>> this morning a political round table on the 2012 presidential election with -- >> good morning. sunday, may 15th. some of the stories this week, nasa will try again. the second attempt to launch the space shuttle endeavor captained by marked kellly. early coverage tomorrow on c- span2.

in chicago, former white house chief of staff rahm emmanuel will be sworn in and drove biden on hand. benjamin netanyahu and the washington for talks with senior daschle including secretary of state hillary clinton. on thursday, president obama heads to the state department for a speech on the middle east. on this sunday morning, focusing on energy policy with your calls, emails, and tweets. the average price of 1 gallon of gasoline is still hovering around $4 per gallon. american energy policy of. we want to find out from you, what would you do? the numbers are on your screen.

we will begin with a story this morning on the front page of "the washington post." it points out that the move addressed yesterday and not so much of a reversal but a return to the policy stance adopted in march 2010 sure the before the deepwater horizon explosion in the gulf of mexico. in his four minute address yesterday, he touched on the hardship caused by $4 per gallon gasoline. we want to give some context with the president said last year. you can find it on line on the "the new york times" web site. the headline, "obama is open to offshore drilling for the first time." he says he wants to open up the

vast areas along the atlantic coast line, the eastern gulf of mexico, and the north coast of alaska. much of this is for the first time, according to administration officials. this was the president in march 2010. the proposal was intended to reduce dependence on oil imports to generate revenues from offshore leases and to help with a comprehensive energy legislation. this was from last year, the president opening offshore drilling for the first time. he again announced yesterday in his weekly address and here is part of what he had to say. >> i believe we should continue to expand co-production in america as we've increase safety and environmental standards. i'm directing the department of interior to increase annual

leasing sales in alaska respecting sensitive areas and to speed up the resources in the mid-atlantic. we want to lease new areas in the gulf of mexico and create new incentives for the industry to create bought off and on shore. host: that is part of the president's address available on our website. the headline for this piece is "oil and money." in allowing this to get wrapped up in the budgetary policy, the democrats are able to tap into dissatisfaction. republicans are able to make the case that revenue will be brought in in which would increase royalties, leases and jobs. this is the cover of a "cq

weekly." steven from wisconsin on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. if i were president, i would not give $4 billion to brazilian oil companies like our president did last month on top of the $8 billion may give them last year and the $2 billion we give to mexico after we shot down our own drilling in the gulf. i would not go after the companies for making a profit. do not forget. for every 1 gallon of gas that is sold, the companies make to sense and the federal government takes 18.2 cents and i would not

complain about the making good profits for two reasons. exxon made $36 billion and they also paid $10 billion in taxes. if every union worker would look into their retirement plan, you have several different oil companies in there. host: thank you for the call. on the democratic line from youngstown, ohio. caller: how are you doing this morning? i would nationalize our energy. the rich get richer and the poor get less. the working man and the poor get left behind. host: finance committee held a meeting on this thursday including comments by senator hatch supported continuing the subsidies for oil companies. critics say at a time when gas prices are so high, should we provide billions of dollars in

tax subsidies to chevron, shell,, akko, and exxonmobil -- shell, conoco, and exxonmobil. >> raising taxes on producers raise the cost of crude oil. the cost of crude oil is the prime ingredients in the price of gasoline. raising our taxes will not reduce the price of gasoline. >> do you agree with that? >> i certainly do agree with that. the bigger point behind it is that it will move somewhere else, the job will move somewhere else, all of the attendant benefits go away as well. >> i do not believe, obviously, the raise in taxes will lower prices. the important thing is to have a competitive fiscal environment

to attract more investment, raise the supply, and have an effect on prices. >> raising taxes will lead to less investment, less production, and most likely higher costs per gallon and lesson plan. >> will have little immediate effect, but it will come in the months and years to come in the terms of raising the cost of development here and a loss of deduction puts more pressure on oil refinery margins. if we lose more refineries, that means more imported products. host: those with the comments of some of the leading oil executives last week. "with gas costs high, obama to speed oil production in alaska, gulf."

this points out that amid a growing unhappiness that the president is directing his administration to ramp up u.s. oil production by extending existing leases in the gulf of mexico and off the coast of alaska. from "the national journal," -- obama's self energy victory. he has not moved any major energy legislation. given the climate, it is unlikely any of his projects, capping carbon, slashing tax breaks, will have a chance before 2013. what would you do with the u.s. energy policy? goodfort smith, ark. ma, morning. caller: if i am permitted, and little history?

i saw the crisis in 1973. what happens is every time have a crisis, everyone gets in an uproar. we have to do something. we have to do something. it is henie penny. they start doing things back in the 1970's and the 1980's, and when the things everything got back to the cheap prices, they forget it. with the research, promotion of the alternatives, which we could have with this efficient production today if they had not left it behind. basically, what i am saying is that for the last 40 years, and they have kicked the can further down the road. as a result, hydrothermal, geo inrmal, wind, it's all still its infancy. we could have had it producing

anywhere between 25%-50% of our energy generation now instead of the small percentage is that it has. i am in electrical engineering and i see this. i wonder when are they going to wake up. host: thank you for the call. you can join the conversation by sending gas eight tweet. our e-mail also. #cspanwj and journal@c-span.org. good morning from the democrats lined. caller: how are you this morning? i have been watching this for the last 40 years. the last lady was exactly right on. we constantly go to the same process of the complaining

about high prices, this, that, and the other. we do not allow the programs that we start to finish. if we could never finished anything in this country, we would get a lot of things done on energy, education, and what have you. the whole idea is that you keep changing every three or four years, the president, and everyone else. they have to start early just to get in the elections. we have already started talking about the next election. mother nature does not worry about the elections. we have hurricanes and everything else, tornadoes, earthquakes, al-ahram the world. we cannot even deal with that. host: from twitter, we need a manhattan project for green conservation and energy production. journal@c-span.org and on

twitter at #cspanwj. some other stories this morning. mike huckabee announcing last line on fox news that he will not run for president. after hinting otherwise, he says he will not run. he said he would not seek the republican nomination. he says, "all factors say go, but my heart says no." up early in honolulu, hawaii. what would you do about the american energy policy? caller: it is early, but i would like to look at nuclear. here on the islands, we do not have hydroelectric. we bring in low-sulfur crude from indonesia. everything is expensive. if we were to have a small nuclear plants, one or a couple

on each island instead of these massive plants that they have now and the sand all the spent nuclear, that would solve a lot of problems. nevada does not wanted. caller: they spent a lot of money figuring that out. that is money thrown down the drain. they should take in the trains and trucks. in our case, we ship them to the coast and ship them to nevada. host: the letter from california on the independent line. what we do with the american energy policy? caller: good morning, america, and thank you for c-span. i would not lead business d dictate my job.

then i would put people to work and invest in geothermal power. i work at a geothermal power plant. that is all i do. i want some common sense and some fairness. people have to work and people need to get their money so people can go to work. thank you. host: i will go back to the piece this morning in "the washington post." the president announced his plans yesterday in his weekly address. from new york, good morning and welcome to the conversation. caller: i agree with drilling, but i do not like the idea of doing it in alaska because i am an animal lover.

all these polar bears are dying off because of the climate and this nonsense, but course we need oil. drilling is the best thing to do to become oil and dependents but we have to be concerned about how we get our oil from all the time, you know? who knows what happens? i hope obama is waking up a little bit and he will do that. thank you for your help on this. host: robert from baltimore. good morning. caller: i support the electric cars. i'm not sure about the jobs come you know, how your place these jobs created from gas, you know? the first thing people say is how would you get the plug to recharge the cars, but look at all of these signs and all of these things it takes to make a

highway. if you started in one county and just had the goal and did whatever you had to do to make sure everyone was driving electric cars and have electric recharged, you know, it could grow from there. host: the question this morning is a, america's energy policy, what would you do? five company executives from the five largest energy companies were on hand for the event and among them questioning the executives were in new york senator chuck schumer. >> one of my colleagues suggested this hearing was no more than a dog and pony show. you have an easier time convincing the american people that unicorn has blue in that these big oil companies and needed taxpayer subsidies. that is the very tail. >> for these incentives and subsidies and acted today, if these were proposals that the

senate and committee were considering enacted into law, they would place the u.s. oil companies, like ours and others -- >> i know your view on the issue. you considered american to have a different view. yes or no? >> senator, i believe the proposals under consideration will have a very adverse impact with respect to energy policy. >> there are many people who disagree with that. you, obviously, have your point of view and that is why you're here. i'm glad the german that you do it, but do any of you others consider it on american to be against the subsidies that your 4? if you do, raise your hand. all right. thank you. i appreciate the other four of you not labelling those different from you "on american -- "unamerican." host: good morning.

what we do about the american energy policy? caller: i remember back in 1979 and president carter came out andh the energy policy o everyone went back and locked it. if you go back and read the material, he and mondale were way ahead of their time and that is something that we may be need to go back to. host: 1977 was one of his first speeches as president, wearing that cardigan sweater. caller: think you for taking my call. you should read that speech on the internet. host: pennsylvania, you are on the air. is it from even bird? -- edinbourgh? caller: when the first things they ought to start in doing in

this country is to an spay and neuter the epa. i believe in the environment for controls, but they have a trace the industry out of our country. we need to do everything we can to start new refineries and get jobs back in our country. our government leaders have done nothing but push those jobs right out of our country and there is no reason for it because we have great people. this country has demoralized a lot of people. i am in the trucking industry and we are starving. we need help so bad with our fuel that it is not funny. i wish these doggone congressmen would look in the mirror, examine their consciences, and do something for the people for a change. thank you. host: appreciate a call. good morning from michigan. caller: first of all, personally, i think this is all

about greed. what i would do is that i would, first of all, and wall street speculation. that would be the first thing i would do. the second thing i would do would be to round up the oil executives and put them in jail, just like vladimir putin did. then i would nationalize any u.s.-based oil companies. the fact of the matter is that most of our oil comes from canada. it does not come from the middle east. it is about time we also have a little bit of truth in the media. these oil companies control a lot of what is said on television. they buy all of these commercials and the american people are breaking up. we're tired of lying. it is time that we took some drastic measures to end of this oil manipulation on wall street. thank you. host: headlines this morning that president obama calling for more offshore drilling in the

gulf of mexico and off the coast of alaska. good morning, thomas. caller: yes, good morning. i was just listening to the mix of mines this morning on tv. i do not think we should be drilling for oil. the reason behind that due to the melting ice cap, the oil is basically a lubricant to keep these oil old and everything. excuse me. host: we will leave it there. next caller from dallas. caller: i believe in all different kinds of energy consumption. we have the capability and we are smart enough, but we just

have to realize we need to look at solar energy and make it more feasible for the average person. we need to drill everywhere we can, do it safely. france has been doing it for so many years. they have never had an accident. surely we could do it as well as the french. what do they do with their leftovers? what do they do with their storage or how they get rid of it? i have never heard anyone say. if they want to call in and tell us, i would truly like to know. i say we should do that to give america the energy that we need. thank you very much. host: off of email and, -- another comment from a viewer in seattle saying --

and other viewers saying -- and dave is joining us from tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. how are you doing? hatch cannot believe what he heard from those guys, what do you think? the kind of answers that he got from them. i bet he does not know what to think.

now, what you think you get from asking all the presidents of all the oil companies if they think that oil subsidies or tax cuts should be done. he probably cannot believe what he heard. this is like a judge asking a mass murderer when it comes to sentencing if they think they should be put to death. that is about the dumbest question i have never heard i senator ask anyone at a hearing. what did he think they were going to say? "cut my taxes." that proves how don some of our politicians are. theyw dumb someo of are. >> finally, the third step we should take is to eliminate the taxpayer subsidies we give to oil and gas companies. in the last few months, the

biggest oil companies made $4 billion in the profit -- each week -- and yet the get $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies each year. $4 billion at a time when americans can barely fill up their tanks. $4 billion at a time and we're trying to reduce our deficit. this is not fair. it makes no sense. before i was president, these ceos even admitted that the tax subsidies made no sense. there is a vote in congress to end the oil company giveaways' once and for all. i hope democrats and republicans come together to get this done. host: larry joins us from illinois. good morning, larry. caller: i think the oil industry is a good example of corporate america. i think wall street is the biggest part of this. they have already ruined most of the pension funds.

