team in making sure that the resources of the state are mobilized and have been brought in here. i am very pleased that we have a fema director in craig few gatfe

who is experienced in responding to disasters of this magnitude. we have already provided the disaster designation is that are required to make sure that the maximum federal help comes here as quickly as possible. craig is working with the teams on the ground to make sure that we are seamlessly coordinating between state, local, and federal governments. i want to just make a commitment to the communities here that we are going to do everything we can to help these communities rebuild. we cannot bring back those who have been lost, but they are alongside got at this point. we can help may be a little bit for the families dealing with the grief of having a loved one lost, but the property damage, which is obviously expensive, that is something we can do something about.

so we are going to do everything we can to partner with you, mr. mayor, and with you, mr. governor. this community was hit as bad as any place, but there are communities all across alabama and across this region that have been affected, and we will be making that same commitment to make sure that we are doing whatever we can to make sure that people are ok. you.hat be is going after d >> where is the secret service when you need them? [laughter] we were talking to college students at the university of alabama who are volunteering to help clean up. that young lady lives here but

was not here at the time of the tornado. i am struck by the way people have come together. that is a testament to the leadership of the mayor and the governor. no matter how hard we may be tested, we maintain our faith, and we look to each other to make sure that we are supporting and helping each other. i am sure that that spirit is going to continue until this city is all the way back. -- he was pointing out that there is a lot of national media down here, and the mayor expressed the concern that perhaps the media will move on in a day or week or month, and folks will forget what happened

here. i want to assure him that the american people all across the country are with him and his community and we are going to make sure that you are not forgotten and that we do everything we can to make sure you rebuild. >> mr. >> mr. president, of like to personally thank you and mrs. obama for visiting alabama. as you fly over from the air, it is not doing justice. i just want you to know how much i appreciate that. we have mobilized the state, we have declared a state of emergency early on, even before the first tornado hit, and then we'd mobilize the national guard the first day. we then asked the president for aid and asked him to expedite that, and they have done that.

i want to know how much i appreciate that, mr. president. we have eight counties across the state that have been hit by major tornadoes. this is probably the worst one, but we have others across the state. you see the same evidence of tornadoes across the state. there are people who are hurting. we have 210 confirmed deaths in alabama, 1700 injured, and number of people missing at the present time. we will continue to worked in a rescue mode, but we are now more in recovery mode. thank you, mr. president. >> we are looking out for you. >> yes, sir. but let me say, i am so proud of our first responders in this state. they have done an outstanding job. our mayor, county commissioners,

the police and fire, they have done great jobs, ems people, great team. now we have the federal government helping. that just shows when locals and state and federal government work together, we can get things accomplished, and that is what we're going to do. mr. president, welcome to alabama, but not under the circumstances. we would like to come back for a football game when things are better. thank you for your help. >> i will gladly come back. >> thank you, sir. >> mr. mayor? >> mr. mayor, mr. obama, thank you for coming today. the last 36 hours have probably been the most trying time in this community's history, but you will see a story written in the years to come and these will be filled with hope and opportunity. since the tragedy began, as been using rahman's 12: 12, "

rejoice in our common hoped," from romans. we will write a story that you'll be proud of across the land. >> thank you for your leadership. we have our congressional delegation here, and i am absolutely confident they will make sure the resources are available to help rebuild. to all the local officials here, i know you have been personally affected, but they will provide the leadership in this community, working with the mayor and governor, to do what is needed. finally, i think the mayor said something profound as we were driving over. he said, what is amazing when something like this happens, folks forget all of their petty differences. you know, politics, differences of religion, race, all of that

fades away when we are confronted with the awesome power of nature, and we are reminded all we have is each other. hopefully that spirit continues and grows. if nothing else comes out of this tragedy, let's hope that continues. so thank you very much, everybody. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> president obama and alabama state officials this morning in tuscaloosa. the death toll from wednesday's tornado is now stands at 318, making it the deadliest twister outbreak since 332 people were killed in march of 1932. the president had planned to attend the liftoff of the shuttle endeavor. he and the first family went to the kennedy space center.

they are there now. and we will take you to the kennedy space center for a news conference that will come up shortly about why the endeavour was scrubbed, why the launch was scrubbed today. we will have that live as it gets underway. meantime, we spent part of the national project we spent part of "washington journal" at the air and space museum. host: we are pleased to be joined by the aeronautics curator at the smithsonian. mr. kinney, give us a brief overview of the air and space museum and what is available, particularly when it comes to people who are interested in seeing some of the artifacts. guest: the museum opened in >> the museum has been opened 35 years and it is the premier repository of air and space artifacts. space, theng about

columbia command model of apollo 11, the freedom 7 capsule, replica of the sputnik satellite. louis and chuck yeager's coat i there,ho broke the speed record in 1947. there are smaller artifacts that document the people, whether they be pilots, manufacturers or pple on the factory floor that build the flights in the 20th century. host: i have been in the museum several times and we have shown our viewers the spirit of st. louis that hangs inside the entry. is that the actual one or a replica? guest: that is the actual. host: how much of it has had to be rebuilt? guest: i would say 100% near original because the aircraft, after making the flight across the atlantic and two goodwill tours across the united states and latin ameca came straight to the smithsonian instition by the efforts of our legacy curator, paul

barber, so as it left that last major tour. host: you said that you have a satellite facility and storage. w many in total do you have? guest: in total, 50,000 artifacts but that includes 300 airplanes and spacecraft, and between the mall locati and the small percentage of what we have on display is at the hassi center. host: where is that? guest: near dulles airport in chantilly, virginia. it is open to the public. we have a parking fee. people can s more stuff. host: there are vines out in front that says the museum is renovating. are you renovating the displays or some of the infrastructure? guest: we're updating the infrastructure, so we're doing bathrooms, walkways,

carping but also doing new galleries. our newest gallery to open, pieers of flight, which opened late last year was a gallery that was already in the museum in 1976 and we reinterpreted it, so it is a new gallery th has new stories, new emphasis for our visitors. host: is the smithsonian getting a space shuttle? guest: it is. host: which one? guest: we're getting discovery. nasa announced we will receive discovery, which is the oldest flying shuttle. it's significant in terms of documenting that story of routine access of space and making spac practical as well as a means to scientifically study the universe as well as the earth. we're really excited. hostwhen are you getting it? guest: dcovery made its last flight earlier in february, early march, and we should be reseffing it in 2012. host: why does it take so

long? guest: nasa wants to study the airframe and how it works in space, so it is a research tomb and the same thing with enterprise, which is in our collection. it takes a lot for under the circumstances to get ready for the shuttle to come to a museum. host: when do you lose enterprise? guest: hopefully it will be a seamless transition. enterprise will leave the hangar and then discovery will come in and take its place. host: our guest, jeremy kinney, the >> bad about midday today, nasa called off the launch of the space shuttle endeavour because of a heater failure. a nasa spokesman said the next

try will be sunday at the earliest. we will find out more. a news conference was set for 4:00 eastern. we're waiting for that to get underway in we will have that live once it starts. meantime, also from "washington journal," your comments on the future of nasa. >> we're going to the space museum located on the national mall between the capitol and is part of the smithsonian's collection of museums which line the mall in this part of washington, d.c. and host: this is one of the newark museum's. america's space artifacts, including argument facts from the apollo and gemini progr programs as well as moon rocks and

many other things. we are going to talk about the future of nasa given today's endeavour flight due to take off at 3:47 p.m. eastern time. we are joined with stewart powell of the houston chronicle who has covered the space program from a waington perspective from years. mr. powell, about $114 billion has been spen on the shuttle program since its inception in 1971. what have we gotten for our money? >> one of the most important things is the sense that we can geto space and back. the technology has enabled us to build a space station, which istill in orbit and there are still astronauts up there today as we speak. it has enabled us to put the hubble telescope up into high altitude to see the cosmos and it has been a platform for arican technology to continue to develop over time. >> as the space shuttle program winds down, this is

the second to last shuttle launch today. what is the future of the space program in genal? >> the good news is that we do have a future for our space program. the bad news is it is going to take a long time to launch astronauts deep into space beyond the orbit that we have been using since 1981, and we're not going back to the moon. nasa projects going to asteroids by 2025, and going to mars' orbit by 20 35, so we're going to he to wait before we see the moon landing excitement that we saw in 1969 but i think we are on a path to get there eventually? >> through what program? >> they have revised manned space programs to prolong them and develop new spacecraft for dee space exploration and new rockets to get us out there, new capsules to project astronauts an enable them to operate in deep space. it will take time before we see that on our televisions

and get the national excitemente have had in the past. >> if are interested in the future of nasa and america's space program, we will put the numbers on the screen. stewart powell has covered the space program for years. again,e are standing in the outside entryway of the space museum on the national mall here in washington, d.c. and our first call our first call, talking about the future of the space program, comes from thomas. go ahead, you are on the line. money and spend a lot of time investinging in research in mars. i wonder why we haven't spent more time going to the moon? guest: well, president obama

decided had been to the moon and it was better to spend our effort on going beyond the moon and the big change he undertook after taking over the presidency was to shift the focus of nasa from returning to the moon, which was the goal under the bush administration, to deep space exploration and extending the life of the space station five years unti 2020. host: president obama is due to be at cape canaveral today, correct? guest: correct. host: will jobs be lobs in the space program because of the end of the shuttle program? guest: jobs will be lost. the decision will come with how much money they can save with systems that looks like an aircraft, flies into space and comes back to what we were using in the '60's, which was a capsule on top of a rocket so there is a change underway but they're

trying to protect as many of those jobs as we can. host: so we're returning to the old apollo rockets with capsules back to landing in the ocean? guest: in the ocean or on land. in the russian program, they land on land. our astronauts come back from the space station on russian capsules, so -- host: we're just a couple blocks from the capitol. who are some of the big advocates for nasa up in the capitol? guest: senators and congressmen from the states with nasa facilities, such as the johnson space center in houston, kennedy space center in florida are very active on this front, because not only do they want to see the technology preserved but they want to see the jobs preserved, so from their perspective, any change in the space program that jeopardizes jobs is a key concern for them. host: our next call comes from paul in illinois. hi, paul. caller: hi. how you doing today? host: good. caller: i am so concerned

that they will not follow up and keep us going in a space program. the space program has benefitted the american people, the world, so much with the technology that gets developed just to get our people up there and back safely, just to be able to live there. it wilbe the downfall of america if we don't continue it, because other nations are vying for it. they're fighting for it. there's even the talk about territorial fights for space on the moon. we need to be there. we have to be there. that's the future of america. with that, we will take the rest of the world with us, too. host: mr. powell. guest: well, i think we're seeing a generational shift the space program. all these artifacts behind us and the shuttle program that is still underway are as a result of the space race against the russians.