these corporations have eliminated any minimum-wage jobs. my son just recently moved to a job and he had to move because he was spending over $100 in fuel to get there. i just think it is a slap in the face for the american people that they're making all of these profits and we are the ones that are paying at a time when everyone is struggling in this country. i think they need to quit putting more money and leave corp. and american pockets. that is about it. host: thank you for the call. dave from michigan on the republican line. good morning. caller: i do not think it that the viewers understand that the oil companies are owned by everyone, millions of people. the profits are spread among millions of people, not just one person. also, those subsidies are not

directly going to one owner or anything. they go to these people better searching for oil that are mining for minerals, that are developing it, and then when these people find the oil, they turn around and sell it back to the oil companies. there is a lot that goes into this that they do not quite realize what they're talking about. if they really want to save money, they need to start protesting the government unions and all these pensions and the taxpayers are earning real hard dollars. they pay their salaries and their pensions. that is where we're losing. host: other headlines this morning. from "the l.a. times," the army corps of engineers opening up of the spill ways in the louisiana to save baton rouge and new orleans. the headline, "fighting flooding

with flooding in south." this is going to divert some of the mississippi flood waters from diverting the largest cities in the louisiana. is similar headline in in "the atlanta journal-constitution." a political story from "the chicago tribune." a daley has been running chicago for most of the last four decades. richard daley is stepping down and rahm emmanuel will be sworn in. back to your calls about american energy policy. from denver, good morning. caller: good morning. i want to read to you a report from "the denver post" on may

10th, 2011. this is a summary, but there is a huge formation spanning colorado, wyoming, and some other states. "the biggest of 14 oil deals acquiring acreage and reserves was sold to china's cnooq limited. another deal was made for a 30% interest in maritime oil holding about 180,000 acres for $270 million." what benefits of the people of united states getting for these deals? our oil is being sold to japan and china. is there really a shortage of oil in the united states?

to the big oil companies really need new leases when they're not using the ones they already have? they are equating subsidies -- the removal of subsidies, with tax increases. removing a subsidy is not a tax increase. thank you for your time. this is the first time i have ever called. host: ended the tutorial this sunday from "the new york times," -- "a big qhiwhine from big oil."

from oregon, good morning. welcome to the conversation. caller: my relentless efforts paid off as you were reading an e-mail about switching over from fossil fuels over to something more sustainable and affordable. earlier, it must have been within the past year, you had goldsby on, i think was her name, about switching over the postal fleet, the largest in the country, surpassing walmart

and the trucking industry, switching the largest fleet onto something electric or natural gas. t. boone pickens is hot for that. they want to get them off of fossil fuels and thereby setting up the infrastructure to spread that further into the economy. thank you very much. host: think you for being so patient. next caller from martinsburg, va.. good morning. caller: i would appoint sir pailin to head the department of energy. i remember six or eight years ago when the republicans were saying, "jerell baby, -- "drill baby, drill."

you cannot see oil, for seven or eight years fdown the road. there is enough natural gas up in alaska to operate every 80 wheeler in the united states. it would be environmentally sound and the supply of natural gas is infinite. it will not run out. i just think that the democrats right now are kind of accepting what the republicans wanted to do seven or eight years ago. well, my car does not run on sunshine and it would take a strong wind to blow it down the road. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: hertz is offering electric car rentals and cracker barrel offers the chargers.

this piece is called, "obama's stealth energy victory" and in recent online. next from huntington, west virginia. good morning, pat. caller: good morning, steve. everybody has good ideas, but it needs to be put together. my idea is this. , our country became a world power by developing our rail system. and in the 1950's, we became the preeminent power in the world by developing our highway system. we need a policy for the 21st century and obama has touched on a with talking about high-speed rail, on a high-speed rail needs to be integrated, steve, with a system of solar and wind power projects in places where there

is not a heavy population, in places where there is not a value and fund those along this corridor and they could produce the energy to run an electromagnetic high-speed train. once that would be built, it would not need to be a renewable source of energy. it would be a renewable source of energy, but also, it would create jobs in the glass energy for solar panels, the steel industry, which is important right come from, west virginia. it would create a new lease is for gas and oil in the immediate future in order to fuel these projects, but in the end, we would have their rail system that would take us into the 21st century and keep our place as a main power. host: thank you for the call. but one of our smartest

presidents, jimmy carter, was up for solving the problems when oil was still cheap. the chair of the senate energy and natural resources committee is our guest on "newsmakers" which airs at 10:00 a.m. eastern. among the topics, four dollars for the price of gasoline and whether or not the energy legislation will affect gas prices. here's a portion of our interview with senator bingaman. >> it is not realistic to think we will legislate change in the price of oil short term. i do not think that is likely happen, or the price at the pump short term. i do think we can put policies in place to help keep the price of oil on the markets down for the future years and it will thereby keeping the price of gas at the top down in future years.

host: you can watch the entire interview with the chair of the senate energy and natural resources committee at 10:00 a.m. eastern time and reader's at 6:00 p.m. eastern. subsidies were given when oil was $13 a barrel. it is time to modify the subsidies. $120 for a barrel of oil? from the of this bill, georgia. good morning. -- douglasville, ga. caller: think you for taking my call. i would not ignore the environmental consequences on fracking. they have already gotten into the illegalities where if you want to sue for bad water, cancer, or what not, we would

have to pay the attorney fees. i do not have billions of dollars, but they would have to reimburse. i think we are already beyond that. it will become an environmental thing that is being ignored. that is just what i had to say. host: when the aftereffects of the event of 9/11 was the creation of the department of homeland security which was established in the bush administration. all this week on a "washington journal," we will focus on homeland security issues including airport security, civil rights versus civil liberties, critical infrastructure protections, and a look at border security and technology. on friday, the issue of bio terrorism. we hope you'll tune in this week as we focus on homeland security topics for 45 minutes at the end of washington journal, 9:15 a.m. eastern time.

from washington, d.c., and the topic of american energy policy. the at a senate hearing on the topic. what would you do, anthony? caller: i wanted 0 badri nobles a lot more. even though we do drill, people have to realize that sooner or later that the oil will deplete. we do not have enough oil to last. it would even take 10 years to ramp up, but the supply would only last six years after we would start, once you pump it all out. you are out of oil. we need to get into grenoble's. as far as the flooding and -- we need to get into renewables. as far as the flooding, we need to use wind power and solar to pump the if floodwaters in the nation to the drought areas in

the nation or into holding tanks. water will also be a source we will need in the future that will be depleted. we have to start saving our water and redirecting our the floods go out and putting them into drought areas. that is a job that could be done that is a shovel-ready pretty much. we have to start working on renewable energy because oil will not last forever. host: 1 the were saying real words were the 19th century technology, how about we look to the future? john joining us from florida. good morning and welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you for c-span. what people are calling in and demonizing the oil companies, you know, and they felt like they were stealing from americans, but we have to remember that big oil companies have been exploiting other

countries for years. whether it is ethiopia, the middle east, even in south america and they have to remember that this money that they are exploiting from these other countries comes back and it goes into our 401k's. maybe it is a way to get back to these people in some way. thank you to big oil. host: another viewer saying, "i remember the lines in the 1970's and 40 years later, still nothing." we're talking about america's energy policy. "the new york times" has a story from march 2010. from that story more than one year ago, the president's

proposal to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue and help with the political support for a comprehensive energy and climate legislation. the piece begins with these words -- the president proposing to open up water along the eastern gulf of mexico, the north coast of alaska to oil and natural-gas drilling, most of it for the first time. this was just a few weeks before the explosion in the gulf of mexico which essentially put on hold much of that drilling. jennifer joins us from saginaw, michigan. good morning. caller: i did have a couple of comments about the big oil companies. number one, these are multinational corporations. they have no allegiance to american or any other country, or the people of america. they are in business to make money no matter where, no matter how. we give them some cities in

america even for the taxes that they pay overseas. i, for one, and most people i talk to, are sick of it. we have a gentleman that called in earlier who begrudges a firefighter for a pension. these people make $45,000 per year, and the ceo's of these companies, they make $20 billion, $30 billion and they are getting $12 million per year as the ceo of this company and we have americans struggling to put food on the table. i just do not see any need for the subsidies and the lager. if they were american owned, did business in america, and profited adjust from american, but other countries have bought in two portions of these some -- portions of these companies.

i do not see a need for us to give the big tax breaks and a logger. host: thank you for the call. cheri jacobus and karen finney running as for our sunday round table. mike huckabee will not be running for president in 2012 and mid romney's speech last week on health care. ron paul in announcing he will run, and newt gingrich jumped in the race. that is all coming out. the president outlined his vision for changing the middle east. the president delivered his speech on thursday and he heads to europe next week. the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and leave town this week and will be addressing a joint session of congress on tuesday. live coverage on that on the c- span network. from malibu, good morning. caller: my regards to the son of

the best radio baseball announcer in the world. we have been pumping oil off of the coast very safely for the past 40 years. the environmentalists have tied up the oil industry or something that might happen that will probably never happened. as far as the president is concerned, i do not think i can believe him because he is in the political mode. as far as our own oil supplies, the alternative just does not work. we do not have the ability to do anything. however, if we were to suspend all the processes for drilling, a lot of people would go for keeping the same technology in place that is environmentally sound and let people go forward, so i would love to see an american cartel whereby the government participates and they

let the oil companies have the land for free, let them build within the oil, but guarantee is only given to the united states, does not have a subsidy, but has a limit on what can be charged and have the alaskan oil fields of in anwar which were set aside because of the resource value and moving forward. as far as subsidies are concerned, if you give an oil company a subsidy, they go out, do the research, spend the money, and they come up with solutions. otherwise the taxpayers have to pay for it. this does not bother me at all, and i would love to see something positive down for a change, the oil leases were sold to the oil companies write off the coast many years ago.

congress let them expire. there are solutions, we just have to move forward. i hope that we will come up with a coherent plan where everyone can work together and do something positive. thank you so very much to c- span. host: another photograph of historic vicksburg, mississippi. here is a train station in the mississippi valley and you can see how high the water is. the emergency floodgate was lifted yesterday and this was a process, we are told, will take at least two to three weeks. the mississippi river will begin to crest around baton rouge and new orleans in louisiana. one of our callers says we should fix oil -- later in the program, we turn our attention to the situation

in pakistan. if you are a college graduate, what does the job market looks like for you and how much can you expected to earn it? those are some issues and topics on the "washington journal." here are the guests making up the sunday news programs. good morning to nancy in the cease and radio studios. >> good morning, steve. starting at noon, we really care of the sunday morning talk shows. topics include the 2012 presidential election and the situation in the middle east. beginning with "meet the press," interviewing new to gingrich. at 1:00, "this week." then a panel discussion on the economy with fdic chairman, former deputy treasury secretary robert -- roger altman, and

douglas hotlz-eakin. at 2:00 p.m., chris wallace welcomes congressman ron paul. later, senate majority whip dick durbin and sen. kyl. on "stated the union," mitch mcconnell, house budget committee chairman paul ryan, the former director of national intelligence dennis belair, and the former u.s. ambassador to the un. at 4:00 p.m., "face the nation," and bob schieffer interviews john boehner and more from the town hall this week with president obama. these are brought to you as a public service by the networks and c-span. beginning at noon with "meet the press," 1:00 "this week," 2:00 "fox news sunday," and at 4:00,

could face the nation." 90.1 fm in the d.c. area, xm 132, and online on c-spanradio. org. >> what series of terraces do they make it to become terrorists, to kill hundreds of thousands of other people? cooks in his new book, "mastermind," richard miniter looks at the 9/11 attacks. >> understanding them as understanding the future of the war on terror. this is what we have to fear, the terrorist entrepreneurs like khalid sheikh mohammad. >> denied on c-span's "q&a." this is one of our many signature interview programs available online at c-span.org.