now, the next phase of space exploration is going to be multi-national cooperation and i think there is a feeling that we can share the cost and do some of the things that everybody wants us to do, but the usa stamp, the flag and so forth on the spacecraft is just not goin to be there anymore. host: mr. powell, a lot -- what is the public-private partnership? how has that worked? how will that work in the future? guest: it's shifting from the u.s. government spacecraft to take us into space to a blend of u.s. government spacecrafts that are being developed for the next phase while commercial spacecraft are being developed to take care of getting astronauts and cargo up to the space station that's on orbit, and this has been a very controversial transition under the obama administration. the bush administration was very keen on u.s. government spacecraft and didn't support commercial development as much as the obama administration, but this administration has

really pushed forward on this, giving, i think, $6 billion over five years to help these commercial spacecraft companies develop the capability to reach orbit. host: nasa's budget is about $18.5 billion this year. increase, decrease? guest: the bad news for nasa is it is going to be a fla line budget for the foreseeable future. the negotiating point that the administration percves putting up on capitol hill, every budget cycle for the next five years is roughly where we are now. we're not going to see a big increase. we will see a shift of focus within that $18 billion -- more support for commercial, more earth science, less immediate manned space exploration, so it is a shift of focus under the same amounof money. host: from oklahoma, mike is on the line. please go ahead. we're outside the national air and space museum on the national mall in washington, d.c. caller: good morning. why is nasa continuinging as we go farther into the solar

system, and i know we have had lots of unmanned exploration, is it necessary to have humans there? can't we continue our exploreation simply with robotics and non-human craft? thank you. guest: well, this is a debate that has been going on within the scientific community and within nasa for many years, robots versus people. i think there are some capabilities an knowledge that we develop with sending men and women into space. there is additional activities that they can undertake that no amount of robotic equipment can duplicate, but i think it's going to be a bend in the future, both manned and and robotic. host: mr. powell, talk to us about the endeavour aircraft itself. guest: this is one of the last shuttle flights today. there will be one more flight after this in june. the eeavour will be retired and given to one of

the many sites that competed for a retired orbiter. the space shuttle program began in 1981, so many of these spacecraft are very old, but they have been well maintained and i think as a nation we have accepted the risk that these spacecraft can get our folks up and back and i'm sure that's what's going to happen on this flight. host: what's the purpose of today's mission? guest: the biggest goal of today is to get this alpha magnetic spectrometer into orbit which is a device to measure cosmic rays and dark matter that is in space. it is really a physics kind of exploration that is underway with this device. it has been on the manifest for many years. it's been knocked off and i think scientists and astro physicists are excited to see this thing get into orbit. host: next, joe from pennsylvania, you're on the line with stewart powell. good morning to you. caller: good morning to you.

my feeling about nasa is that i think nasa done. when you have multi-national forces put together to for future travel. i don't see britain, france, i don't see anybody else involved with this, and by the way, when the hubble is up there, why can it not take a picture of the moon landing that we have will a long time ago? thank you. host: mr. powell. guest: well, the hubble is taking deep space photography that we have never been able to have access to. we've seen developments in the solar system early in the life of the cosmos that we were never able to see before and i think scientists have really valued the output hubble has provided us a few years ago they went up and repaired it

so it has continued operational life. in the scientific community, it has yielded unmatched results. host: from maryland, peter is on the line. go ahead with your question or commes. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i worked as a federal worker in huntsville, alabama for a while, and i was down there en they had the opening of a propulsion research facility, i guess, outside the marshall space flight center and there is a long hallway of all kinds of different propulsions that they're researching and the most interesting thing i saw there was there was an already-built nuclear rocket that was built back in 1969, and there hasn't been a

spacecraft built around it. in other words, the engine was proven, tested and proven, but a spacecraft was never built, so i thought isn't this really the best way to speed up the times to get to an asteroid or get to mars that you would simply build a spacecraft to go around the nuclear rocket that was already built 40 years ago? thank you. guest: well, there is an effort underway in nasa to develop next generation propulsion. as you watched the shuttle take off this afternoon, you're going to see huge flames and huge power from the solid rocket booster which is essentially designed to get the spacecraft off the earth and out of the hold of gravity. if we can develop something we can put in orbit and then project our spaceaft from there without leavin the earth but having the fuel and the system already on

orbit, it will enable us to get to places like mars or asteroids much quicker. it will expose astronauts to much less risk of cosmic rays and so forth, so i think nasa is definitely looking at the next generation of propulsion. host: when did you start covering the space program and how did you get interested in it? caller: well, i was working for the hearst newspapers in washington covering the pentagon and they offered me an opptunity to cover texas issues in washington for the houston chronicle. i sort of joined the nasa press corps in 2008. it was at a changing period in the space program. we went from the bush era, which was we're going to the moon in 2020, but they didn't provide the money to get there in 2020, to the obama administration, which really has made the most dramatic shift in direction inasa i think since the kennedy era. host: how isit that the space program is spread out

between florida and houston and you've got huntsville, alabama. you have a location here in washington, d.c., et cetera? guest: i think one word -- politics. anytime you have a national program that has widesprd support acrosss the country and capitol hill, you're in a better position to get in the budget fight. houston got johnson space center thanks to linden baines johnson. theennedy space center was created in the kennedy era. huntsville was created when the world war ii groups came over from that's in huntsville where hvy rocket development is underway. i think fromhe get-go they decided to spread the facilities around the country. host: are any other countries operating independently as far as a space program goes right now? guest: well, we have

international cooperation onto space station. i think nasa hopes that will blossom into further cooperation on deep space exploration, but we also have china, india, you know, a lot of other countries trying to develop manned space programs and many people expect a chinese astronaut to be walking on the moon in the next ten years. there won't be any americans up the to welcome them, which i think a lot of people would like to see, but there are other countries looking at unilateral space efforts as well. host: our next call comes from tom in florida. hi, tom. caller: hey, how are you doing? host: good. caller: good. yeah, i've worked down there and also got clearance and i was very impressed with what i saw, and i thought it would change everybody's viewpoint if they got an opportunity to go to huntsville and see what was going on and all of the smart people. that's an understatement --

that work there, and also my nephew worked on the apollo program, which was awesome in its scope and power and size, so i think if we can afford to blow up people and rebuild their countries, we could spend what, $20, $30 billn to put it into good use. thank you. host: thank you very much. mr. powell, talk to us about the international space station. guest: well, it's a program that's been underway -- i think they started building it in 1988. it is a multi-nation space effort. japan is involved in it. there is some question about how much china should be involved in it, but i think it is the platform from which the next generation of space exploration is going to come. we are going to see more countries participate and take a share of the cost, a share of the risk. i think the united states will always be the

preeminent space influence, but i think by spreading the wealth -- strike that. spreadingth costs, we can go further faster than we could on our own. hoy stewart powell is with the houston chronicle and we're talking about the nasa space program in front of the air and space museum and just a few blocks from the capitol,and a few blocks from the washington monument as well. next call for our guest stewart powell comes from michigan. william. good morning. caller: good morning, ntlemen. fascinating. i love this kind of topic. just a couple of comments. to those naysayers out there that say $20 billion isn't worth it, if you didn't have it, you wouldn't have the cell phones that you're talking on to people, computers, and i could go on and on. the future of cancer, too, would be growing and gravity

and crystals and the like. people take a chill pill. this is one of the best investments you can make. i agree with the gentleman that is with you there, si. private industry sending up space modules you will have private corporations with their own modulesoing research and companies like space x will suit them up. the cost will go down for a human to get up there. virgin atlantic has trips for $200,000 and i wanted to ask your guest, sir, what does he think we're coming out of the jet age now and at the beginning stages of the rocket age. i don't think that most americans or most human beings on planet earth realize the fantastic time that we're living in and i'm really looking forward to when i can take a ride and i also want to comment about the space station putting up a module t research

artificial gravity. thank you for taking my call. host: mr. powell. guest: well he had many questions, some of which i hope to answer. the key debate that we have seen since the space program began is what benefit does it give us here on earth? there is always the quest for knowledge and to push back the frontier of knowledge, but i think nasa argued that they have generated a lot of contributions to medical society both in medical science and in other areas. that's the kind of debate we will see as we push deeper into space and continue to spend money on the national space program. host: what is due to launch in june and what is the purpose of that program? guest: the atlantis, the last shuttle due to launch in june is a final supply run up to thenternational space station before thend of the shuttle program, and at the end of that period, we're going to be reliant on the russians to get us to space on the soyuz capsule,

which has a much smaller capacity and it can carry, you know, it carries fewer astronauts and fewer pounds of cargo, so for the period before we develop the next generation spacecraft to replace the shuttle, we're going to be relying on the russians. host: the museum of air and space is just opening and students and other tourists are going through security to see some of america's space and aeronautic artifacts. ere is lunar rock that you can actually touch inside the air and space museum. patrick, new jersey. good morning. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i have heard a few callers likely listening saying we don't have the money to pay for this. i think we can pay for nasa with a small cut out of defense, which is easily

taken in way over budget but i think they should start their focus on energy where the discovery channel has done showings that solar panels put into the, like stratosphere or higher can actually provide solar power. many countrys, the amount of solar energy produced in one day can power the united states for an entire year, so i think that all we need is funding to be able to get up there and also to, i think there will be a lot of international interest that will be moving in that direction. your thoughts? guest: well, i think we are at a phase where we're going to be developing scientific knowledge in the kinds of areas that you're talking about. i think it struck me that we went to the moon in 1969, and the last astronaut