>> this week in american history tv, presidential candidate michael dukakis on calvin coolidge and how he evolved into a popular political figure. in the back at jimmy carter and his handling of the energy crisis from the 1970's. on may 22nd, american history tv will be live from mississippi for the 50th anniversary of the freedom riders. but it the complete schedule online are having e-mail to you through c-span alerts. >> this june, the balance between security and liberty, the difficulties of a climate change treaty, and the limits of international law. your questions for university of chicago law professor eric poser. -- posner. also, your calls, emails, and tweets on "booktv."

host: the sunday round table with cheri jacobus and karen finney. mike huckabee will not run for president in 2012. any surprises? guest: i do not think anyone was surprised. he dragged it out forever his show until the last of it around so you really have to watch. good ratings for him. it was not a surprise. do let these guys have to figure out what role they have to play, if any, if they will not be in the race. can they pushed certain issues? keep them on the table and appeal to different parts of the republican base? guest: i was back and forth on this. he was giving a speech explaining what he was going to do and why. he said the leg is going to go

in and he finally said it was not the right thing for him to do. ok. it was good for ratings, and i am sure that had something to do with it, but he has quite a soapbox and there. he has a big show. he has a 100% name identification and can have a big role in the debate. some of these candidates will not be top tier and maybe they can have an impact when they will come on and endorse someone. host: here is what he said last night on the fox news channel. >> only when i was alone in quiet and reflective moments that i had not on the clarity but an inexpressible -- inexplicable he meant inner peace. all the factors say go, but my heart says now. 0-- says no. that is the decision that i made.

in that, i finally found a resolution. host: cheri, as you look to the field now with his departure, what does that mean for the other social conservatives, the evangelicals? guest: there are some candidates in there. i think there are several that could actually have an impact. i think we will eventually end up with a governor or former governor, which think will be a good choice. then you have people like michelle bachman. on if they feel like some issues will be ignored the evangelical base is being ignored, they will push them front and center. we will see these as republicans get into the primaries and decide what issues are important, what will be the second-tier issues, etc. the evangelicals are an important part of the republican base. the issues that are important and will remain front and center.

host: two mets, one dilemma. it was difficult not to feel pity for mitt romney. guest: oops? part of the problem with romney is not just the decision on health care and what he did in massachusetts. it also is that this plays into a narrative that plagued him last time, that he was a flip-

flop for. he said one thing in than state of massachusetts and when running for the presidency changed his position. it plays into the suspicion of that him that maybe you cannot trust him. that is a hard thing. you can explain away various details of policy, but if people do not trust you and do not believe it is a genuine shift in opinion, they will not support you. that will be this issue throughout. host: "the burden of romney- care." guest: he has a problem with this, obviously. people may look at him as a flip-flopper. we saw that affecting john kerry negatively when he ran for president. it depends on how for giving the bases. he has been the front-runner. people know him. we have some other people coming up that could overshadow him,

but this is a problem for him. we will leave this up to the states and he is tap dancing around it. will that be enough? that remains to be seen. i expect it will be a bigger challenge than, certainly, they had hope your thoughts. and is what it is. they were hoping it would not come to this, but we all knew that it would. host: recovered his speech in an arbor, mich., in which he detailed his plan and criticized the president's plan. here is more with governor romney. >> i also recognize that a lot of pundits around the nation are saying that i should stand up and say, "this whole thing was a mistake." that it was beheaded and i should admit it was a mistake and walk away. but i'm presuming lot of people think that be good for me politically, but there's only one problem with that -- it would not be honest. i did what i believed was right for the people of my state.

i would describe for you now what i think would be right for the people of the united states, which is quite a different plan. host: then karen, a power point presentation that included 25 programs. guest: as a bing consultant, i would expect nothing less. he was not wearing a tie and he was trying to show that he could be the casual businessman, i suppose. again, there is the question about authenticity. who are you really? what are trying to tell us? what are you trying to sell us? that is part of an romani's issue. -- romney's issue. his plan is the obama plan, despite what he says. host: a democrat from wisconsin announcing he will not seek another term, leaving another

vacancy in a swing set date for the president in 2012. -- a swing state in 2012. 10 republican seats up. this headline this morning from "the new york times," -- "a reason for optimism in regaining senate dominance." guest: that without a complete surprise. people knew that was a real possibility. so wisconsin, for many reasons, this whole year, but especially for this one, wisconsin will be a real focal point in 2012. it is a swing state. you have a lot of up-and-comers that might run. paul ryan might run, but i doubt that. i think he has such a strong position and a great national position with chairman of the budget committee and so much he could do, i think he'd have to back-burner that to run for the senate. but we've got some other

candidates there and you've got a democratic lineup. feingold could run again. tammy baldwin looks like she wants to get in but i think there's a real possibility that this could be a g.o.p. pickup. things are looking good. there's momentum on the g.o.p. side, it's still early, but there's lots of reason for optimism. host: you have montana, nebraska, north dakota. these are conservative states, democratic seats that are very much in play. you have an open seat in virginia with george allen, and tim cane vying for that, assuming that governor allen gets the republican nomination and have you states like massachusetts where you have a republican incumbent in a strong position to win another term. guest: in massachusetts, the governor is very vulnerable. he's suffered criticism from his own base. one thing i wanted to say about wisconsin, i was surprised that the sort of common wisdom of the pundits was that somehow this

would be a republican pickup given that the g.o.p. brand in the state of wisconsin has been so destroyed by what scott walker did that you have the reagan democrats essentially ready to come home recognizing that this is why they were democrats in the first place, so i actually think there is a better opportunity this cycle for democrats, particularly if we have a strong candidate to hold on to that seat, than you might have seen in other years. >> and cheri jacobus, you have senator lugar who is seeking another term for the first time since 1976, challenged in his own primary. he is 79 years old, running on moderation in immoderate times, is the front page below the full story in the "new york times." guest: we're still having these fights with tea party candidates and others making things difficult. but interesting, and that is a democracy. i imagine it will still have an impact in 2012 as it did in the last election.

there will be very positive things that come from the tea party -- it's not a party, obviously, but the tea party folks, i guess, as we call them, the tea party voters -- and we're going to lose some. i think it makes it tougher for the incumbents that have been in for a long time and they have to defend themselves and fight for their positions. it's not a bad thing. i personally don't mind having those fights. i don't think anybody is owed a seat and i think a primary is a perfectly good place to have some of these fights over the big issues such as the budget and other fiscal issues and the debt and the things people should care about rather than the birther issues and things like that. host: we'll get to your calls and comments in a moment. the "national journal" focusing on winning immigration. the president talking about immigration last week in el paso, texas, and administration officials telling reporters that they expect texas to be in play. how realistic is that?

>> i think it's very realistic. both texas and arizona. we came very close and the thing we've seen in texas from the time i was at the d.n.c. from 2005 to now, really big changes in not just the demographics of the state -- obviously, the latino community very prominent and an important voting block -- but also, within the democratic party, we've seen kind of a revolution, if you will, and they've really reorganized themselves so i think it's actually very possible and again also in arizona where you have a large latino population and we came very close in 2008 so i think both states will be very competitive gompt -- do a: republicans have better job in outreach and communicating the message of the i think the issues are there for the most part. everything is not about the illegal immigration issue and you can't assume everyone of hispanic origin, legal immigrants, are going to vote on

issues. there are a lot of issues that are republican that the hispanic community should be interested in but my party has to get it together and reach out to them and do it quickly. some of those might be socialoshes abortion and the issue of life and education issues and jobs and everything we can do for the hispanic community but aren't speaking to that segment of the population as effectively as we could or should. guest: i wrote a piece for the "hill" this week on this issue. if you're a 2012 republican hopeful, this is an issue you're terrified of. you don't want to see the demagogueria that we saw and the rhetoric that got very much out of control in 2005 and 2006, which meant a lot of hispanic voters left the democratic party and went to the republican party, and it's not just about appealing to them on social

issues but the fact that you're an alien and there's something about you, that turns people off to the republican party and that has been part of why the republican party has seemed and felt less welcoming to minorities so the g.o.p. has to not only lock -- look at those issues but also look at the rhetoric. the more the party pulls to the right, i can't imagine any presidential candidate wants to talk about changing their birth right as citizens. guest: i think the republicans need to fight back against those type of problems. nobody has a problem with legal immigrants, we all come from immigrants. this is the greatest melting pot and i don't think anybody has a problem with that. that's what makes america great. but it is important to differentiate between legal

immigrants and illegal immigrants and sometimes the rhetoric mixes that up and republicans have not been good of dealing with that but it's about the rule of law and as americans we're proud to be americans no matter where we come from and that's a good message but when you have people coming in illegally when you have so many others who worked very hard to get here as legal citizens, that needs to be the talking point. too often republicans allow themselves to be called racist and let the lines be blurred between what we're talking about with regard to people who are here legally and become americans and those sneaking in illegally and just because there's a shared ethnicity does not make them the same. you have people who are here legally and people breaking the law. it's as simple as that. host: our sunday roundtable with cheri jacobus and karen finney.

bill is joins us from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm looking out the window and there's a hummingbird out here and i think people need to connect to nature more instead of technology. everything we come up with in terms of technological entertainment require energy. when i was a kid, we played outside. we didn't have electronics all the time and we walked to school and i think we're always promoting the consumption model and we need to look at what's conservative and exploiting all the resources in order to fulfill our wants and desires isn't really conservative and we have to look around and do simple things like planting garden and walking to school and being more community minded. it's all these high energy prices do anything that's going to be good, maybe it will bring people back to urban cores to where they can walk to the store

and get to know their neighbors and a political point, too, i think unfortunately the political process is broken, that we have the best government money can buy and oil companies don't have allegiance to the country. they gave away most of the oil from 1900 to 1950, we exported lots of oil. we were the sexual battery of -- saudi arabia of the world. only gave it away for $1 a barrel. guest: listening to the debate about oil and when we talk about global climate change and how we get off of oil and look at other models for a more diversified energy model, one of the things think is very sad is that in that discussion, the idea of being conservationists and caring about the environment has gotten lost and sort of almost as a negative because we're focused so much on sources of

oil or other sources of energy and he's right. we need to be more conscientious about how we conserve the earth. host: bloomberg "business week" pointing out that the oil sector has a 41% increase in earnings from the year before. we had the hearing where energy and oil executives getting tough questions from democrats, support from senate republicans including orrin hatch but how does this issue play out when all of us are playing $4 a gallon. guest: when it's $3.99, we don't change our behavior but when it hits $4 a gallon, we our behavior. psychologically, it has a tremendous impact as much as economically. host: what about politically? guest: you have the president up restrictions in the gulf on drilling and he's going to take flack from that from

those on the left but he's facing the realities about what we need to be doing. but again, is it hard to watch for americans to watch the oil company make a lot of money? certainly. but i think what we really care about are those measures that are going to be lowering the price or holding the price of gas, that we have to -- we drive by and see those signs every day of the rising gas prices and that's what people care about. president obama siding a little bit with republicans now and easing up on drilling restrictions, that's not going to have an immediate effect on the prices, everybody knows. but at least republicans and democrats are coming together a little bit to do something in washington that's going to down the road and i think that's going to go a long way in terms of americans having a small bit of faith that washington can do something about it. host: to your earlier point about the tea party, tawny, from new jersey, said republicans are

supposed to grow the party and instead have narrowed it. how do you win if you buy that argument? guest: she's talking about growing the tea party? the republican party. guest: the tea party voters still vote republican and they have an impact butung -- i don't see any evidence that they're shrinking the party. i do think that we have to -- we've been forced to recognize and pay attention to the issues that are important to the tea party. i don't think that's a bad thing. on the economic issues, i think it has a tremendous impact and those will be the issues we focus on in 2012. we see evidence of of that already in the primary. it's the fiscal issues, it's debt, it's spending, it's the budget. that's what the tea party cares about and if they stick to that, they'll still have a pretty big impact and i think republicans are listening. host: karen finney? guest: i think it's the opposite. you look at the potential

presidentials, the fact that what they have to do to get through the primary most likely means they won't win in the general election. when you look at what john mccain had to say, in the election, people said they didn't know who he was. one of the things the republican party has done a poor part on, the youth vote. 62% of 18 to 29-year-olds voted democratic. that's the first time more young people voted than seniors. now with the fight that the g.o.p. has taken up with the aarp over healthcare legislation, they're on the skids with seniors. so i think what you're seeing is a shrinking party that is increasingly beholden to the far right base. look at discussions wove -- we've had on the budget, we're in, we're up, we're down, where boehner is trying to please all these masters and being led around by the tea party. host: don from sumter county,

good morning. caller: what i wanted to talk about was the citizens united decision and how it's distorting elections. my examples being all the money the g.o.p. dumped into the wisconsin races with feingold and the governor there, the rejection of the ryan budget, and all the support it's getting and how it really works is let's use frank lutz's focus group on the republican first debate. i mean, talk about focustry, what total control of results did frank put out where he had a unanimous panel and i think steve colbert will have fun with the super pack and that why once again this weekend is 10 out of the 12 guests on all the talk shows republicans. i mean, you got presented the lineup on c-span radio earlier and what kind of representation is that?

i just don't understand. and i'd like to hear what the ladies have to say, thank you very much. host: regardless, we'll help you listen to some of those sunday shows on c-span radio at noon eastern heard coast-to-coast on xm channel 19. all the republicans running and one democrat. but with regard to citizens united and the money in politics, the democrats have recently come up with a plan of their own to start dumping that same kind of money into the races so if it's something that's offensive to people, both parties of equal opportunity offenders at this point but there's no question that campaigns are expensive, very expensive. there's also no question that every person in this country who's 18 years old, they have the right to vote. so this is a matter of citizens may be taking time of their own

in deciding who they want to vote for and maybe if they weren't so affected by all the money and could find out what they want about the candidates, we wouldn't need that. that's in utopia and sounds very pollyanna but the money is there and that's a fact of politics, like it or not. it's like complaining about the weather at this point. host: one of those republicans is congressman ron paul. he ran in 1988 as the libertarian nominee and in 2008 as the republican candidate and he's running again. we caught up with him in exeter, new hampshire, on friday. >> there are many who would like to belittle this effort but let me tell you, there is an old saying, three's a charm. the conditions have certainly changed even from four years ago when i think back on the first year that i came up here, it must have been end of 2006-2007,

the atmosphere was a lot different. there was an 2006 election, 2008 election, and it did not make all of us who believed in liberty all that happy but boy, i tell you what, there has been a significant change. the people have awoken and they have sent a meanwhile -- message, elected a lot of new people to the state legislature and i am convinced that the spirit of liberty is alive and well in new hampshire. [cheers and applause] host: that is on our web site at c-span.org. karen finney, he is popular among the base of the party, why? guest: there's also a story that he's popular in his own district and i think people like the fact that he's a straight talker, says what is on his mind, legalizing heroin, if you agree with that, fine. but i think people are refreshed with the fact that he's willing to take on democrats and republicans based on what seems like a very pure sense of what

he believes is right and what he believes is not right and again, whether or not you agree with him, i think it's more that level of honesty and sort of that straightforward conversation that people respect. i just don't think they see him as president, is the problem. host: joe joining us from savannah, georgia, with karen finney and cheri jacobus at the table, good morning, joe. guest: good morning. i want to say one thing that most of the presidents always wait too long to cure a situation that they know that's going to happen in the future. now we're talking about oil prices. we're talking about inflation, which the government produced inflation, the first time the government ever produced an inflation in this country. and then on the other hand we have the fuel prices. every time a truck moves down the road to bring a product on

our marketplace, it costs him $400 to fill that truck up just to go 100 miles -- or 400 miles. host: your point is what? caller: excuse me? host: i'm trying to get what your point or your question is. caller: the point is, we have an inflation that is so high right now at the grocery stores and our marketplace, if we don't bring the fuel prices down to a normal operating cost for truckers, we will never get this country stabilized. host: so turn that in terms of the 2012 election, if gas prices are where they are next year, if inflation is creeping up, what impact will this have on the president's re-election? guest: right now we've seen the president's bump from

authorizing the killing of osama bin laden has gone away and we're looking at it in terms of economic issues. host: which is not unusual. guest: it's expected, which means these are the issues that will be a big part of the 2012 election so republicans need to clarify and stick to their message and do a very good job of talking in terms of jobs and making the job creators in this country have an environment where they can succeed. and that's going to help everybody, so when you are over taxing employers, when you're over taxing business and putting out all of these regulations so they can barely do business and can't hire people and can't offer benefits, that's a real problem, a huge obstac toll economic success in america so i think republicans really have the upper hand in terms of articulating that message because if you can create businesses and create an environment where businesses can thrive and succeed, everybody wins. once you strangle business, we get into some of these problems

and gas prices are going to be the constant reminder like the wal-mart sign in their ads where the price guess up and down. host: in 1991, george herbert walker bush, his success in out offing saddam hussein from kuwait and both lost their re-election bids. guest: i think the bump that the president got out of the killing of osama bin laden wasn't expected to last particularly given that we're in a tough economic climate. what i found interesting in some of the things cheri was saying, if you care about small businesses, you would never play politics with the idea of raising the debt ceiling or not. if we default on the debt ceiling, that makes harder to get credit, it makes it harder for small business to have access to credit and loans for

individuals and college loans so there are a number of things i felt if that was a sincere concern on the part of the republicans, we wouldn't hear some of the rhetoric we're hearing. that being said, the economy will be almost like a third candidate in the race because while it is true we are moving in the right direction, it's still not felt by enough people and certainly with the gas being as high as they are, one of the things, in addition to what the president was talking about with regard to drilling, he's the one guy who's been saying all along, we need to have a comprehensive solution and we need to start doing a lot of these things now because of the future and i always think back to jimmy carter with the turn it down and put on your sweaters. if we'd have implemented some of the ideas he had, we would be in better shape than we are today. we have to balance between the short term and long term and that's hard in a tough economic candidate. host: newt gingrich, another candidate in the race. he announced it on twitter on

wednesday and delivered his first political speech on friday in macon, georgia. >> president obama is the most successful food stamp president in american history. more people are on food stamps today than at any time in american history and he's proud of it. i would like to be the most successful paycheck president in american history. [applause] and i'd like the voter, the last thing before they vote, one of the questions they have ask, one of them will be, do you want a future of paychecks or a future of food stamps? host: comments from newt gingrich, former house speaker. we'll go to charles who has been waiting in las vegas. good morning. caller: i just moved from d.c. where gas is $5 a gallon and i want everyone to understand the

most important reason" $5 a gallon g.on youtube and find the quote which i'll give you verbatim. "of course, my policies will cause energy prices to skyrocket ." find that quote and you'll understand that that's the number one reason. he knows that alternative energies are not economically viable, therefore he's racing the price of fossil fuels in order to make alternatives more competitive but they'll never get there. he loans $2 billion to petro gras and his friend george soros so they can drill in deep sea whereas we have been probated from that for at least a year and maybe more. host: we'll get a response. guest: i don't think the president is intentionally trying to raise the price of fossil fuels. there are a lot of things that go into it. it is the achilles' heel no

matter who is in the white house. much of the rhetoric i hear obama are theent same talking points we used against president bush. there is a limit of things you can do to bring prices down but we have to have a vision that understands that in the future we cannot be so reliant upon foreign is -- sources of oil. we have to have a comprehensive energy mix that looks at a wide range of options and makes them viable and i think most people understand that. and i think that's just our reality. i think if we don't, we will continue to be held hostage to events in the middle east which i don't think any of us want to see in the future. host: one of our viewers has this question based on a pete sieger video. it's pete sieger with a question, which side are you on, available via youtube. and we'll play part of it to get

your response. that's the question the president is asking. guest: i think the election will be well the economy. people understand balanced budgets and know washington isn't doing it. they understand that we're leaving huge debt and problems for our children and grandchildren, the next generations. i think people get that. i think this is why it's going to be i strong argument for republican governors and former governors who have been able to balance budgets and reduce deficits within their states, have been able to get the economy under control, have been able to lower taxes. you have mitch daniels who really lowered property taxes in indiana and capped it in the constitution. those are the types of issues that will be great talking points and the great debate in this election. when you have people with executive experience, governors who have done this in their own state and know how to have the conversation.

they know how to fix things in their own state and know how to fix things nationally. when we talk about the economy and whose side are you on, the side of people who want to live off the government or are you on the side of people who want a strong, robust economy, who want jobs and don't want to leave debt and problems for the next generation. guest: the major problem i have of late with the economic conversation, even newt gingrich talking about people on food stamps is in general the g.o.p. never wants to talk about how we got here. it is not a mistake how we got here. we had several years of a republican controlled congress and republican president who essentially tanked our economy and after the killing of osama bin laden so many people who have been running away from bush for years ran to the microphones to make sure that the ba -- bush administration got credit for the twork -- work it had done.

you have to give the president credit that taxes are as low as they've been for most americans and you see story after story of major corporations not paying taxes i'm not sure how you can say that taxes are so high particularly when republicans voted 16 times against tax breaks for small businesses so when you look at whose side are you on and who is making targeted tax cuts to help small businesses, that's president obama. >> i don't see how anybody can defend massive spending in washington and taking taxpayer money and money from future generations. that's never going to work. republicans have always been against tax hikes. they want lower taxes, less regulation, they don't want big brother government weighing heavily on americans and job creators. in terms of republicans taking responsibility for their part in growing spending in washington, we had two wars that were very expensive.

republicans vocally at the grass roots level and here in washington, we get it. we were probably getting too comfortable in our majority, we were spending too much of your money and we took a hit at the ballot box, we know it, and that's why there's a new group saying, stop, let's return to we are supposed to do as republicans, reining in the spending and being responsible with the money the taxpayers send to washington for which we are the stewards of. that's where republicans started getting their voice back and that's why the tea party became strong, not so much on the social issues because i don't think that was the genesis of the tea party originally but on the economic issues. on the economic issues, the tea party played a really big role in terms of getting their elected officials and candidates to focus on this more. host: you want to follow up? guest: i wish that were true. we haven't seen a jobs bill or legislation from the republican-controlled house. instead, we've seen measures that are ideological in nature, going after women's legally

protected rights to abortion care services, coming up with arcane ways to cut planned parenthood so women who need regular health exams can't get those things so i think we're seeing a more ideological agenda and the idea of paul ryan's budget is that in order to enact that budget you have to raise the debt ceiling. so the hypocrisy we've seen is astounding. host: one of our viewers saying, i'm still waiting for an answer. obama spent trillions, who got that money, i really want want to know. kevin joining us from new york. caller: good morning. the gentlemen who called in the president was personally manipulating the cost of oil and gas probably also thinks that obama was born in kenya. i have one observation about something, ms. jacobus said, and

one question for both. the observation is that the distinction was made that it was either illegal or legal in terms of alien and i think that's disingenuous because after 9/11, laws were changed to make it much more difficult for people to achieve legal status to get their green card. this was xeeno phobic reaction and i recommend a show by tom friedman about young people who couldn't come here to study because of the new laws so to make a finite distinction, legal and illegal, is disingenuous. host: thank you, kevin. guest: that's not true. when we're talking about the issue of legal immigrants versus illegal, by and large, let's face it, most people are talking about people coming over the border from the south, from mexico. and there were measures, obviously we're going to take measures from national security

standpoint after 9/11 that's uncomfortable but they had to make these calls with regard to the illegal immigration issue, that deals mostly with our borders to the south that remains an issue and i don't think it's a realistic that americans by and large are going to want to have a serious talk about amnesty until our government, no matter who's in the white house, no matter who controls the congress, can show they can close our borders and i say do that first. that's what most people think do, that first, and then i honestly think people would want to have a conversation with what we call amnesty but i don't see people wanting to have that conversation until the government can secure our borders. host: one of the stories featured in the "new york times" weekend review, a focus on the marriage of governor daniels and his wife. we covered his speech in indiana as he considers a possible

presidential bid and the announcement of the separation of arnold schwarzenegger and shriver and the story of newt gingrich and his three wives. guest: the role of the spouse is always interesting particularly in the context of the 2012 election because each woman has to decide with her husband what role she's going to play, how out there she's going to be, how behind the scenes she prefers to be. i thought it was interesting in the story with mitch daniels that in a twist because lord knows i feel like it's generally the man who has had the skirmishes that, she left and came back. it's a story with a happy ending but i can understand why she's reluctant to open her life up to scrutiny and questions because the spotlight is very harsh and the kinds of questions -- democrat, republican, i don't who you are running for school board, it has gotten more

vicious and the idea that certain things that probably should be off limits are now, it's out there, it's out there forever once it's tweeted or on facebook or emailed around and it's much harder to shut those things down. so i don't blame her. guest: and the thing, is once those issues are out there, that's something that's always been the case, people will be talking. and the spouses, this also includes husbands because we have women thinking of throwing their hat in the ring. this is something that fascinates the american people and whether it's our business or not is beside the point. we are going to be talking about it. the spouses typically or any family member, they can't really help a candidate, but they can hurt them. so the strategies with all of these campaigns is how do we put the family members, particularly the spouse, in this campaign in a way where they cannot do harm, you know, first do no harm. remember billy carter with jimmy carter and hillary clinton's brothers sometimes were an embarrassment so we've seen this

forever. the marital issues, there is a distinction. with newt gingrich, he's got a little bit of a problem so their decision is to have calista be out front. she's been out front for a while so people are used to it. it is what it is. this is his third marriage and there was, as we say, seamless transition between the marriages and relationships so it is what it is, it's awkward, but by having her out there this long, people getting to know her, maybe they hope it will inoculate them. with regards to mitch daniels, he's great on paper as a republican candidate and as a governor and his experience and record of results but nobody knew a lot about him personally. i think this makes him more interesting. i can see where his wife is embarrassed but he raised their four daughters while she was gone. he won her back, he got the family back together. read likes a romance novel in many ways.