walked on the moon in 1972. if you go back in time, christopher columbus came to this country in 1492. it wasn't until the 1700's that they developed a thing to use at sea where they could understand longitude. they sort of advanced scientific knowledge after they had land essentially in the western hemisphere. at is the kind of thing we're going through. we're filling in some of the blanks on some of this scientific knowledge with the next phase of the program, and there is not going to be dramatics and we won't see it on t.v. and there won't be as many artifacts as there are behind us, but we are at a phase that is very important for advancing the understanding of space and how we fit in. host: beth from new york, you're on the line. guest: i'm thinking of the movie project x and the defense and nasa have tied together. basically an ounce of

prevention is worth a lot more than $6 trillion in research to save the planet, so it is a bogus argument to spend $6 trillion on nasa to help our gas guzzling ways but be that as it may, i will go back to my first point. i've heard from quite a few sources that they're going to start shooting monkeys into outer space. you mentioned deep space exploration, and that the head female doctor head of research at nasa quit over this because the obama administration signed a waiver because it's coidered animal cruelty, and again, it's going to be a $6 trillion thing to study radioactive effects on monkeys. i'm hoping that project is going to be tbs continued. does he know? guest: i don't know about that specifically program but i think the debate we will have will balance the needs here on earth with the goals of advancing human

knowledge in space. host: but you have heard thing about more animal in space? guest: no, i have not. host: when is the last animal that was sent into space? guest: with the mercury program they sent up chimpanzees and the russians sent up dogs. this was early on before they had any sense of how spacwould affect individuals, so to my knowledge, nasa is not sending animals into space at this point. host: bill in washington, we are talking about the future of nasa and america's space program. you' on the air. caller: hi, how are you doing? i have a question i wanted to ask but i have a comment real quick. a couple seconds ago you said we will depend upon the russians to get into space, and i can't help but think what americans in the eisenhower and kennedy era would have thought if they heard that statement back then. i had a physics professo in the '90's that if they would

build an observatory on the far side of the moon it would make the hubble lescope obsolete overnight s that true? guest: you're beyond my pay grade on that point. i don't see how that would compare to the hubble. host: what was the purpose of president bush saying we want to return to the moon? what was the goal? guest: i think we have to see it in context. he made that statement and laid out the blueprint for going to the moon moon by 2020 after the columbia accident in 2003 and this was to revive the space program and revise the justification for the shuttle program in the wake of losing a second shuttle and the lost of seven astronauts. host: how many shutts have been lost? guest: two, the challenger in 1986 and columbia in 2003. we lost 14 aboard shuttles

and three in the early stages of the apollo program in florida in a fire on the launchpad. host: six were built in total, correct? guest: ok. host: so that leaves endeavour and atlantis still active. guest: right. host: where are the other two locateed? guest: the enterprise was built as a mockup to test the ability to test the shuttle on top of an aircraft and they used it to test the imct of damage on the tiles, on the heat tiles, which is going to the intrepid museum in new york. this is a political political controversy, of course, the intrepid museum in new york would get former shuttle. houston, of course, wants one and didn't get one. we're hearing a lot about that in houston. host: where is endeavour going? guest: i forget where each individual one is going. one is going to los angeles,

and one is going to new york, and one going to the air and space museum here in shington and one to the kennedy space center in florida. host: and the mock up is at the air and space satellite facility at dulles airport. guest: and they will move that to the intrepid museum on the hudson river. host: next call comes from mike in ohio. caller: $20 billion is nothing compared to the money we have put out to get out of the holes we have dug. if we go to private companies, we will losing everything. look at russia and mess they're n they're still trying to climb out of the mess that they created themselves. i feel that $20 billion could be easily gotten if we audit the government, get rid of all these czars we have that are controlling us we can't lose the race.

i mean, so many experiments and everything have been created as far as doing experiments in space for here in america. what can we do? guest: there is no race in space anymore. it is what got us into space in the beginning in the '60's in the space re against the russians. that's really over. we've won that race. now we're moving into the next phase where there wl be multi-national efforts sharing the cost among many naons, and you know, there's a lot of political heartburn about relying on the russians to get our astronauts and our cargo up to the space station that we built, butn reality, you know, we are praying the russians for those seats on the soyuz capsules and the russians have been cooperating with us since the mid 1990's when there were dockings between the shuttle and their myrrh space stigs much we're in

the next phase which is collaboration in space. host: do you know the status of richard branson's space tourism proposals? guest: there is a lot of he effort by entrepreneurs to provide this opportunity and to make money from this process. i think what we're going to see more immediately is things like space x and so forth developing spacecraft that can reach the orbiting space station an resupply it and get our astronauts up there and we are now turning to t commercial spacecraft in much in the same way we turned in the early 1900's to federally support its mail carriers to help sustain and get the airline industry underway, so we're subsidizing the development of these spacecraft and think that's what we will see before we see a lot of space tourism. host: stewart powell is our guest. the space program is our topic. we are in front of the air and space museum on the national mall just a few

blocks from the capitol, a w blocks from the washington monument. the air and space museum opened in 1976 is part of the smithsonian museum's collection of museums which line the mall in this area of washington, d.c. eric in maryland, good morning. caller: good morning. my question for mr. powell is that he made a statement concerning this is the biggest shift in the space program since the kennedys, and it must be a shift backwards because ere we're going is nowhere and it's a shame. host: do you have something to add? caller: i was waiting for his comments. ho: thanks for calling. guest: we have to distinguish between a destination, which is what we're used to, going to the moon, a goal set by kennedy, a goal we met in 1969 and

finished completing in 1972. we have to distinguish between the broader areas now, deeper space exploration, better understanding of the universe. they're softer goals than landing at a destination, and i think it's an adjument for many of us who came up with the space program and saw what happened as a result of it. my daughter, for example, you know, she's not going to see the kind of gee whiz television coverage of the astronauts landing on t moon that we saw, but she may benefit from the effects of the kind of exploration and scientific developments that are taking place at the space station and hopefully at the next generation of space exploration. host: stewart powell, have you been to cape canaveral for a launch? guest: i have never seen a launch. host: have you been to the control room in houston? guest: i went to cape naveral and kennedy space center when obama went down

there to deliver his speech, the turn in the road for his policy and they have a great visitor's center at kennedy spac center. host: president obama is due to be at the launch along with gabrielle giffords, wife of the captain of today's endeavour flight, mark kelly. new york, matthew. caller: hello. good morning. how are you? i just had a question that i would like to think into the future rather into the immediate quandarys, if you will, but nano technology and nano materials in relation to building an orbit and to our existing space station, is that being taken seriously by nasa or anybody in the scientistic field? host: why does that interest you? guest: ahur c. clark brought this up a long time ago and from what i have read in my own little interests, it seems to be a very economic way to get us

into orbit. we could get into bypassing rockets and needing all the monies to blast us out of orbit, we could take these space orbits based on lasers or devices that use a lot less energy and to zoom us up into orbit and to a space station it is connected to and from there we could go to mars or anywhere, really, but as long as we're outside of the earth's gravity, we have all these processes are a lot easier, from what i understand. host: mr. powell. guest: well, the goal is to get on orbit where we can launch to deep space exploration. as i understand it right now, we're still relying on rocket power to get us into orbit. the question is what the next generati of space propulsion going to look like that we can launch from orbit and i think that is still being developed. there is a lot of different efforts uerway. in the short term, we will use rockets to get into orbit. host: from florida, alex.

caller: good morning. hello. yes, i have a question for you in regard to american media talking about the russian space program, in particular, i hear a sense of hostility but tend to diminish it. my son works for the russian space program d showed me proof where in regards to the space station all they say about it is the american basically space program and russia, which has one and a half times space in the space station, and more complex equipment was built by are russia is there is

annoyance by that as we peek, i'm sure you know, in russia, german, french, dutch, chinese, in russia, under russian leadership, preparing to go to mars. it's a long process, but there is no united states. in the united states, you speak about an international under american leadership. what is that? hello? host: alex, i think we got your point. stewart powell. guest: well, the reality is we are going to be parter inning with the russians no matter what we do in the next phase of our space exploration and our activies on the space station. i had not heard of any

independent efforts to get to mars by any country. it's not feasible. it's too costly. when and if we get to mars it will be a multi-national effort involving the united states and other partners in the long haul to get there. it's going to take a long time. there will be a lot of are risks. there will be a lot of studies. when we do it, it will be an international effort from earth to the next planet. host: stewart powell, does the military still have a strong interest in space exploration? guest: a strong interest in exploration and satellites, launches and service nasa is a civilian space agency. the air force handles the launches of military satellites into space and so forth. the shuttle has been used in the past for secret missions to get satellites into space, but we are going to continue to see this divide between civilian space and military space.

host: with the demise of the shuttle program, what is going to happen to the johnson space center, cape canaveral, et cetera? guest: there are going to be job losses at these locations because of the shuttle program. host: they'll still be out liesed? guest: they'll still be out liesed. houston is where mission control is and the where the astronaut corps is trained and where the managed ograms for spacecraft are managed in houston. johnson space center has a promising future in a downsized space effort and a prolonged space eort but i think many of these centers will continue to have a role, just at a less robust vel. host: about 7 million visitors a year come to the air and space museum here on the national mall, a couple blocks from the capitol, a couple blocks from the washington monument. it opened july 1st, 1976. sally, west virginia, good morning. you're on with stewart powell of the houston chnicle. >>

guest: good morning. i'm calling with the perspective of how many people we are going to lose, how much intellectual capacity we are going to lose with the downsizing of nasa, and i find that really disturbing that -- excuse me. i'm so nervous. anyway -- guest: that is a good point. the intellectual capacity that could be lost, the challenge that we face is developing engineers and so forth that can deal with the space demands and develop the hardware and the technology and so forth that we are going to need to get deeply into space. if there's not a space program that's well funded and seems to be robust and going somewhere, a lot of kids are not going to go into those areas of study

and they're going to choose other careers, and so when we do need the cadre of engineers and so forth, they may not be there, and so i think that's a real concern, but there's so many diverse areas now for exploration and for scientific development that i think kids coming through the school systems and the universities and so forth, i thin they're going to find plenty of related fields that will be useful in the future of our space programs. host: i want to return to a topic we touched on earlier, though, the difference between manned and unmanned space programs. is it important that they be manned? gut: i think there are some things that they can achieve with manned spacecraft, and they're willing to risk the lives of astronauts to achieve. i think we've seen a phase where with the reduction in space flights we' seeing more reliance on remote

sensors and remote robots as they go into the deep space exploration, and our ability to harvest that information has gotten a lot better so i think we're going to see a blend where we do use manned spacecraft and manned missions for some things and we use robots and other devices for other things. host: charles in virginia. caller: yes, i agree that the larger satellites and probes into space is the best thing we have. i wouldn't be watching decent television right here, but i'm really disappointed with what's happening, because i was disappointed when they got rid of the mercury program. i thought that the mercury program -- i wish you would comment on that. i wish the mercury program had been kept in space becae i'm thinking that it was better but it had so

much politics involved. thank you. guest: that's a good question. the when the mercury program developed it was in the teeth of the cold war. we were racing the are russians to get into orbit and from that, we built th gemini program and the apollo program that eventually took us to the moon, again in the context with a space race with the russns, who was going to get to the moon first. the situation now is such that we're not racing the russians to get anywhere. we're all on the space station together. we're getting there together. we're coming back together, and i think that, you know, the next generation of space exploration and development is going to be a multi-national effort that we all share in. host: now endeavour which is due to take off this afternoon at 3:47 p.m. eastern time with president obama at cape canaveral watching, the first launch since 1992. caller: i have two topics i would like to bring up.

one is intelligent properties. thunited stas government has developed many, many ideas and everything in their space program, and when private companies develop intelligent properties, they protect those, that information, and laws to do that. why can't the united states do that get some income from it? that's one topic. another topic is using the space program for political reasons. i'm concerned that one of the main reasons we lost the space program is because it was viewing the earth and

had gaining information, adequate unsubstantiated information about obal warming and the effect that it is having on the planet, and so -- host: that's two topics, larry. thank you. stewart powell, first of all, the benefits to corporatns. guest: the commercial spacecraft companies will see intellectual propeies as they develop spacecraft to reach orbit and that's part of the incentive of developing this is that they have something they can sell and hold on to. i'm sure that will be worked out between the companies d nasa. the global warming question, have we learned about global warming because of the space program? absolutely. that's one of the reasons that we're seeing a shift in the space program with the greater emphasis by the obama administration on earth, science and

monitoring the impact of global warming on the earth and trying to come up with better scientific knowledge and understanding of what is going on. that's a clear result of the space program and the obama administration's emphasis on that i a part of the $18 billion we're ending a year on space. host: the estimated cost of a space shuttle mission, $450 million permission. robert in georgia, you're on with stewart powell of the houston chronicle. we're talking about the future of nasa. guest: you mentioned a few minutes ago that your daughter may not be able to see the miracle of a human walking on the moon or an american walngn the moon, but she might be able to see an american walking on the bottom of the ocean, if we could change our priorities, because it seems to me that you mentioned 1492, columbus discovered america and since then, we have only explored roughly 3% of our oceans. the priorities should be the

oceans. thank you. host: that's a really good point. there is obviously a community in the government and a community in the ademic world that shares your point of view. 133 space shuttle missions have taken off from cape canaveral and c-span will be live at 3:47 p.m. eastern time when the endeavour is due to take off. our next call comes from john in new jersey. hi, john. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i would like to chime in on what the last caller said that we know more about space than we know about our own oceans, and there is plenty more life here on earth than in theolar systems that we study. thank you. host: appreciate your comment. guest: we have the national oceanic administration, which i think is the focus on scientific research in the oceans, but this is a

debate we're always going to have about whether we explore the oceans or explore space, and it is the balancing act and obviously space has won the edge at this point. host: over the yars, how often has nasa been a political football or politically controversial? guest: for a long time we were bipartisan program that enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle on capitol hill. as this change has taken place under obama with the shift of focus from destinations to science essentially, i think there's been more of a strain wiin the bipartisan cooperation, and we've seen republicans who are very keen on spacecraft fight to protect spacecraft and we've seen some democrats fight and emphasize science and more support for the science.

host: a call from david in florida. caller: hello. a very good question about why you didn't point the hubble telescope at the moon to prove you really went there, because all the films of the moon are very fuzzy. then you said you had 400 clear tapes but you couldn't find them. have you ever found those 400 clear tapes to prove that you actually went to the moon? guest: i'm one of those people that believes we went to the moon. host: what is neil armstrong doing these days? guest: he became involved in the debate about the shift in direction for nasa and it was a rare moment when an icon of the space program essentially challenged the direction that the president was taking. there were other astronauts also, neal certainen who had been the last man to walk

on the moon and wanted them for focus toward later deep space exploration, so he is living a quiet life and by design avoiding the spotlight. host: he really has. some of the other astronauts have been out there. guest: that's right, yeah. host: last call for stewart powell from the houston chronicle comes from russell in california. caller: good morning, gentlemen. how you doing today? host: doing well. how you doing? caller: great. my question is t curiosity of in the past the shuttle has had to push the space station back into its orbit because it is slowly falling back to eah. when the shuttles get retired, what and who is going to be responble to push it and maintain it in orbit as the gravitational pull drags it back to earth in slow way? guest: the international

space station has maneuver ability and i presume that the calculation is that they can manage any kind of slow descent from the space station and don't need the shut toll do it. host: what is the future of the shuttle program? what do we spend? guest: we spend $100 billion. the obama administration said instead of crashing it into the ocean in 2016, which was the plan in the bush administration, they extended it five year to 2020 t try to use that as the base for the exploration and scientific knowledge that we would achieve had we gone back to the moon, so the space station is alive and well until 2020 and there is even talk depending on where it is then, they might even extend it beyond that. host: is someone going to inhabit it at all times?

guest: yes. host: how many are up there? guest: i don't know but they have had as ma as 6 or 7 at one time. host: nasa released thousands of photographs from the hubble telescope. have you looked at those? guest: i have not. host: what is the status of hubble? guest: it is operating thanks to a shuttle mission two or three years ago when they went up and repaired it. host: do we know where it is? guest: guest: it is a very high orbit. the orbit it is in has a lot of space debris. that is always a challenge managing the space debris making sure it doesn't collide with the hubble. host: is the issue of space debris something we have to address? guest: absolutely. within the last months, astronauts had to g to the rescue capsule onboard the space station to. >> wade the passage of space debris. they calculated that it would come too close. it ended up going in a different direction. there is a lot of space debris from destroyed

spacecraft. there was a chinese and anti-satellite test in 2007 that left a lot of debris up there. when the shuttle mission went up to support the hubble, the shuttle went to support the hub 8, it was -- the hubble, it was one of the most dangerous because there was so much debris at that time. host: we appreciate you spending nearly an hour this morning in front of the air and space museum on the mall in washington, d.c. guest: my pleasure. host: as we continue our discussion about the future of nasa and america's space program in just aminute, we're going to talk with one of the curators here at the air and space museum to hear about what is new at the museum, what is available for visitors, et cetera, but we want to continue to take your calls analysten t your comments about the futurof nasa and america's space program. seth in georgia, you are on the air. what do you think? caller: i think everything is great, but i want to ask quick question. wouldn't it be better if we

sent 50 million aricans to mind the kuiper belt? it seems to me that that's where our economy should be pushing and it would solve almost every problem we have in america with our economy, putting american people in outer space at a rate of 50 million using a space elevator thathey talked about before and to mind the kuiper belt? host: appreciate your comment. we will leave the question as a rhetorical one. robert from west virginia. you are ron-span. caller: hi. my question is more toward the interest of investigating more on the anti-gravity and artificial gravity aspects of nasa. will they continue or are they investigating these programs? host: sorry, our guest has left. we won't be able to find that out.

at least we won't be able to find that out from strew art powell, and -- from stewart powell and as we continue live from the air and space museum, we're now pleased to be joined by jeremy, the aeronautics cure ater here at the -- curatort the smithsonian institution. give us a quick brief overview of the air and space museum and what's available particularly when it comes to people interested in space and seeing some of the artifacts guest: the museum opened in 1976, so for 35 years. it is the world's repository of air and space artifacts. downtown on our mall on occasion we have 110 major artifacts that include -- you lked about spac the columbia module, apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon, john glenn's capsule, a replica of the sputnik satellite and artifacts from charles lindbergh and spirit of st. louis and chuck yeager's coat is there, who broke the

speed record in 1947. there are smaller artifacts that document the people, whether they be pilots, manufacturers or people on the factory floor that build the flights in the 20th century. host: i have been in the museum several times and we have shown our viewers the spirit of st. louis that hangs inside the entry. is that the actual one or a replica? est: that is the actual. host: how much of it has had to be rebuilt? guest: i would say 100% near original because the aircraft, after making the flight across the atlantic and two goodwill tours across the united states and latin america came straight to the smithsonian institution by the efrts of our legacy curator, paul barber, sos it left that last major tour. host: you said that you have a satellite facility and storage. how many in total do you have?

guest: in total, 50,000 artifacts but that includes 300 >> we are going to breakaway from this and take you live to the news conference following the scrub of the flight of the endeavour. >> president obama was here, and he has just left as we have seen. >> here is our director. the chairman of the mission management team and manager of launch integration for the shuttle space program, mike moses. and our launch director. >> good afternoon. >> we will begin first with bob. >> thanks, george. well, obviously, we would have very much loved to have seen endeavour lifting off this

afternoon, but that wasn't to be the case. i would much rather be on the ground wishing i was flying than in the air wishing i was on the ground. safety always comes first. these guys will talk about the issue that we had and our plan to trouble shoot it. but in spite of that, even though we scrubbed, the president continued with his visit to the kennedy space center with his family. i think he really enjoyed it, and i think his family dfment he arrived on time and got a great tour of atlantis with janet. he came over to the l.c.c. and met with the crew. the crew is in great spirits. he had a long conversation with them, and then he met with the crew families and talked to some folks along the way as he was touring the facilities. he was extremely supportive of what we were doing. he wished he had seen a launch,

too, but he promised to support and told us to look to a good future. a lot of times we talk about this transition space shuttle to the future, and it is really difficult. he understands it is hard with folks that are losing their jobs, but we are going to focus on doing bigger and better things. and in order to work on a program that is going to take us beyond other home planet again, unfortunately the shuttle is going to come to an end. i think that we are going to have a good future as we enable commercial space and building a large vehicle that is going to take us beyond our home planet. we are going to make that happen. it is going to work, and the reason is his going to work is because of the tremendously talented work force we have here at the kennedy space center and within nasa. i think it was great that he came down today. i think the family really

enjoyed the visit. hopefully we can lure him back for another launch in the future, at least get the family back here. when it's right, we will get endeavour off, and hopefully that is not in the too distant future. noah the mean time, the crew is standing quarantine. they will be occupied here for the weekend. their families will stay with them, and they will have some time together, and we will fly when the time is right. i will let the two mikes cover that. >> thanks. let me back up and start with an amazing job by the team to first get us to the position to be ready to tang. last night when we left, the weather front was supposed to hit us around 7:00 p.m., and it didn't hit until much later. his team did a great job getting it done. we had an on-time tanking this morning.