it makes him super dad, it makes him interesting, it's a love story, it's a happy ending. it's real and relatable and in some ways it's a net gain because it adds a dimension to him. senator john ensign. just when john ensign thought he was out, they pulled him back in. the senate ethics committee reading the report by barbara boxer and one of our viewers saying how bad will tom coburn get splashed on the bribery advice he given senator ensign? i don't know, it was bribery or counsel as a deacon? this is a sad situation in terms you have senator ensign who like quicksand has sucked in all of his friends who were maybe trying to give him friendly advice and get him to improve his behavior so this is playing out rather dramatically. it's very sad.

this isn't something that is republican or democrat. we see it with john edwards and talk about the drama there. it's one thing when it happens, when you have one bad actor but when people who are just trying to be their friends get dragged into it, you know, some of it does splash on them. i don't think this will be fatal for senator coburn at all. but it's awkward for him for a while. speaking of values and virtues, former house speaker, john boehner, speaking at university yesterday at a commencement speech that we covered here at c-span. here's speaker boehner. >> one of the students me a prepared question, after my address, and he asked me, well, what prayer do you say before you go to a meeting at the white house with the president? well, i said, i always ask god for the courage and the wisdom to do his will and not mine.

serving others is just not how i lead in congress, it's how i lead my life. >> comments from speaker boehner yesterday at catholic university. quick comment? guest: crying, yeah. host: he broke down three times. guest: we know now he's a sensitive guy. i don't know if that's something we knew about him for many years. now that he's in the spotlight, he's obviously a sensitive guy or can't help it or i think he would probably stop. i think he's one of those people, too, who's rather interesting when we got go to the public spotlight on the national level and learned that he's part of this huge family of like 12 kids and i think this is an appropriate speech for him to give and to talk about that with these students. i don't think it's something he's known for, to talk about how he prays, but i think it was fine in this instance. guest: i think in this instance,

though, that was in large response to the letter he received from a member of catholic priests saying what you're doing with the budget goes completely against the values of the catholic teachings and christian faith, which i completely agree with as a catholic and i have a real problem with the crying. it seems very disingenuous to me. where he first became speaker he was crying about children and their future and a couple of weeks later cutting all kinds of funds, calling teachers special interest groups. i feel like if you're going to say if that's part of your core and your faith, your decisions should reflect that. guest: i think his leadership style reflects that perfectly well and the fact that he's trying to cut the budget and spending -- guest: and medicare? guest: to not make our future generations shoulder the burden of the mistakes of what washington has been doing, i think that's one of the most moral things you can do as an elected official. i think the spending washington has been engaged in is immoral

and i think to dump this on to people who don't deserve it, people who are not yet born, is immoral and i think the speaker maybe doesn't articulate it quite as i have, but i think his actions back that up. host: let me conclude with two headlines, the "chicago tribune" this sunday morning, a preview of rahm emanuel sworn in as mayor of chicago tomorrow. the piece says the next mayor brings a playbook written in the d.c. trenches. and a headline, "new mayor moves in" although the old mayor had not yet begun to pack his boxes. chicago braces for the unknown. karen finney and cheri jacobus, thank you both for being with us. when we return, we'll turn our attention to pakistan as senator john kerry travels to the region. and later, the job market, for those of you graduating, the class of 2011. as the "washington journal" continues on this sunday morning

as we always do on the weekends, a look at some of the leading events as viewed bis editorial cartoonists from around the country.

>> a look back at jimmy carter and his handling of the energy crisis of the 1970's, the long-term restoration of the treasury building and on sunday may 22, american history t.v. will be live from mississippi

for the 50th anniversary of the freedom riders. get the complete schedule at c-span.org/history. >> what series of choices do they make to become terrorists to kill hundreds of thousands of other people? >> in his new book, "mastermind," investigative journalist richard miniter looks the 9/11 attacks. >> now that bin laden is dead, this is what we have to fear, the terrorist entrepreneurs like khalid sheikh mohammed. >> inside the mind of a terrorist, tonight on c-span's "q&a." host: we wanted to welcome shuja

nawaz, the south asian director for the atlantic council. i want to share with you the headlines from the "new york times." as the rift deepens, senator kerry has a warning for pakistan. let me begin with that headline and ask you the state of u.s.-pakistan relations. guest: i don't think it's been as bad as it is now for many years and the only way now is probably up. but it will take a lot of effort on both sides, and i think senator kerry is probably one of the best people in washington that can help pakistan understand the kind of decisions that pakistan needs to make to sort out this relationship with the united states. host: 80 people killed over the weekend in what was billed as a response to the u.s. capture and killing of bin laden. is that the first of many types of terrorist attacks that we could likely see in the region? >> yes, and the death toll in that has gone up close to 90 now.

there was another attack on a bus, suicide bomber in a bus in the heart of the punjab. this is going to be a pattern that we will see because the tariq taliban of pakistan, the ttp, the one that declared war against the state of pakistan, and has said it will avenge the death of bin laden, has associations with punjabi taliban groups in the heartland and that's going to be the way that they will try and scare the government and scare the population of pakistan. host: this coming at the same time that the u.s. drone attacks continue over pakistan. in terms of our relations with the country, what impact is that having? guest: that's a very interesting question. the real question for the pakistanis is, are they allowing the drones or will they continue to bemoan the fact that the u.s. is "infringing their sovereignty." they can't have it both ways.

and in the joint session of the parliament, supposedly in camera, which we are now getting a lot of reporting from the people that attended it, when they were briefed by the head of the inter services intelligence and the air force senior staff about the bin laden raid, a lot of these issues came up and one of the things that emerged finally was a resolution saying that pakistan needs to stop the u.s. from carrying out drone attacks. but other thing that emerged out of the reporting of this closed-door session was the fact the pakistanis have provided an airfield called chumpsy which is used by the united states for launching some of the drone attacks. host: the pakistani prime galanny speaking to members of parliament in islamabad last monday, his first address the capture and kill of bin laden. i want to show you part of what

he had to say and get your reaction. >> it is disingenuous for anyone to blame pakistan for -- or the state institution of pakistan, the i.s.i. and the armed forces for being in cahoots with al qaeda. it was al qaeda and its affiliates that carried out hundreds of suicide bomb, in nearly every town and city of pakistan and also targeted political leaders, state institutions, the i.s.i. and the general headquarters. the obvious question that has vexed everyone is how could osama bin laden hide in plain sight in the scenic surroundings of pakistan. allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd. host: prime galani, two

questions for you. who was the largest audience and why did he deliver the speech in english? guest: the speech in english was in order to address the foreign audience but the main message was for a domestic audience. this speech was his second public pronouncement on the bin laden killing. the first public pronouncement came immediately after the raid on abbottabad in which he proclaimed it a great victory. and then promptly got on a plane and went off to paris on a visit, when this was obviously a serious national emergency, and he could have called a meeting of his security chiefs, the army and the air force and the naval chiefs. never did that. the president of pakistan also lauded the attack, didn't raise any issues. this is kind of second parts on his part on coming back. i think he got probably a rocket from the army headquarters and

there are those that believe even this speech may have been drafted by the military in order to set the record straight from their perspective. host: how do you pronounce the town? we've heard "abbottabad" and you just pronounced it as "abbottabad." aest: it's named after englishman named james abbott so it would be abbott-a-bad. the locals don't obviously pronounce it the perfect english way. they call it "abitabad." host: here's more from prime minister galani's speech from islamabad, the capital of pakistan, last monday. >> pakistan alone cannot held to

account for flawed policies and slander. pakistan is not the birthplace of al qaeda. we did not invite osama bin laden to pakistan, or even to afghanistan. host: how was that speech received and it was viewed as credible by the foreign audience? guest: i don't think it was entirely credible. the point he's making is that pakistan alone is not responsible but i think pakistan has responsibility to itself to clarify its position, to clear the awful suspicions that have arisen as a result of that attack as to whether there was either complicity in supporting bin laden while he was in hiding or complicity even with the u.s. raid which they don't wish to acknowledge. this is another set of questions that is being launched at them. host: we'll get to phone calls in a moment. you can also join the conversation on our twitter page at twitter.com/cspanwj.

shuja nawaz is a former television newscaster on pakistani t.v., he's worked for the world health organization and was the former director of the international atomic energy agency. our first call is paul joining us from tennessee. good morning. caller: i'm glad i'm the first guy that gets to talk to this fella right here because i hope you give him as much time as you give to others on c-span. i've been watching for a long time, if you're going to try to sit there and get me to believe that pakistan did not know osama bin laden was there, i won't believe it for a minute. remember, too, we've lost a lot of lives, not only 9/11, but we've had in war that's lost his life has been after this man. now, we got this man and now al qaeda or taliban or whoever it is is blowing up these places. i say, let's bring our boys home

and if we have to come back, make that place over there a desert and get rid of these people, stop killing our boys. putting an x on their back and letting these people shoot at them and blow them up in mines, it's ridiculous. our government should be held accountable. why is john kerry the only man going to pakistan? come on, this liberal bunch is out of their minds and they're going to lose in the election coming up. going to be held accountable not only by me but by every mother, father, whose lost a kid, innocent in any way in this right here, they're going to be held accountable. host: thanks for the call, paul. guest: i think the caller is right. a lot of lives have been lost, good u.s. lives and the aftermath of the war in afghanistan has led to the insurgency inside pakistan, so over the same period, pakistan has lost something like 30,000 people, killed or wounded in

attacks by the taliban inside the country and by other militants. if there is an easy way to end this fighting, i'm sure that would be the choice of people in pakistan as well as in the u.s. government. but what the government clearly is now planning is an orderly withdrawal so that it doesn't leave behind a chaos that we did leave behind in 1989 and 1990 after the soviets withdrew and afghanistan basically descended into chaos, out of which emerged the taliban. i think that's the history we don't want to repeat again and again. host: fareed zakaria rights this, "so far, pakistan's military has approached this crisis as it has with every other one in the past, using its old tricks and hoping to ride out the storm, it is leaking stories to favored journalists, unleashing activists and politicians, all with the aim of

stoking anti-americanism. having been caught in a situation that suggests either complicity with al qaeda or gross incompetence, it is furiously trying to change the subject." guest: i follow the pages of the various chat books also, facebook, twitter, and other emails that i get from different parts of the civil and the military, and people are extremely unhappy with the situation, the fact that they don't know whether there was complicity or whether this was just sheer incompetence. what has really hurt the pakistan military is the fact that that is an organization which was ranked number one in public opinion polls inside the country in terms of respect and it risks losing that and i think that the humiliation of the attack has got them reeling. it's very critical for not just the army but government of pakistan to take charge.

i think this is a great opportunity for the civilians to assert their control over the entire policy making apparatus and not simply outsource it to the military. host: our guest is with the atlantic council. you can log on to their web site to get more information, acus.org. from the "london telegraph," a story about general musharraf who indicated that rogue elements may have helped bin laden. who would have been the rogue elements he was talking about? guest: i think he would be referring to people who are either in the lower reaches of the interservices intelligence or are ex-interservice intelligence but president musharraf is not a a very credible witness because he has been changing his story on this. after all, it was he who arranged to become a partner of the united states after having subjected the taliban government in kabul and it was done

overnight. the unfortunate thing at that point after 9/11 was that nothing was put in writing. the u.s. nor pakistan put together an agreement that said these are our rights and responsibilities, this is what we expect from you. so over this period, pakistan has received something like $26 billion of overt economic and military assistance or reimbursements in order to help the united states fight this war against terror, over this 10-year period roughly. he was willing to take that money. it's not clear how much he was willing to help the united states in this effort. host: let's lock -- look at those physician as we listen to patricia joining us from kettering, ohio. caller: i hope i'm saying your name correctly, mr. nawaz.