the team did what they could in working ahead and had a plan to execute when the weather cleared up. that is a great example of what the team here at kennedy could do. it look like a good day to tank. we had a few things to keep us talking. there was a leaky hydrogen fill line on the m.l.p. one of the regs was running higher than it should, and we had to bleed down that pressure. then we had the p.a.u. heater problem. the a.p.u. stand for the auxillary power unit. that spins a turbine which pumps hydraulic flew around the orbitter. we had a problem in one of the heaters on the fuel line.

the fuel is hydrozine. when you get in orbit, if you can't keep the heater on, your fuel could freeze. then you could face a rupture problem. leaking hide scene is a problem because when you get back in the atmosphere, it immediately catches on fire. in this particular system, there are two heaters on this a.p.u.-1. both of them are required for operations so that we do have the redundancy because if you did lose your last heater while you were still in orbit, you wouldn't have time to change it. had this occurred once in orbit, the crew would have evaluated, and the ground crew would have vaulted.

we may have run it periodically to keep it warm. with space station restrictions and shuttle restrictions, we can't maneuver where we wanted to. so we would have burned it to did he pletion and not worried about it. loss of a single a.p.u. would not have meant a mission termination. had we not caught this prelaunch, it would have been an ok day. but it is a really good thing to catch it because now we can fix it with full redundancy. mike will talk to you about what signature we saw and what we will have to do to trouble shoot. >> it was a pretty straight forward scrub today. the team made a very good call. we talked about it for about the right amount of time, and then we talked more to make sure we had all right understanding of the system.

and more importantly, while we were sitting there, you get almost a free orbit check out because you have the cold hydrogen in the aft department. we wanted to make sure there weren't any other trouble shooting steps to do. we didn't have that, and so mike made that scrub call, and it was a really good one at the right time. now we are in a recovery plan. i will let mike that you can to you about that plan and what that means in terms of the range and schedules. we look like we have a good shot to keep trying here. there is an atlas scheduled for launch on the 6th. so our last possible launch attempt would be wednesday the 4th. they look like they are still in good shape. we will keep tabs on them. if we had to go on the other side, we would come back around the 8th or 9th. that wouldn't be good dates

from the shuttle's perspective. we don't want two events on top of each other. we can allow the 25 to undock. we would probably move to the 924 -- 9th or 10th. we will have to do some homework and talk to the russians. we still think we have a good shot in front of the atlas. with that i will stop talking. >> mike mentioned how well the launch did -- lauren team did over-- the launch time did overnature. it was probably the latest we have ever rotated the r.s.s. and go to tanking on time. we started talking about the a.p.u. issue this morning about

9:00. when the fuel line chilled down, the sternum stat that controls the heater didn't come on, didn't command the heater to come on. it is much like a thermostat in your home. when it is cold and you want the heat, the thermostat kicks on the heater. that didn't happen. there wasn't much trouble shooting we could do while we were still in e.t. load. we had to get back in the crew module and command the heater on from the crew module itself. we had to make sure until we are done with the e.t. load and get the crews into the ship and do the next part which was to command it on from the module, and that didn't work. then we knew we had a problem with the thermostat or the heater. we did some talking. as mike said, we talked about it for a couple of hours on whether we could get comfortable with launching like

that. this was a pretty straight forward scrub. we declared the scrub at 12:16 today. the team got into the drain operation off the external tank. it takes us 24 hours to fully drain the tang. there is a little bit of hydrogen left in the tank that has to boil off, and then we inert the tank with helium. tomorrow afternoon already the first time we can go in the orbitter in the after the. we have to get our hand on the fuel line and the thermostat and heater to really see what the problem is. so access is absolutely required. that will happen tomorrow afternoon. trouble shooting involves taking a kind of mist and see if we can force a lower

temperature on the thermostat and have it kick on. if that works, then we may have a thermostat that is out of kilter, and we could replace the thermostat and be in good shape. if it is more than that, it could be in the load control assembly, which is basically a box of switches. if there is something wrong in that box, and we have to challenge out that box, that is a much extensive job and would take us longer to do that. but we are not there yet. we will get in and check the heater and therm staff itself. we are still on the easy path, we are on track for monday morning. so that is the path we are on now. i have a launch team meeting tomorrow evening to see how the trouble shooting is going, and then another meeting sunday morning to see what transpired over night saturday night with further trouble shooting.

>> that is where we are right now. unfortunate for team endeavour and crew. i talked to mark while in the astro van. it was funny how the timing worked out. the crew was ready to proceed to the pad, and we weren't ready. i talked to them and told them what was going on, and they understood. shortly after that we scrubbed, and they came back to their crew quarters in the operations and check-out building. so a disappointing day for team endeavour and the astronauts. but as we always say, we will not fly a machine until it is rea. that's it. >> we will take questions now. be sure to give your name and affiliation when we call on you and the mic comes to you. we start in the front with

marcia. >> two quick questions. if it becomes more inevasive, are you even going to be able to make the first try on or side of the cabana cut out. did you meet with congresswoman giffords, and any interaction you may have had from her? >> we have a couple of days in there to do a little more troubling shooting. we haven't given up on launching before the atlas, certainly. that is still a very viable option. if we have to change out the control box, that is significant, and the retest on that box is extensive. a full two days retest. that would probably have to dreyfuss doctor drive us --

drive us to after the atlas. >> i didn't get a chance to speak with congresswoman giffords, but i understand she is doing well. >> when you heard it was a heater problem on an a.p.u., did you know there were only a limit number of roads you could go down and that you would have to call it a day? >> i would say if the first hour or hour and a half. but we get to know the osh terse well. while we were talking about a potential way out of the violation, we just weren't going to get there after an hour or so. mike wanted to be fully convinced that we exhausted all possible options. that is why it took a while to get to the scrub decoration.

>> it looked like one heater on a line was failed. if that is the case, the rest of the line can keep the thermal mass. if that was the actual failure case, we could work our way through problem. one we let it sit and chill down, we found it was the actual string of heaters along that line, and there wasn't much to do at that point. >> mike, the a.p.u.'s on the other two were working properly with no glitches. so any testing done, you are going to work on the one a.p.u. only, that is the bad one, making the assumption the other ones are fine? >> that's right. the other a.p.u.'s were working perfectly. it is just that one. >> let's come over here.

>> a couple of quick questions. first off, are you tied to atlantis? are we in that day for day trade-off in terms of hitting atlantis' schedule? i thought you were earlier discussions were saying you had problems with both strings of hitters? wouldn't that lead to not a single point failure? >> on the atlantis launch date, they are not yet directly tied one to one. we new we could go to the other side of atlas and probably a week or two before we run into problems. the longer poll is s.r.b. stacking, and that is behind us. at some point we start to bump, but i know we don't intend to have problems with the next one. we intend to decouple atlantis

around endeavour so we could get that done around endeavour. we were mostly looking as landing and staying in orbit a couple of days. they were decoupled. on the heater question, it was multiple heaters on string b that were gone. what you preeble saw, stu, they were supposed to ground power we could feet to that string and on board ship power. we were switching between having to wait to get into the cockpit to see if the problem maybe was on the ground side, and it turned out not to be. it was on the chip side. >> the thing that was maybe a little confusing listening to it, those four heaters, one of them comes on as a higher temp

than the others. so the one that didn't come on, and so we know something that is wrong with that one. then another one comes on, but it is flakey. so it is probably the case where that feed to the whole string is off, but we are just not sure yet. >> if you had to remove and re place the l.c.a., how many days or shifting would that take? i was also wondering if you might clarify of the unusual turn of the astro van into the parking lot of the l.c.c.? it sounds as if that was done so the crew could caucus with you. is that the way that went? or why exactly did they pull into the l.c.c.'s parking lot?

>> the astro van issue, i can talk to them at any point in their travel. we let them start coming out to the pad because we needed a few more minute to wrap up our discussions. northwesting the way this was going to go, by that time we weren't going to let them inside the blast danger area. at that point we said we are done with our discussion. it was happen stance they were at the l.c.c., and that is just the way it turned out. >> the l.c.a. box chout, the guys are working on a detailed plan. that is going to be a difficult box to change out, and in particular the retest. there is a good 48 hours or so retest because there are multiple systems that go through that guy. so we have to lay out a detailed plan. that would take us a couple of extra days at least.