that fella who called before and said make this place a desert, i just think that reflects what many -- i won't say the majority -- but the conflict or the contrast between the way americans put value on american human life, which of course we should put value on american lives, but do people in pakistan and iraq, the way i'm understanding it in that part of the world, that many people look at americans as hypocrites in the way we put value on our lives, yet we don't seem to put -- or the majority of american people put value on say, for instance, the pakistani lives killed by drones or the iraqi lives killed by our unnecessary and immoral evasion of iraq. can you talk to us about the way pakistanis may look at americans in the way, that hypocrisy about

the value of human life. if americans are saying they were sheltering o.b.l. or there's a possibility of pakistanis sheltering osama bin laden, i can't see how other people in that part of the world wouldn't say the u.s. is sheltering any kind of accountability in regard to, say, cheney and wolfowitz and fife and bush in regard to the loss of human life in iraq. so the value of human life, in both places, innocent human life, and also, why do you think the u.s. doesn't pressure pakistan, israel and india to sign that nonproliferation treaty. thank you, sir. host: thank you, patricia. guest: obviously, in my view, every single human life is immeasurable in terms of value. for the people that lose a father, a son, a daughter, or a

husband, it's the end of the world. and clearly pakistan has had its share of losses, as i mentioned, something like 30,000 in this period. so you really can't compare the lives lost of americans versus pakistanis. i think all the losses are enormous and we should recognize them. in terms of the drones, most pakistanis get their information second or third hand, in any case, and so if the government has been saying from president musharraf into the current civilian government that they are against the drone attacks, while they've been continuing to support the drone attacks with logistical support and giving an airfield for the use of the drones to be launched from, that's the hypocrisy that pakistan is going to have to diveel and should. very interesting, the pugh global attitude survey in pakistan had two different

numbers. the one most often repeated is that 59% of pakistanis polled saw the u.s. as an enemy. the one that's not often understood or repeated is that 64%, a larger number of pakistanis, said they want to have improved relations with the united states. so there is, in this very long history of the u.s.-pakistan among the people, certainly, a desire to have an improved relationship. it's the governments that have stood in the way and used the relationship for their own ends, for short-term purposes and that's been at the heart of it. on that score, i should say, i was very pleased when the spoke at west point in 2009 and he had two very telling paragraphs that were directly addressed to the people of afghanistan and the people of pakistan saying that in the future, those are the people he would have a relationship with and it wouldn't be with any single individual or group or institution.

host: this headline from the times" this morning, also elsewhere, including the "chicago sun-times," says a trial may push the pakistani spy agency out of shadows. the piece focusing on a number of items, pointing out that a growing chorus on capitol hill using the discovery of bin laden's hide-out and mr. hendly's case leaving no doubt that the i.s.i. and pakistani overseers have played a cynical double standard with regard to the u.s. and pointing out that mr. headily might have been involve in the mumbai attacks from 2008. a lot of dots to be connected here. guest: absolutely, and i think we'll wait for the evidence to be presented particularly on the reported involvement of i.s.i. officers. this brings me back to the

earlier comment which i didn't address, which was, can the u.s. bring india and pakistan together. i think india and pakistan need to bring themselves together. that's at the heart of all these issues. the spy versus spy games will continue until such point that the government in pakistan and the military in pakistan realizes that there is a need to normalize this relationship because it would benefit both sides. at the atlantic council, we've focused on this a lot. we've had a number of presentations of surveys and research which indicate that if they open up trade, their trade could rise from $2 billion a year today to somewhere between $40 and $100 billion a year, raising incomes on both sides of the border between india and pakistan. i see some signs, some glimmer of hope in my conversations in pakistan with the civil and with the military that perhap the enemy is now within the country, that there needs to be some kind of normalization on

the eastern border with india and maybe that will remove the role of the intelligence agencies in fomenting insurgencies or terrorist attacks or militancy across each other's borders. host: this headline from the "new york daily news," first pakistan will pay, then the u.s., the chilling message delivered by the pakistani taliban which vowed to avenge the attack on osama bin laden with strikes against america. the next call is from massachusetts on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. what i would like to point out is that every time all of our media people and u.s. congressmen, everybody's blaming pakistan and that pakistan cannot be trusted, and that pakistan has betrayed u.s.a. and that pakistan has got so much

aid like $26 billion so far, but the point we are missing is pakistan has relationship with united states ever since it was born. and in 1950's and 1960's, there was a lot of international or local organization organized by u.s.a. such as southeast asia treaty organization, or center, and treaty organization which included iraq, syria and pakistan and all these countries against u.s. so there was southeast asia, like pakistan, and thailand, burma, et cetera, they were included in that country. but the problem problem is, whenever pakistan needed help, america never stood with pakistan. pakistan had about four wars

with india and one was in 1965, the major war. and america was supplying armaments to pakistan and to india, too, and then it stopped at that time that no armaments should be supplied to india and pakistan. india was producing its own armtaments at that time. pakistan department have anything. so they were like when they needed america most they were leaving in lurch. host: thank you for the call and the comment. let me begin on one point. he was talking about the wars between india and pakistan. as we look at a map on the region, to follow up on the caller's point, how was the line drawn and how has that maybe accelerated or contributed to the chilly relationships between these two countries? >> well, the line was drawn by an australian jurist who never set foot in the subcontinent

before he was asked to adjudicate on the boundaries of what would be the new states of india and pakistan as successive states to the british india. trouble arose with kashmir, which was an independent state, and under the rules of independence, all the states were supposed to decide to go with one country or the other. they couldn't become independent themselves. the interesting thing about kashmir being that it was majority muslim population ruled by a hindu rural and when he delayed a decision, a group of officers in the pakistan military took matters into their own hands, lower ranking officers, without the knowledge of their british superiors, and took the tribesmen that are now in the border region with afghanistan and invaded kashmir and a car ensued and then at some point u.n.-imposed cease fire occurred which divided that

territory. that's really at the heart of the india-pakistan trouble. what the caller reflected is a very strong pakistani narrative, which is, a long historical that remains in pakistani minds, about the rollercoaster relationship as i call it between the u.s. and pakistan. but the problem with this relationship has always been that we've always talked about long term and acted in the short run. and domestic politics trumps everything. so for both pakistan and for the united states, it's domestic politics that guides whether they will stay or go. i think president obama is trying to change that narrative somewhat with the support for the burma assistance. but in the end, i come back to the basic point, it's up to pakistan to decide what is in its national interests in terms of its relationship with its neighbors, in terms of its relationships with the major powers. it has a good relationship with

china. it's had a good relationship with the united states. there just needs to be much more definite spelling out of what that relationship entails so perhaps a signed agreement rather than the vague promises that president musharraf left us with. host: we're talking about the united states and pakistan. our guest, shuja nawaz, who is with the atlantic council. gerald is joining us from bowling green, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. have a couple of questions for mr. nawaz. my first question is, according to the media, there was an unwritten agreement between the u.s. and pakistan, if we happened upon osama bin laden that we would go in and that they would condemn it in the media. do you believe this is what's going on? host: let's get that point. guest: this is part of various conspiracy theories and it's not

just the media here but even in pakistan. there are all kind of stories emerging, also the fact that perhaps somebody in the lower ranks of the i.s.i. claimed the $50 million reward for osama bin laden and is now being relocated. so all of this is still unsubstantiated. what the caller is quite right is in asserting the point i've made before, that there is no written agreement between the united states and pakistan that guides the relationship vis-a-vis the war in afghanistan and what the respective roles and responsibilities of the u.s. and of pakistan are. i think it's time to end that uncertainty. host: gerald? you want to the follow up? caller: yes. at what point will this become more than a war of words as far as will we continue to give them aid or will we stop the aid? and what will be that turning

point? host: thanks, gerald. guest: i think it's critical that they reach agreement soon on whatever needs to be done because it is a very critical time in the history of the region. the united states is preparing this summer to begin an orderly withdrawal from afghanistan. it needs the support of pakistan, the access through pakistan to provide logistical support and ammunitions and other things to the fighting in afghanistan. it cannot risk alienating pakistan at this point. at the same time, if it has evidence of pakistan's involvement in any way with osama bin laden, then that's going to be something that has to be addressed bay the pakistanis themselves. it's a time of decision for both countries. and from all accounts, including the trip that senator kerry is taking, including the planned trip of the secretary of state to revive the strategic dialogue

between the two countries, i think they'll make a genuine effort to try to get this back on track. host: this program is streamed on the web, of course, carried overseas via satellite on the bbc parliament channel. our next caller is from karachi, pakistan. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for the opportunity. i've been seeing a huge change historically since the 1950's where pakistan was a member of ceto and today we see the government of pakistan, the politicians coming on television with anti-american rhetoric and the visit to russia by the president and now we see this unanimous resolution of the parliament which is fairly anti-american. what i wanted to ask mr. shuja nawaz was that, seeing this, does it mean that the liberal government heads failed to launch a counter narrative in

our country and do you think maybe it's time that the u.s. are pussy footing. host: he hung up. guest: he may have been cut off. it's often difficult when people are listening in. the caller is correct, there is a change since the 1950's and 1960's when pakistan and the u.s. were together, allies in the southeast asia treaty organization and central treaty ors. to call the current government liberal is a liberal use of that word. the government is there to survive. it doesn't have any other political philosophy and that's evident in the way they've handled this crisis as well as the way in which they mishandled the economy in pakistan. that is tanking and that's going to create serious problems in pakistan for which it needs assistance from abroad if it doesn't get its own house in order and it has failed to do

that. it needs i.m.f. assistance, world bank. and the u.s. is a key player in that and they realize it so they're trying to appeal to a domestic audience with all the rhetoric against the united states. but when the time comes, when the crunch comes, they're going to have to deal with the united states as a partner in order to get their economic house in order. i think that's going to their mind enormously and this is what brothers -- bothers them, too, that there is this dependence. unfortunately, they have failed to become autonomous by making the right decisions in the past three years. host: fred wants to know if india plays any role in u.s.-pakistan relations. guest: india plays a huge role and i see an opportunity now particularly with the india-pakistan thawx have begun again. the commerce ministers met recently, the foreign secretaries met, the foreign

ministers will be meeting at some point. i think prime manmon offering great hope. i see in my conversations with the military that some people are open to the idea of normalizing relations to end what one general calls a no war, no peace situation. to end the uncertainty in the situation. it's a win-win for india and pakistan if the border opens and trade resumes. pakistan can benefit from being a transit point for all this trade and investments on both sides of the border. host: our guest is the south asia senator for the atlantic council. a couple of viewers, one from outside of buffalo, first apologizing to you for our first rude caller but i want to share

with you the essence of the question. how many of us know how lives five doors down from us? osama bin laden was living in a walled mansion and never left the compound during his five to six-year stay and our f.b.i. missed the 20 al qaeda arabs who how to fly but not to land over two years. we all have 20/20 hindsight. guest: i think the caller has a lot of good points there. when i travel to pakistan, i see, because of the security situation now, a proliferation of houses with extremely high walls, barbed wire, with guards, with solid gates and i often i drive in lahore or islamabad who lives behind these high walls. i have no idea. i think it also points a very real weakness in the pakistan security apparatus. the interservices intelligence good at getting information frrgt countries.