>> for both of you. any time you go into the a.f.t. compartment, it is a hazard to make sure you get in and get out and not damage anything. how much access do you require, and do you have spare parts for the parts in question. >> access is on the left side of the ship. we only have to go in the left door of the after the. we will put one from the upper location, and we can do all repairs from that entry location. spares are not a problem. we are in good shape. >> i was hoping you could clarify the history of this kind of issue. how often has this come up? has it happened in the past? . >> we had a similar failure to this -- gosh, i don't remember

the s.t.s. number. whenever we have a failure on the ship, we keep detailed records on how we recovered from that failure to give us a starting point for the kernt failure. we have had this failure before, but we don't know which eaters. >> we tend to lump things out we call a file nine check out. if we had to check out every heater, we would have to chill down each individual thermostat to check it. we check the performance of or bit, and we give the ship a check out. if there is nothing no, ma'am luis in the or bit performance, we consider that checked and ready to go for flight. the last time this string was checked on the ground -- and i just lost the date from my

head. it was at least two years ago. but it's last performance in or bit was perfect. something obviously opened up between then and now, and that is what we are going to go try and find. >> you end up having had multiple heater failures. you suggested maybe a second one. does that point toward or away from a thermostat problem. mike, what is the fish or cut bait time to decide whether to proceed for a monday launch? you mentioned shortly after the scrub, a short circuit? >> on the multiple failure thing, it depends. a thermostat that is running low and just didn't trip, and when we chill it down, we see it actually does function. that would be a pretty quick change out. but the rest of the circuit, if

there is a thurman stat that has failed, that would open up a ground. they are wired together so that all the heaters on the front half would share a common ground. that a.l.c.a. box, we would pull open that circuit. a single failure on one happen could still cause that problem. we want to find out if it was a single thermostat by itself. or as far as the fish or cut bait time for a monday launch. that would occur on sunday afternoon probably on the order of 3:00 or so. we could be late as we have proven. sunday afternoon we would have to get into launch preparations because we would be fueling the ship monday morning.

sometimes noonish. >> bill harwood for cbs. what did the president say about -- i don't know, giving you simpson thy for scrubbing the launch, and did he meet with ms. giffords? >> as far as the scrup, i didn't talk to him in detail. it was only in greeting and his stops as we scorlted him around. he understands, and we are going to do the right thing. he had a great talk with the crew. he had a great time talking with them, and he met with gabberty over in the l.c.c. >> back over here. any questions on this side? right here? >> just curious, now looking in hind sight, would the wind have

delayed this anyway since it got pretty gusty around launch time? >> they gave me the observation times. here at kennedy, the winds were within limits. it wasn't a cross wind concern as much as a tail wind, so that would have been a go. on the tal site, it turned out it raped all day long atist riss, so it would not have good. we had go weather both r.t.s. and tal, which is a little salt in the wound. [laughter] >> let's come back over here on the front. >> is there any knowledge of

whether the congresswoman will now stay for the launch, or will she be returning to houston? does anybody have any information on that? >> i don't know. they haven't told us what her plans are. >> let's go right here in the back to ken. for bob. do you know if president obama would come back, and the atlas, is there any chance the air force might make room for the shuttle if you have to have a few days in the middle of the week. >> he did say if it was month he wouldn't be able to make it back for it on month. but as far as a future los angeles, no firm equipment. >> with the atlas, we will talk to them and see how they are doing on their processing, and how we are doing with us. if we get to monday and tuesday , if we need a couple of days, we can talk to them about that.

it may be better to let them go because we need more time to trouble shoot. >> i wonder if you had any more neck dotes about -- anecdotes about the meeting with congresswoman giffords or anything of the statements that president obama obama made may have. >> of his meeting was private with gabberty. as far as when he was talking with the crew, he wasn't listening to everybody. they were talking about the mission, and everything they were going to do on it. i understand the girls asked some great questions when they were touring atlantis, and they were enthused.

so were the president and first lady, talking about seeing atlantis up close. >> i will just shout. >> no, we can't do that because people on nasa tv can't hear you. >> can you tell me how the astronauts will be spending the next couple of days and how much access they will have to their families, and what you will be doing with them to keep them up to speed? >> well, i guess they haven't been there before. they will have time with their families. obviously not their children, but those that are old enough to have allowed them to be in quarantine and visit them. there will be time out at the beach house to relax and get together with their families

again. they will obviously be going over their procedures on a regular basis, making sure they are ready. they will be listening in to see how we are doing on the trouble shooting and looking forward to what the waste is going to be and what the plan is. they are well prepared. they have worked long and hard for this, and they are ready to go. this is an opportunity to kick back a bit and relax. >> just a further clarification. it sounds like the crew knew as they were suiting up or before they even walked out that this issue was in the works and a scrub was either possible or probable? >> well, like us, they know the ship very well, if not better. so yes, they probably undered stood this -- understood this

was a significant problem that we may not make our way out of. to keep our time line, we had to keep them headed towards the pad and the ingress. if we needed another hour or two to talk about the problem, they would have strapped why, and they would have understood that, too. it was a very coincidental thing with the timing of the crew. >> does meeting with the president effectively stretch the crew quarantine rules? >> no. actually the president had a physical by the flight crew's crew surgeon and was cleared to meet with the crew. the crew was in a big room. nobody was up close to them other than the president and first lady. >> you make sure family members are ok to be in close quarters?

>> absolutely. whenever we have a crew in quarantine, anybody with the crew in quarantine has to have been cleared by a flight doc. there was nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. >> thank you. >> a couple of questions. the two lines involved here, do they each have four heaters on them? is that my understanding? and the second question is, the switch box, when you get that off, is the problem that takes a couple of days the testing that needs to be done, or is it actually being able to get to it in that spot? >> i am not 100% certain of the heaters and the configuration. >> i am counting them right now. are the other one, we will have to get in the avionics bay, get

to the bay, change them out and close it back up. >> it looks like there are 12 different heaters on that line, but not all of them will cycle we see tet pad. >> some were responded, and others may or may not be responding. they are pulling all that detailed data to know exactly which pieces have failed. that helps us with trying to find a common root cause. [inaudible question] >> the two heater strings are identical. they have a flune line, and it has a wrap around it that is a resistant hitter. the a string is wrap along

beside it and the b strong. one string was working, and the other one was not. >> one or two more. >> in your opening statement you said that president obama would promise you his support. could you give us more about the context of that statement, and is this something new from what you have heard in the past from the president? >> no. i think the president supports our space flight program. he is very supportive of what we are doing. here at kennedy space center, we have the commercial program here, supporting that. he is supportive of us building a large rocket and crew vehicle to go beyond our home planet. he just emphasized that he supports what we are doing and is proud of what we are doing.

>> i guess this is for one of the mikes. can you tell us how the weather looks for a monday through wednesday launch next week? i know that is a way off, for here or the abort sites. >> i'm not trying to be flippant, but i don't know, and i am not sure it matters are. the long range forecast we looked at. we have a decent chance here at kennedy for good launch weather. winds dropping off. the taos weather was iffy. we should have decent weather at the beginning of next week, but we haven't start to look at the long range forecast yet. i have a tendency to delete all the e-mail with a greater than

48 hour forecast in it. >> did the president have any words of encouragement to you and the staff here with the shuttle program winding down? what were thst comments to you? >> no specific comments. everybody he ran into, he thanks them for what we were doing. i wasn't privy to all of the president's conversations. it was very positive. he really enjoyed his tour and all that he saw. he wants us to keep doing good things. >> before you wrap up, we had talked about a.t. 122, our external tang. i failed to tell you that my team looked at the tang fully loaded. the inspectors are going out now that it is trained. but the reports from the team were that it was beautiful.

performance was flawless from that external tang. we ended up getting a good tanging test, so we know this tang is in really great shape. >> i would like to add my thanks to both mikes. the team did an outstanding job getting us where we needed to be done it it is an outstanding team. the flow team that got endeavour ready to go fly, it was super. i can't say enough good things about them. these guys did an awesome job, and we will get it right and fly as soon as we can. >> before we wrap up, we have a one-minute video of president obama's visit here in afternoon. after that, that will conclude our briefing. thank you.

>> watch what happens. you don't have to get close. see all that water? [inaudible] >> here is the landing gear. >> how much of that is or bitting, and much of that is going to the space station? >> you can see the pyramids of egypt.

>> thank you so much. >> we will see you. >> come back when we can go. >> president obama there with shuttle endeavour commander mark kelly. we want to remind you we are going to give you a chance to see that news conference again about 9:40 this evening on c-span. we have more campaign 2012 road to the white house coverage. tonight several potential republican presidential candidates will gather in manchester to speak at a summit on federal spending and job creation. we are planning on hearing from several candidates. it is hosted by the americans for prosperity foundation. it is live at 8:00 eastern on crap. also on c-span radio and

c-span.org. this weekend on book tv. panels on science, american history, climate change and the constitution. and call-in is with several. just a few of the highlights from our special. sign up for book tv alert. >> live saturday, the white house correspondents' annual black tie dinner, starting with red carpet rifles at 6:45, with remarks from president obama. our press coverage includes comments from past winners. and at our website, follow along with our interactive video player, featuring a poll, social media comments and live h.d. video. >> what i try to do is tell a

story with visuals instead of words. i am writing paragraphs. they just happen to be with images. >> with four pulitzer prizes on photography. she has won more than any other journalist. >> we are seeing part of the human condition on so many levels. >> she's talk more about her craft on "q & a" "q & a." you can download a podcast, one of our signature programs available online. >> now to a discussion on the future of public broadcasting and efforts to eliminate federal funding. we will hear remarks from public broadcasting and leaders during this panel on the 2011 budget debate and where it goes from here. it was held at the journalism school of missouri and it is an

hour. >> joyce was the interim president and c.e.o. of n.p.r. she has been the general counsel there for several years. next to joyce is bill, who is the c.e.o. of american public media, which is both a national producer of programs, and they have under its umbrella 44 public radio stations across the country. and next to bill is karen, who is the general manager of wamu here in washington.

welcome to all of you. thank you. i am going to start, pat, with you. we are going to start, first of all, by talking about the federal funning -- funding debate, crisis and what lies ahead. i asked you when we were talking before this session what happened in the budget deal. we were hearing that public radio and planned parenthood were definitely on the table, definitely going to get cut. the deal gets made. we look in the newspaper and the c.p.b., which is the funding corporation, congress gives the money to the corporation for public broadcasting, and it gives it to stations and other producers of public media. the budget had emerged pretty much unscathed, so what happened?