it's been less able to deal with counter terrorism inside the country. it's not just a question of numbers. it's also a question of orientation and training. the people that are best placed to do that are the police. pakistan has something like 19 police institutions. but they haven't yet put together a national counter terrorism authority, which has been on the cards for two years. they need to be working together because it's the community police, the local police, who know who comes and goes from a community. it's their job, and if they can work together perhaps they'll be to keep a better eye on some of these individuals. i have a personal theory about where osama bin laden's other colleagues are. i would suggest that we look in a 60-mile radius around abbottabad because they have to be within easy reach of couriers for quick consultations and there are a number of cities,

monsara, and islamabad, where previously people have been caught so those are probably the places the i.s.i. and local police need to concentrate on. host: our next call is from pittsburgh. jerry is on the phone. caller: good morning. i have a few quick questions. i was wondering what your guest would think about the fact that the body was at sea and the body cannot be returned back to the family and also about the fact dr. perchenic, former deputy of state, assistant, secretary of state, was saying that osama bin laden died back in 2002, and also the fact that killing of suspected militants. host: more theories out there about bin laden. guest: i think we will, because there is no body and because

there hasn't been a public presentation of the d.n.a. evidence as yet, these theories will continue. there will be conspiracy theories coming out of the u.s. and of pakistan. in terms of whether the burial was appropriate or not, in terms of islamic law, i'm not an expert on the subject, but from what i know, it's permissible, if not possible to bury the body and the u.s. has presented its arguments on why it didn't want to create a shrine which would be a focal point for terrorists from across the world. host: our guest shuja nawaz. he is with the atlantic council. this email from a viewer from new jersey. barry rights -- "pakistan has demonstrated it is willing to accept cash from the u.s. to fight terrorists and at the same time shelter terrorists. ee points out the u.s. should sever financial support to

pakistan to permit pakistan to focus on india and receive funding from al qaeda. let al qaeda and the taliban suffer the death of a thousand cuts in funding pakistan." guest: i think the u.s. certainly wants accountability and it's only appropriate that it has accountability for the assistance it's provided pakistan. that's been an onfigure discussion between the two countries. when you give money for a particular purpose, there has to be accounting for it. this needs to be put down in writing so there's clarity on both sides and no hard feelings when you ask tough questions. as to the possibility of al qaeda financing pakistan, i think al qaeda is in dire financial straits itself from all the reports that one gathers. it's relying on franchisees and home-grown terrorists around the world to use its brand name to carry on the fight and also in response to something that an

earlier caller mentioned, the pakistani taliban had no capacity to attack the united states. their war is inside pakistan against the state of pakistan. host: let me return to the "new york times" story. two points i want to get reaction to. first, speaker john boehner saying last week that the u.s. needs to remain engaged with pakistan but added that pakistani leaders must prove their resolve to fight terrorist groups and at the understand of the story, senator carl levin, the senate armed services committee, saying he would cut off the $1.5 billion in annual nonmilitary aid unless pakistan explains fully how bin laden could have gone undetected for so long. last point, i would disagree entirely. the $1.5 billion is not for the military, it is for economic the people oflp pakistan. host: water, food, shelter?

guest: infrastructure. absolutely. perhaps there needs to be more of an investment in longer term needs like water, education, health and so on. and that's something we should seriously consider but only after pakistan comes up with incredible and effective plans for the use of that money. i think this is the critical part. the aid does not have to become an entitlement, and i think it's up to pakistan to sort out its own affairs so that it reforms its economy, sets it on the right path, and makes use of the money. interestingly, the $1.5 billion compares with $10 billion that pakistan received from its workers overseas as remittances in just one year so it's a small proportion of the flows that go into pakistan but the government has not sorted its policies in such a way to make use of those $10 billion effectively let alone the $1.5 that the u.s. would give so i would strongly

disagree with any idea of cutting off that assistance. host: kevin joins us from connecticut. good morning. morning.ood i just have a comment and maybe a question. the comment is, this is for the american people and all of the i would assume c.i.a. hacks that's monitoring this conversation, the american people are so tired of having our intelligence insulted. you're going to tell us, aside from the pakistani i.s.i. missing bin laden, you're going to tell me that the united states, all the agencies didn't know so-called bin laden was where he was found? it's almost preposterous what you expect us to believe. host: thank you, kevin. do you want to respond? guest: i'm not sure i can respond on behalf of the c.i.a. but i think the point he's trying to make is that everyone who is searching for osama bin laden has spent a lot of time

and effort and failed to find him. i'm glad that something worked. we don't know fully how it worked. we're starting to get some bits and pieces but as the story unravels, i think we'll have a better idea whether it was sheer luck or hard work. i gather that there were c.i.a. analysts deep in the heart of langley that spent a lot of time and effort putting together all the pieces and they perhaps deserve this credit. host: let me take kevin's point one step further and use the words of david ignatius who wrote about it this week in "time" magazine. it's called the double mirror talking about the interservice intelligence agency in pakistan and notes and transmissions he had with the i.s.i., they, these letters, and the i.s.i., prove

to be passionate correspondents. with their public face they want to be understood, even liked, but their private face is coldly ruthless to the point of silently condoning attacks on u.s. soldiers by their allies. guest: david should know, he knows intelligence, the world of intelligence extremely well. this is a descring that applies to every intelligence agency. they like to manipulate public opinion for their purposes and yet they will do things that at times would appear to go against their own national interests, too. host: killing american soldiers? guest: this needs to be looked at. if there is evidence, it's the united states responsibility to present the evidence to pakistan as a non-nato ally and see if there are credible responses. this is what congress will be asking and the people of the united states will be asking.

host: our next call is from johnson city, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. host: please go ahead, caller. caller: my question is, musharraf decided to side with pakistan -- sorry, decided u.s. in regards to pakistan role in afghanistan under pressure from state department and white house. is his decision paying off? the future of pakistan -- i believe it caused more harm to pakistan in regards to human life and economics. even after receiving $26 billion, pakistan economy is in terrible shape, especially the inflation is so high. unemployment is high. domestic crimes are up and so is the terrorism in pakistan. guest: the caller is right in asking for an accounting. president musharraf used the idea of american pressure.

in my own book on the pakistan i clarify that there was indeed no threat of bombing pakistan back into the stone age. that was either a mistake on his part by conflating different stories he heard or maybe it was just an excuse that he used to convince his own military commanders that this needed to be done when he flip flopped away from the taliban and on the u.s. side. was very little option for him because the u.s. was going to go in either with pakistan or without pakistan. i think that's finally what convinced him. as to whether it has helped pakistan or not, and particularly on the economic side, i think here we have to look at how we've managed the economy. inside pakistan, the government has failed to address the issue of taxation. out of a population of 185 million, only two million are on the tax rolls. there is no tax on agriculture

at all and that's because most of the members of parliament and the senate represent very strong rural interest groups and many of them are from the land owning class. so they don't like to be taxed. nobody likes to be taxed and yet you need to spend money on education, on health, and public amenities. none of it's being done. the favored classes who are aligned with the government tend to get subsidies and the only way the government can finance those subsidies is by deficit financing, by printing money, which fuels inflation. currently, 15%. for the poorest, this is deadly, because they spend more than half their income on food and food prices have gone up 50% so there is an economic crisis looming in pakistan and the government needs to act very rapidly to reform its policies so that whether it works from its own resources or the $10

billion it receives annually from workers' remittances or from u.s. assistance or other make good use of that money to help its own people. i don't see any signs of it as yet. host: we will conclude on that note. shuja nawaz is with the atlantic and a link to the web site is available at c-span.org. thank you very much for sharing your perspective with our c-span audience. guest: thank you. host: the unemployment rate is hovering around 9% across the nation and this is a season for graduation ceremonies and those grads now looking for jobs. what does the economy look like for these newly minted college grads? we'll talk about that in a couple of minutes. first, a look the at politics and issues dominating the sunday morning programs heard on c-span radio. >> at noon today, c-span radio re-airs the five network t.v. talk shows. topics include the budget debate

on capitol hill, the deficit, the 2012 presidential election and the situation in the middle east. at noon, we air nbc's "meet the press," with an interview of newt gingrich. at 1:00, we re-air abc's "this week," the guest is south carolina governor nikki haley and coming roundtable discussion with sheila sheila bair, former c.b.o. director douglas hotel egan. chris wallace welcomes congressman ron paul and later senate majority whip dick durb an and republican senator jon kyl. at 3:00 p.m., it's cnn's state of the union and candy crowley. talks with mitch mcconnell, paul ryan, former director of national intelligence, retired admiral dennis blair and john

negroponte. at 4:00 p.m. eastern, hear "face the nation" from cbs. host interviews john boehner and more from the cbs town hall meeting this week with president obama. the five, in -- network t.v. talk shows are brought to you as a public service by the networks and c-span. 2:00 p.m., fox news sunday, at 3, cnn's state of the union and at 4:00, face the nation from cbs. listen to them all on c-span radio, xm satellite channel 119 or listen online at cspanradio.org. >> how do these people become transformed, what series of choices do they make to kill hundreds of thousands of people? >> in his new book,

"mastermind," richard minite looks at the architect of the 9/11 attacks. >> now that bin laden is dead, this is what we have to fear, terrorist entrepreneurs like khalid sheikh mohammed. >> "q&a" is one of our many signature series available online at c-span.org/podcasts. >> this weekend, michael dukakis the master politician calvin coolige and how he evolved into a popular political future, a look back at jimmy carter,

>> this june on "in depth," the balance between security and liberty, the difficulties of a climate change treaty and the limits of international law. your questions for author and university of chicago law professor eric posner whose books include "law and social norms" and "the perils of of social legalism." host: welcome back to c-span matthew segal, the president of "our time," and we have a link to your web site at c-span.org. we want to hear from our audience but we are divided our phone lines differently if per this segment as we talk about college graduates looking for a

job. if you are under the age of 30 and especially if you're a recent graduate, 202-737-0001 is the number and for all others, 202-737-0002. matthew segal, what does the economy look like for these grads? >> it's bleak. you look at the fact that unemployment today has almost one in six young people out of work. college graduates are entering into a work force where underemployment is a reality, as well, and even higher, have larger unemployment and 85% of the college graduating class of 2011 are moving back home with their parents. at the same time, i'm confident that we ought to be optimistic because we're one of the most highly educated, skillful generations with text savvy, social media satisfy, all interconnected via technology and we should use those skills

to not only create our own jobs but to show employers that our generation has a certain skill set that is necessary in growing the work force. host: are we graduating students from dleadges have the skills that employers are looking for today and i'm talking about more of the high-tech companies as opposed to banks or law firms or p.r. firms. guest: we live in a world now where i think you need to plan a lot further ahead. young people from high school need to look at what type of profession they want to go into. if they want to be a doctor or lawyer, you have a long pathway of education. conversely, if you want to be in a more technical job where you work with computers or if you work as a consultant or if you work in a more vocational oriented job, you don't necessarily need the skills of a four-year or post-secondary college degree. and so it's about planning ahead. some colleges do a great job preparing people for vocational skills. others focus more on the liberal arts and every young person

ought to make that decision for themselves with their families but it's about good preparation because clearly the job market today does not approach recent grads from both high school or college like they did in my parent's generation. host: jim heinz has this point, simple arithmetic, more people than there are good jobs. guest: he's right. host: a lot of these jobs are going to older people who are not retiring and staying in the work force, creating a domino in terms of younger people trying to get entry-level positions. guest: one of the focuses in my organization focuses on entrepreneurship and ways we can help young people to not only create jobs but use their peer group as a resource center to put smart ideas together and to grow companies or make part-time consulting gigs based on whatever savvy they have. and so entrepreneurship is a reality we need to look to. you look at the fact that some of the greatest entrepreneurs of

our time have all started their when they were 19, 20, 21 years old. some dropped out of high school or college but at the same time there are -- you're absolutely right -- unlimited amount of jobs -- a limited amount of jobs and i think young people need to be aggressive, bold, creative and show what skills they have that an employer can benefit from if they hire them. host: our guest is a contributor to "the huffington post," and ashley joins us from philadelphia. she's 25 years old. good morning. welcome to the conversation. caller: my name is ashley and i'm calling because i just graduated from eastern university and i've decided to go to continue on to grad school because i want to work but with my student loan debt, i feel like continuing on would be better than, say, trying to get a job, and the advantage of

having a degree. thank you. host: thank you, ashley. guest: this is a problem many young people are faced with. do they continue their education because the job market does not have enough available jobs? or do they necessarily amass more student loan debt to go on and pursue higher education degrees post four-year college. that goes back to the idea that the decision you ought to make is based on the field of interest you. so, ashley, i'm not sure whether or not you want to go into a particular field that requires a master's or doctorate or graduate degree but that certainly is something you're seeing a lot of young people do because simply the job market does not have jobs easily found right out of school. host: to your earlier point, chris jones saying, trickle-down economics has made it difficult for boomers to retire. they must remain in the workplace.