>> the house of representatives is one half of one third of the federal government, and what the house of representatives does is only the beginning of a debate and not the end of it. what has happened in the kers of this -- course of this challenge here is that the democrats in the house and the senate have been quite firm in their support of public broadcasting, as has president obama. and so when you have a tripartheid negotiation at the end of the continuing resolution process with speaker

boehner, majority leader hear reed -- hairy reid and president obama in the room, the forces are outnumbered. i think it has been an encouraging affirmation of the fact that we are held in high esteem across the political spectrum, as tom was suggesting, and that once these votes are actually counted, i think there are going to be plenty of republicans in the house and senate who agree that public broadcasting is valuable, is essential and deserves federal funding even in an era where budget deficits are difficult to control and everything needs to be examined carefully. >> is this all over, or are we gearing up to fight again? >> no, it is not over.

there are a good number of people in the congress in both the house and senate who are quite committed to defunding public broadcasting. this is going to be a continuing battle for us for quite sometime. everything finished the 2011 fiscal year funding process, we now go immediately into the 2012 process, and we will have to fight this all over again. but the fact that we have been able to mount a very vigorous grassroots campaign with people around the country who are big fans of public broadcasting. i give a lot of credit to bill kling and the 170 million americans organization that has created this grassroots effort. that deprass roots effort -- grassroots efforts, the station managers and lay leaders, as well as what we have been able to do here in washington, has

been a very good strategic alliance that has yielded the good result we have had in the last couple of weeks. >> paula, your p.b.s. did some polling using a bipartisan polling consortium. >> yes. >> you found what about public attitude? >> quite significant support for public broadcasting. as i listen to pat, i think in my view -- to answer the question of what happened, i think you could sum it up in one word, and that is constituents. there are a lot of people around the country that reached out to their members to say this is something, a service, public television and radio, that is extraordinarily valued. we saw that in the research that was done. after defense of our country, the value the american public

plays -- places on tax dollars for public broadcasting comes in second. when you put it into perspective, on the public television side, 15% of our funding comes from the federal government. the rest of it we raise community by community. but that 15% is hugely important because that is money that our stations then leverage to raise the rest of the support they do locally. it helps to pay for a lot of their transition expenses, local expenses. 15% is an aggregate number. so in communities like washington, the percentage of federal funding that comes to support our stations here is less than other parts of the country where it can be as high as 50% where communities are sparser, and there is less ability to raise the kind of money to provide the same

services that would happen in this community. so it is a tremendously important piece of our founding, and most people understand that this private-public partner ship we have worked through over the last 40 years is something we need to maintain. that came through loud and clear. that came in advance of the debate on the hill, but we watched the number of people who reached out to legislators to let their opinions be heard. >> bill, public broadcasting hasn't always been so organized in stating its case. what do you think public broadcasting needs to do going forward? >> well, when you see organized, i think pat referred to the 170 million americans. this is a piece of research that was done by a variety of people, including the station resource group, that tried to

determine how many people access some form of public broadcasting in the course of a week. that turns out to be more than happen the american public. one of our problems is that we are loved almost too much. people are willing to voluntarily support public broadcasting, but they haven't been engaged to do anything more than that about it. this time we said to them federal funding is important. it is not just the base funding of about $450 million a year. it is a question of what should the government's role be in public broadcasting. if you read the "new york times" story about the bbc last sunday, you saw about 3.6 billion pound were in question.

having them rally around a grassroots basis to let them know how important congress is made a difference. there were 500,000 letters and e-mails sent to congress. uncountable numbers of phone calls. these are people that referred to the cell phone numbers of their congressman and senator, make the call, get heard, and i think that is our next challenge, is to get those people who support their congress people, their senators, but also strongly support public broadcasting to make the connection and to move forward, not just to defend the $400 million. the public radio, our portion of that $400 mill hasn't gone

up since 1980. the role that federal funding is playing, at a time when media changing so dramatically, when we have gone from radio to public media, when we are distributing content in so many ways, and when all of our colleagues, as you heard jim and tom say, are beginning to weaken in terms of their ability to do journalism, we have to step up and do more. and you can't do more with an appropriation that stays static 30 years. looking forward, that is probably the answer to your question, trying to determine what the right amount is and making that case that you can't really be trusted with your government if you are not well-informed. the famous jeffersonian quote is the key. >> joyce, how does federal

funding affect n.p.r. and the member public radio stations. >> information p.r. gets very little federal funding. the type of funding we do get is not for specific support with grants attached to them. but public radio gets about 10% of its funding from the federal government. as paula pointed out for public television, it is most important for smaller rural communities that are underserved or perhaps unserved by any other source of journalism. that central funding is critical in supporting the local journalism.

that is an amazing resource for the american people. you have mentioned a couple of times a story we heard about parfa, texas. jim and i may be the only two people in the room where that is. it is a small town out in west texas. it is served by krps, a public station, and it was critical when the wildfires spring up, informing people where roads were closed, giving them evacuation notices. they were often ahead of the texas department of transportation in letting people know where they could travel and where they couldn't. those are the kinds of stations that would be in dire straits without federal funding. but it is important for all of our stations. as paula said, it is an investment that the stations leverage for the rest of their

funding. >> can i ask something? >> sure. >> i don't want to leave the impression that n.p.r. would be unaffected if federal funding disappeared. you get, i think, $60 million to $70 million a year, and a lot of that money comes from grants that are set aside, called national programming grants, that only can be used to buy national programming. they buy programming from american public media and public radio international, on the radio side, from national public radio. .

and wine -- even as large as we are and as well resourced as we are in this region, our average annual gift is about $135 so the loss of the federal grant we'd have to instantly acquire 7,400 new, never-before contributors to hold on to that. so 7,400 brand-new contributors off the bat, getting 2,500 new

contributors after that just to supplant the federal money let alone the program aspirations the station has in its other operational pursuits. so it's critical. my concern about this latest legislative challenge, it's quite different than what we've experienced before. i've been in public radio since 1982. the sustained nature of the attack is different. in past years we've -- there's always been a threat to public funding every year. smims -- sometimes there are peaks as in 1994 and 1995 about -- but this kind of sustained attack where we had to batle random bills that came up, the fight over the continuing resolution, now the battle over the 2012 gg -- been, the issue

that's going to come up about removing the federal texas deduction for nonprofits, so that's going to definitely impact us and there is a challenge with keeping our constituency mobilized over a long period of time rather than gearing up for just one big battle. i spent 10 hours on capitol hill talking to friend and foe alike and they all comment about the groundswell of support, you know, calls in the thousands, and that made an impact baw -- but you can only say the wolf is at the door for so many times for so long so my concern is about keeping our constituencies energized, informed. we have information on our web site about federal funding. we have to strike that balance between not saying too much so that people just become inured to it and don't want to hear it

any more and keeping them energized. so that's my concern. >> pat in >> one more thing, to caryn's point, what we don't want to do is always be in the position where we're sort of gasping for air and it's the perils of pauline situation on a constant basis with congress. the cure to that i think is making sure that they understand as some do not now the essential nature of what it is we do in public broadcasting and the fact that americans and their millions, 170 millions, value what it is that we do. i see no reason why we shouldn't have a broad, broad public consensus on the funding for public broadcasting. it's not a lot of money but as gym lehrer and tom and -- jim

lehrer and tom and bill have been saying, it is essential to the objective of having a well educated, well-informed citizenship which is up to the task of self-government in a very difficult world and if that's not essential i don't know what is in a country like ours and it's our responsibility as leaders of these organizations and as the station managers who do this work day to day like caryn does so well to make sure that people understand that what it is we do is essential, that we do it well, that we do it in an unbiased way, that we cover the water front in terms of opinion, in tems of gee groffy, -- geography, cultural brack db back bround, anything you want to say, that we are truly public and we represent the public and reflect the public and when we can show our friends in congress that that's

what we do, i think the broad bipartisan consensus that i'm looking for will be there. >> i'd just like to add on a moment to what pat just said. i think washburn the challenges we also have ahead is to this debate, we did hear from some on the hill that expressed interest in helping us by helping us become commercial and that that was viewed as a way of getting us off the cyclical challenge with federal funding. and on the television side there are many examples of cable channels that started out with the aspiration of being the commercial version of public broadcasting and when you look at those, how those channles, arts and entertainment, which is now bravo, history channel, have evolved, their focus shifts when the mission or the final

outcome is based on shareholder return and so, a and e is now largely csi time of programs. bravo, which maintained its position as a cable chaneal -- channel that was focused on the arts sort of went down its own path and even history now history channel now where their number one program is "pawn stars," and i say that very carefully so that everyone understands what i'm saying, but if your true purpose, if your shareholders are main street and not wall street it takes you down a very different path. when you look at news, i'll bring it back to the subject of this panel, when you look at news you do see the consequences and pressures that tom referenced during his remarks of what happens to news organizations that are sud enly -- suddenly responsible for a

bottom line. and they're still doing news, but it is a different focus than the kind of work that we try to do on a day 0 day -- day to day basis when we are constantly challenging ourselves rand on our best days i that i cheeving, the work that no one else is do you know. we were created to fulfill in part what is in the public interest that is the true market gap from public to commercial media. and becoming commercial is not necessarily going to take us down a path that is going to serve our country well. >> thank you. want to shift subjects slightly now. tom addressed the question of bias, which is one of the -- we essentially heard two arguments. one is we're in a fiscal crisis and we can't afford this any more. even the president's own deficit commission came out for zeroing out public broadcasting. but the other argument is that

public broadcasting is biased and as tom said, bias is in the eye of the beholder, so, bill, i want to ask you to start us off on this. how do you affect the perception that public broadcasting is biased? >> well, i don't think i have to do much about it. i think we were branded quite well by the last debate in congress that public broadcasting is liberal. what we've discovered and it's the same thing that mark thompson, the director general of the bbc, said when he was here about six months ago. he said if you look at individual stories shall the stories are well done and they tend to be straightforward. if you look at story selection, it's a different question and it's the hardest thing to do. what stories should be covered? news changes. news is about change.

so if you talk about change that tends to some people to be liberal. if you simply report that, you know, the world went on today and nothing happened, then you have less of a problem, but from my perspective the issue is governance and i think if there were one word that i would say about this entire panel and this entire issue it's governance. where is the governance of the corporation for public broadcasting? how strong is that? they're give out a lot of federal money. what are the standards? what are the measurements? how are you determining whether the product is a product that should be supported or not? the boards of our production companies, the ones i know best in radio, national public radio and american public media, are they talk -- talking about this? are they look at and examining

and deperm -- determining whether they are straightforward or not? bias can be as simple as an anchor struing -- struing -- interviewing somebody and saying hmm or hmm or hmm. same word. it's like chinese, change the tonality and you say -- change the bias in the words. so it's the gov erb n bodies that has to look at what is the intention? what kind of people are being hired? what is the manage metropolitan like? and you come right on down to the stations. 60% of our stations have no community governance on radio. they are largely part of other institutions which have a board of regents or something at some point but rarely meet anybody that has neg to do with the public broadcasting or public media company. so the importance of that governance and the importance of having a community-based

board that is made of up people who will demand these kinds of standards, to me, is the key. and before we finish this i'd like to come back to the question of where we go rather than just defending the status quo. what could it be? >> panel, we'll get to that, i promise. one of the contradictions in painting government funding is that it could be seen as compromises -- complesing the independence especially of the journalism that's being performed. i think jeff jarvis, who is a blogger and media critic who was -- has a way with words suggested that npr should just give up federal funding because it, to have government funding creates the appearance of political strings and pressure.

so how do you respond to that? is federal funding going to automatically create timid journalism? >> i think a few things. and let me speak specifically about television and in my radio context i'll be interested in caryn's comments as well, as she wrestles with the same issue as such an extraordinarily important station in this market. on the television side, 15% of the money comes from the federal government. the largest percentage of money that comes into our station comes from individual philanthropy, "the support of viewers like you," and lots of contributions, smaller contributions. and i think that the fact that we are very anchored in communities, and many communities where the last remaining locally owned broadcasters -- we're the last

remaining localy -- locally owned broadcasters with ties to the community. i came from new york where we had a community advisorly -- advisory board. we talked to them a lot about issues of coverage and they were tremendously helpful to us. at pbs we spend a lot of time plooking -- look at editorial nishes -- issues. we just finished reviewing or editorial standards and practices as we do every five years, and this has been a particularly interesting time to look at those with the new media and how you reconcile those with really trying to encourage the local media that social media offers. we have an ombudsman who happens to be sitting in the room, and believe me, he operates very rare -- very independently.

i rarely see him. nice to see you, michael. [laughter] and there are many times i read his material and i think, wow, he got it right, and he is our connection to the viewers and the users of our content and they have a vehicle through him where they can express their opinion and he in turn expresses his own and it's helpful. all of our producers look at izz -- his material. so i think that the lion's share of our funding does come from individual philanthropy. if we get that wrong, the thing we have that is the most valued assist -- asset is our brand and it's a trusted brand and i think if we violate that, everything else unravels. so from my perspective onts tv side i don't spend time worrying about government influence affecting our journalists. our journalists are fiercely independent, both our

colleagues at the news hour and certainly at frontline, which is our significant investment in investigative journalism, have tackled very difficult subjects that make people uncomfortable and that's their role and what they believe is their mission. >> one thing, barbara, mike pence, the former chairman of the house republican policy committee, conference, actually, has worked with me over the last five years on trying to pass a federal shield law to protect the confidentiality of journalist's sources. mike's one of the most conservative mesks congress but he -- members of congress but he also believes passionately that the news media are the only real check on government power in real time, that's his word, not mine. and he believes that the work that we do as well as the work that "the washington post" and others do is really essential

to the proper functioning of this democracy to the accountability of office holders and so forth. it is an interesting question about whether government funding will tend to compromise independence. but in fact we have more than 40 years of experience in this field now and i think we've built a very good record of independence, of accountability, of balance and fair ps and so farther -- forth that is there for anyone to see and so i think that this is not a theoretical issue any more. this is 40 years of experience we've had that's worked out pretty well. >> thank you. we know that npr has certainly been particularly singled out for some of the criticism about liberal tendencies and bias in coverage and so on, and npr's gone through a lot of turmoil in the last six months,

beginning with the juan williams episode and going through the departures of the chief fundraiser and then the president, vivian schiller. how are you, how is npr doing now and how are you coping with the aftermath of all of this? >> well, npr is doing great. and all you have to do to know that is to turn on and hear nbc, listen to wamu and the npr reporting. our journalism has not missed a beat. the issues ha -- have been on the management side of things and we have, you know, we've learned from what we've gone through. i think we're a little bit more disciplined about our processes now but most importantly we have gotten the management out of the limelight and put our journalism back in the limelight where it should be. dick is here, mark expense is

here somewhere, they are two of the team of people who pretty much sacrificed their easter weekend to produce the incredible story on the guantanamo bay detainees that we heard yesterday morning. you know, i heard part of jackie leiden's six-part series on prostitution in nashville, when you see what we're doing in north africa, in japan, the reporting is incredible and anything but timid. we do have careful editorial process. you know, from the beginning, people chaled each other, they challenge their own thinking, strive for accuracy and fairness and balance at all times, but it is, it's definitely courageous reporting that's going on. >> and up -- you have -- npr has undertaken an examination of its standards and so on, correct? >> yes, we are in the midst of the review of our newest code

of ethics and we will have a draft of that soon to present to our board for their consideration and final approval and as paula does we also have an ombudsman that works with our public and she's here too. >> there you are. >> i don't get to talk to her a lot. she's fiercely independent as well. and we are also considering the addition of a standards and practices editor position. so we work very, very hard to ensure that our coverage as i say is accurate and balanced. but we are, you know, our journalists are incredibly courageous in the reporting that they do. >> ok. karen did, caryn, from the station's point of view, how did the npr situation affect you? how did your listeners respond and what has been your own, the

station's own considerations in dealing with a city where there is a lot going on? >> yeah. well, interestingly it really cause aid rallying of support i think when you take the temperature around the country. a lot of stations were in fundraiser and they're having record fundraiser and i think that is testimony to what joyce is saying about the quality of the journalism is unquestioned and people value that and support it. i think, you know, station managers were just concerned about what was going on at the top, the sense of wow, instability, but i think npr recovered quite quickly and we're all powering ford -- forward. we have a number, as a member station that's a mile and a half from h.q., we have a number of projects, main

giving, web, technology and other distributions platforms and all that is moving forward but i think the practical day to day work championship -- relationships between individual stations and npr are moveing a head fine the >> excuse me. >> yes? >> i want to add something to that. it has had a trickle-down effect. in the minnesota legislature, for example, where we have a number of stations, there is a caucus that is holding back or cutting funding significantly for arts and cultural programming because of the, what they claim to be the juan williams affair at national public radio. so the story hasn't gotten out clearly despite the efforts that many of us have made to talk about the importance of looking at journalism for the sake of journalism or looking at arts and cultural broadcasting for what they can about -- be. the board of directors of minnesota public radio spent an

hour of their board meeting, which is a very rare amount of time to spend, asking the question of bias and is there any basis on which to think that the news leaders of the organization who were part of the discussion are missing something, that they're not examining the story selection or the possible ways that bias could creep in. tom rosenstiel was part of that and the board left feeling very satisfied and feeling awfully good that the discussion had occurred, that the stations around the country are beginning to look much more carefully to make sure that any charges that could be made are not accurate. but there is an overhang and there probably will be for some time i think we got a bad brand in terms of all of the coverage of -- as did planned parenthood

-- all the coverage of npr and public radio and some of that will affect us for some time. >> ok. thank you. we have about another seven or eight minutes before we go to questions from our audience. and i hope you will be thinking of those questions. and i'd like to turn now to the subject of digital media and competition. paula, you referred to this. there is -- people will say there is so much choice out there, there is so much that's available, you know, why do we need public broadcasting? and, you know, you started to address that, but continue to talk about some of the things that you're doing to extend the brand of public television. >> i mean, i think this is

actually -- we're shifting to this part because i always say if not for the money that this would be the most fascinating time to be in public media because the opportunities are so extraordinary. jefferson has been quoted twice. i think an engaged citizenry is incredibly powerful and really looking at the unts -- opportunities of social media to try to bring viewers into a more proactive role and -- in information is important, but also professional journalism is important and i think the two operate side by side. and we have over the course of the last two years spent a fair amount of time thinking about and experimenting and doing work in this sace and i'm glad hari is here because i think on the news side he's probably doing some of the most interesting new york -- work in public media and he's taught me

everything i know about twitter and i'm trying really hard. i hope you are proud of me. [laughter] but it is fascinating, a -- i had a discussion with a friend not long ago, there is a feeling among a lot of people that social media is somehow frivolous. if you really look at some of the work and even outside the whole journalistic space, people like neil degraph tyson, he uses social media as a way to really try to get a handle on subjects and topics and really engage discussion before he stands in front of a large group to give a speech and if you talk to him about how it has changed the way that he interacts with his audiences, that he interacts with the people he is trying to connect with around science information, it's really quite profound. so i think the opportunities for us in public media are huge

because we are such an interesting organization that's both national and local. we have stations in every part of the country. and we have the ability to achieve scale through our national organizations. so the real challenge for us and what we've been spending a fair amount of time thinking about is how do you really link the two pieces together so that you have true local connection within communities at the same time that you use the national work as a way to connect together. and so online we have just spent effort building out the architecture for video online, both as a national distribution but also as a place for every station no matter if you're in a big market or a small markest, can connect your own work there. we're spending a fair amount of time thinking about how we can

help our stations build up their local journalism, and there are things that you can do scaleable, particularly in the architecture of it, that will enable stations to put more of their resources into the actual journalism rather than creating the platforms themselves. so i think this is in fact a really interesting time and as we've been talking about, particularly related to the journalistic standards, you know, we did a fair amount of work this year. i think five years from now as we look back this is just going to continue to accelerate and evolve as we look for ways to think about professional journalism and engaged citizenry an -- and really try to bring them together to truly meet the needs of the community. >> things are changing so fast you may have to do it more often than every five years i think. >> yes. >> i'm going to quote from vivian schiller, who i

mentioned a few mines -- minutes ago, who i think it's agreed that she did a marvelous job at npr of bringing it into digital innovations. last week she was speaking at harvard and had this mental for public radio. she said "you are now competing in the big leagues and are no longer the scrappy underdogs. you must become your own disrupters. if you don't aggressively reach out to new audiences on new platform -- platforms, someone else well. there is no such thing as loyalty in this age of media promiscuity. bill, i subject you -- suspect you may agree with that. >> in part. i think you will win on the basis of brand if that brand represents quality. so yes, you're going to have bits and pieces of content floating around in every conceivable digital platform, but how do you know what you can trust anha