coen is joining us from oregon. 2009 -- 29 years old. caller: the largest unavoidable snag in the job market is the globalization in offshoring and outsourcing american jobs and with i.t. being the largest growing job sector, where do you see the american role in the information technology market as more jobs are moved to india and other places where it's more affordable to hire educated people. guest: i think is goes back to the culture of entrepreneurship that we have, the notion of competitiveness that the president talked about in his state of the union speech, the notion that young people have smart ideas and can create businesses from within, but clearly, outsourcing jobs is a problem because we can make and manufacture goods cheaper someplace else. the hill is in this "make it in

america" campaign where they're talking about ways to manufacture goods in this country. i met with a watch manufacturer who said that the parts inside a watch cannot be found in this country. they're all made abroad. so clearly you're right, it's a problem, but there are all of these young businesses that my organization has been working with that make, manufacture and produce t-shirts, other products, clothing, apparel, food, and smart phone applications, et cetera, always in this country. so we're working on trying to encourage people to create jobs here. but the truth of the matter is that outsourcing is a major problem and it ought to be looked into and clearly the president and the congress are looking at ways we can incentivize companies to produce and manufacture goods domestically. ist: the web site ourtime.org and as always with

our c-span guests, a link available to c-span.org. i was on the site this morning and wanted to point out, some of the advice you give, including those who may have a certain field of study, having a difficult time finding a job and realize they need to broaden their search and maybe their training. guest: one of the best ways to prepare for the work force is clearly internships and apprenticeships where you learn the practical and professional skills that only a work environment can teach you. host: and whether or not you can like the job. also an employer's way of testing out a young person to see whether or not they're actually a smart, skillful, committed, passionate worker. so internships are a new reality for our generation, many are unpaid which is creating a problem because people are amassing more personal debt and living in big cities and work for no pay but those internships are excellent opportunities for you to discover whether or not that's the field you want to go

into and also for an employer to determine whether or not you're the best fit for their company. host: pete is joining us from new york city. good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. the last thing i was going to say which i'm going to say first is the trade policies going back many administrations and i'm a democrat but, you know, certainly during george bush and back to clinton, the trade policies work against the interests of the american people and american taxpayer. and even the language to describe it, even what is a lobbyist, can escape the average person. a lobbyist, i've heard, if you ask the average person, they'll tell you it's someone who sits in a hotel lobby. the thing i was going to say so that language needs to be simplified and discussed more. and i don't know how we as americans get what we want. what we want are jobs and

manufacturing base but lastly i was going to say that if i was a graduate today and i'm not, i'm way beyond it, i would look overseas. i would learn to speak chinese, i would move to china. there's jobs over there. the growth over in china, of course, we're envious off and lastly the disastrous policies of the bush administration where clinton left us on track where we were heading with a surplus, it's really mind boggling to think we are so off track now and obama trying his best to get us on track. host: thank you, pete. we'll get a response. guest: pete has a lot of good points but i'd say first and foremost, you look at the idea that jobs today are shrinking in industries that were around 30, 40, 50 years ago. and i think young people need to look into the growing industries.

he talked about learning chinese. that's an excellent point. we live in a world where you have to learn new skills and look at which economies are evolving and growing and where market opportunities exist. there's a huge market opportunity to grow businesses in china and a huge market opportunity to grow businesses in the u.s. if you look at the jobs we need. interestingly, green jobs, clean energy jobs, there are employers looking for young people to fill these skill sets because colleges and universities, especially the liberal arts schools they went to, do not green jobs,train retro fitting and weatherization jobs of making buildings more initial efficient. those fields are growing. cyber security, we're living in a major intelligence world where intelligence clearly led to results like we saw last week. learning computer skills, learning how to track and use a computer for homeland security purposes, another major growing industry. so boots surveying which job

markets are emerging and having young people stay ahead of the curve in planning how they can suit their skill sets to tackle careers. host: you brought up liberal arts and education. linda has this question, do you believe a liberal arts education is on the decline and should it be or does broad-based learning have its own merit? guest: i actually, having done and been a huge proponent of the liberal arts, do believe it's a viable pathway, however, clearly people in liberal arts environments do need to plan what kind of career they want to use their liberal arts for. i think liberal arts teaches creativity, critical thinking, analytical skill set that you use to build a business, you can use to run a company, you can use to create and produce legislation on capitol hill and analyze and solve complex problems. those are envaluable skills in society. they might not teach you right out of school how to retrofit a

home or building but at the same time people need to step back, look and plan long term what kind of career they want and then based on that they should decide if it's a liberal arts degree or more hard skills degree that are for their career ambitions. host: our next caller is robert from virginia beach. caller: i want to thank our host for being so kind to the twitter community, and my point was about all this student loan debt and how detrimental it is to students and recent graduates and that's really pause the tuition just spirals out of control and there's really not much you can do about it and the whole system of financial aid is solely bade -- based on income and doesn't take into

consideration that people's parents have bills to pay and the internships that previously were mentioned, those can be financially straining, too, because you have to find somewhere to live in the city of the internship and pay rent but really i think the problem is that the whole system of financial aid is purely based on parents' income and that nothing is done to cap tuition and the middle class is suffering and neither party is to go anything to help the middle class afford school. guest: robert raises an interesting point. it's interesting in the budget cuts that states have cut education funding. at the same time, he's absolutely right, the cost of college is increasing, creating a burden on middle class

families and you look at the student aid industry and although last congress we made monumental steps in the right direction in passing the student aid and fiscal responsibility act, what that did was not only create a more direct lending program from the federal government so that we were not giving private subsidies to private loan companies charging service fees, but at the same time, created income based repayment where people who are emerging from college or other educational outlets can pay back loans on the basis of what their salary is so if you're making $75,000 or $80,000 out of college, you afford to pay back 10% of your loans. if you're making $26,000, you have to make sure your loans are to your salary and i think income-based repayment is

something to apply to federal and private loans. host: the "wall street journal" outlined what kind of debt you're going to face once you graduate from college and on average the debt is just under $23,000. the unemployment rate among college graduates alone is 4.5%. and employers can plan to increase hiring of grads probably by 13.5% over the next couple of years. guest: you're seeing the class of 2011 has to compete with the class of 2010 and 2009 and even 2008 for a finite amount of jobs and i think you're also seeing so many people have to move frequently and transfer between job and job and work internship to internship because not every internship amounts to a but it's tough out there. at the same time, we have a

uniquely optimistic generation and i think that goes back to what i said earlier in the sense that we're so highly educated and socially connected that we're confident that the economy will recover and our skills will contribute society so i'm viewing this through a more optimistic vant annual point because -- vantage point because it's easy to resign yourself to hopelessness or sense of discouragement but clearly right now we need to draw attention to the unique barriers young people and graduates are facing and give it more attention. host: we had discussions internally about the average starting salary just over $50,000 for college grads and one of our viewers saying, i'd love to make 50k out of school. does that number seem high to you? guest: it does because i've read from other reports that the average salary is $36,000 roughly from a recent graduate

down from $45,000 a few years ago so income is declining and jobs are so hard to come by, companies realize they can get away with paying less. host: aaron from knoxville, tennessee, good morning. caller: i want to say thank you for c-span. second of all, i just graduated. host: where did you go to school? caller: university of tennessee. i got an internship at oak ridge national labs and it ended up turning into a full-time position. but the thing i wanted to ask

about was related to federal funding for research institutions in the tough economy, it seems like a lot of policymakers are cutting funding and withdrawing support for research and i understand that i'm biased working in this particular field but at the same time it seems like our future is in research development and education and i was just hoping someone could comment and hopefully reassure me about our nation's investing in our future and finally, i agree with the twitter commenter who said i'd love to make $50. i'm happy to make $38. i feel lucky to have a job. it's been a blessing to me. and i'm not rich but i'm not poor, either, but at the same time, i'd really love that $50. guest: what a great point, as well. you're seeing on that last point is people feeling lucky. because the recession is so bad

and the last few years are so difficult, you've seen college graduates emerge with 80% unemployment out of college which is unheard of for generations and decades ago where employers were lining up to talk to college graduates and make use of their skills. people who to do have jobs thaty relatively lower wages feel so lucky and they know that neighbor and friend of theirs has it worse and what does concern me is that we're lowering expectations in the sense that we are feeling lucky to have jobs and i think we need to work as a country to create more jobs so that's clearly not the sentiment but back to the first point about public research institutions. it's funny, because i just met with the president of the university of illinois board of trustees who is making the same point, that public research institutions create many jobs because not only do they invest in local community jobs to help professors and academic persons get work in those different fields but they actually create

jobs because whether you're researching new medicine or new energy technology, when those companies are created from that research, those grow american jobs so the reality is, we're in this budget squeeze and giving funding to education when you're seeing states compete for higher education funding and you're seeing thawls -- also this discussion about abolishing earmarks because earmarks bring back money to states, it's incredibly politically sensitive so the reality is, how do you attract money to tows -- to those institutions. i think the private sector. you should look for major fortune 500 companies and businesses to invest in public-private partnerships with these institutions to invest in research that are important to those particular companies so if wants to invest in chicago in the university of illinois in new technology and aircraft research, they can create jobs and have those jobs

come back to boeing in chicago by helping give corporate dollars that they might have on reserve to the public institution and that does not necessarily increase the deficit. host: liz smith has this question. matthew, when you graduated from college, what was your degree in? and how did you end up with your current job? guest: my degree was in sociology so i joke that i graduated from school, also not knowing how to screw in a light bulb but i did create my own job. i founded this organization, our time, which is a membership organization for americans under 30 that unites our generation aged 18 to 30 in a powerful voting and consumer block so that we can work with the public sector to spark conversation about the economic priorities of our generation while working with the private sector as to drive down costs and shape products and outcomes that meet our constituents' needs. host: more information about college grads and trends in the public service sector. first of all, from 2008 to 2009,

there was a 16% increase in federal government jobs and 11% increase in non-profit groups. also, with areas like americorps and teach for america, you can see the number of applications, the most recent figures from 2010. our next call is from new york city. lois is on the phone. good morning. caller: good morning. hello? i want to thank you, matthew, being so proactive doing this. it was not done at the time i graduated many years ago from college. and it was one year after i graduated college that i received my first job and that's been over 25 years ago. and i was very fortunate, and recently the last four years i was downsized and i had to find another job and i'm making $10,000 less than i made before

i was downsized due to the economy and i'm hear to say is that the jobs are -- the jobs are going to be created again, i feel, and one of the things that we are going to have to stick behind is the president's healthcare reform. that's particularly my professional field. many jobs will be created if we get behind it. guest: i've recently read that 80% of the jobs in this country are created by new businesses, not by small businesses who have been around for years or fortune 500 companies, but by brand new start-ups. young people, uniquely set with skill sets.

studies show that when you're 30, you are more entrepreneurial so i share the caller's faith in the next generation to help recover the economy but regarding healthcare jobs, you're definitely going to see and steve you talked about public service positions growing, too, based on the economic recovery bill of last congress, many more federal jobs rise. d.c. is one of the places you don't see huge amounts of upemployment based on the federal jobs here and many thattutions recognize public service jobs can help cancel out debt from college and contribute to society. host: our final call is from richard who's joining uses usesm washington, d.c. the web site is ourtime.org.

caller: i'm a daily c-span listener. i'm speaking on my own experience. i'm about to be a college grad, political science major, getting a certificate in non-profit leadership and id -- i'd like to piggyback on things that have been said already. we're in the best and worst because right now my generation, we have the ability to i would say be less dependent on employers and as the guest was saying, you know, become and neural and start creating jobs for not only ourselves but our family members and our fellow peers and when it comes down to it, you have to be

interdisciplinary to be more marketable. while i've been in college, i've had internships. host: we are short on time but we'll get a response. thank you for the call. guest: right on, richard. i completely agree with you and that's why i hope you join "our time" because our generation can use each other as resources for the ideas you're talking about to start businesses and to help come up with political and nonpolitical solutions to a lot of the economic challenges we face and vote together as a constituency block to call attention to our economic needs. host: matthew segal, founder and president of ourtime.org, thanks for joining us. by the way, every week on snl, happening up its season next sunday, taking aim at the situation room, which, by the way, celebrated its 50th anniversary on friday with the president commemorating the event that began with the nn