on national security were made in the white house -- not in the department's heading by confirmed the secretaries. the white house as steve said, they are staff positions and not confirmed by congress. the president deserves to have personal staff. there is such a thing as executive privilege when used respsibly as the right thing for the president to have. hower, it was incredibly frustrating in a number of instances to do proper oversight in my role as ranking member of the house intelligence committee for many years when i could not get briefings or information because for a variety of reasons, the decisions and information and decision makers could disappear into this large space called the white house national security space.

"i wonder if we talk a little bit about the president to all work with. what were they like in dealing with national security issues? did they all insist on what president bush called the decider? did they like arguments to be made in front of them? did theyrefer that not happen? i just wondered if i could get a little insight into the presidents themselves on this. >> i worked with two president in that capacity, nixon and ford. nixon knew an enormous amount of foreign polic he studied it, he traveled. he was iensely interested.

he had ideas. he knew what he wanted. he also wanted to hear the options. he preferred to read them than to see the confrontation in front of him. he had a personal aspect that he did not like to order somebody to do something that he knew that person did notant do. he would prefer to do it by memo. [laughter] the procedure was there was detailed papers that were too long.

it required some reading. then he would listen and withdraw. one day or two later, -- the losing party was absolutely convinced i posted it on the president. that was a weakness of the system. it was done. president ford [unintelligible] he was a student of foreign policy. that affects the sort of information that the president requires.

president fo was in his second term of president nin. he could not develop the designing aspect that nixon had. he did extraordinarily well considering the handicaps' under which -- it was those two different systems. you cannot draw a final conclusions from either system because nixon was president in the period of liquidation in the vietnam war. tensions that would not exi

-- it was very systematically and the options it presented. there were somewhat handicapped by t fact they were transmitted with an explanation but simply had orders from the oval office. >> i think one of the things that sometimes washington does not appreciate enough is how much the president is the decider. he does make the decisions. there are a lot of press reports about what the secretary of defense thanks. what matters in our system is what the president of the united states thinks.

by the time you get elected, you think y're ready to make these decisions. they are. he wanted the secretary of defense to have talked through the issue and to have work to the issue. we had what we call the tuesday afternoon snack time. i would serve at soft drinks and a cheese dip and we went over the next two and a half -- its we in people's dispositions. we would walk through the most difficult issues and.

this has been a great discussion. now we need to have itn front of the president. he was not a memo man. he wanted to have a direct interaction with his principles. we would have a -- in the quietness of his on contemplations, he would make a decision and come back. because of the problem henry talked about, he would come back and say i've made my decision. you call bob gates and say i made a decision. you have a phone right there that has a button. you need to tell the secretary of state so they know it comes from you.

you need to call them yourself. and he would. >> he would like to be part of the conversation. [laughter] that made for a lively set of interchanges. he had a lot of perspective to what he heard from the process. like to get people in a room to discuss it. he was suspicious of the -- if you got a consensus. he said that sounds wrong to me and he would tell you all the reasons that was a bad choice. often he would come around and agree with the consensus but he wanted to test it and want to know what the thinking was behind it. there are some more -- there is more formal -- he wanted to probe and understand the thinking and to test his own questions against the thinking

of others. and with a very interactive process with him. he did not easily decide on the spot. he likes to come back and tell people why he decided that. steve mentioned this as well, we became conscious of his own responsibility for the decisions. he would always say after a difficult debate, at the end of the day this is my decision. i value your advice,ut i am not working to point to one of you and say i did it because the adviser said it was his decision. as time went on, the sense of confidence and responsibility -- is very impressive when you think about all the burdens and temptation to say, i got bad advice. the president stepped up to the plate and say this is my responsibility. >> a couple of things. i have not worked in the nfc, but from reading about president obama, he came to the presidency

with very little foreign policy experience. he has spent a large part of his presidency on foreign policy issues and has stepped up to some very tough ones like the takedown of osama bin laden for example. from the congressional perspective, let me raise a couple of examples of the frustrations with this stuff. on eis bush. -- one was bush 1. i was one of the so-called gang of 8. the leaders of the democrat and republican of the house and senate and the intelligence committees. we were brought to the situation room and told about a

surveillance program that the bush administration was undertaking. we could not bring staff. we could not take notes out of the room. we could not ask anybody other than the briefers about anything because it was so secret. this exposure to this kind of material comes under a procedure in the 1947 national security act. at any rate, it was not until the president -- president bush revealed the surveillance program publicly that i could call if you people and check if you things out at which point i learned the program on which i have been briefed was being conducted outside of the law congress had crafted. i had nounderstood that from the briefings. i cannot describe the briefings even now because they are classified. i had not understood it.

what happened after that was a lot of jockeying around and finally congress was more fully briefed and fifsa, this law was amended to cover activities and questions. that was the right results. the law has to exercise oversight. issue two is libya. the involvement of the u.s. during the obama administration in the exercise over libya was arguably -- no one is absolute about this -- something that should have been briefed to congress and much more detail on the front end. the war powers act should have been invoked as an issue about that as well. at any rate, that did not happen. there is still enormous

resentment by many in congress. this panel may not be sympathetic. members of congress including a very signor republicans -- that i get some more atttion on this panel -- they are very upset about to basically congress being disrespected in a process that certainly did involve an expenditure of $1 billion and the employment of considerable defense assets by our country. >> we talked a little bit in advance -- obviously had discussion before we came out here. is it much different when a president is reelected? is a president more confident? does that reelection magically make a president more confident in dealing with national security issues? i wonder if your -- and your

experiences, we have a wide range of presidents to deal with. she can talk about what she saw from the hill. it's a second term president much different? >> how can really testify to that. at the end of nixon's first term, one thought one had everything lined up. the vietnam war was over. there was talks with russia. we had a trilingual -- triangular relationship. the next step was to be improving relations with europe. that design could not be implemented because within four months, watergate to blow up. the part of the second term that

nixon -- we still did some extraordinary things. the 1973 middle east war and brought in from the soviet side to the american side. that is not a good example. that is an example of crisis management under extreme circumstances. it is not a gooexample of how the energy system -- many the only thing you can take from the energy system is it survived that strain. it enabled nixon to continue making decisive decisions at key moments. i do not think you can draw lessons for the sake of the country. i think it was a national tragedy. it was self-inflicted and parts. it also pushed to an extreme

that many historians will think -- >> let me stay with that for a moment. as the watergate intensify, was like inside national-security issues? >> throughout its. in office, president nixon made a dtinction between domestic and foreign decisions. the energy personnel were not invited to were encouraged to participate in any domestic discussions. we did not even know the evolution of the watergate case until it -- until it blew open. there were some --

[unintelligible] -- and the middle east war. we continued the system. the about the time the president could appoint -- as it does any way inhe second term. a good part of the first term had to be used to establish and agreed interpretation of where we are in the world. much of the second term as the implementation of that vision. that was accentuated. we set up something called --and it was really a group in which the operation of decions or

pre discussed in that group before it went to the president. there was one theory in which they had resigned in no chief of staff had been appointed. i and the head of the federal reserve screen decisions because there was no system working. but it was only a three week period. i only mention it to indicate the really painful atmosphere at the moment.

it's what we thought had all of the elements of substantial achievement. >> on this notion of the second term. >> i think nobody elected president really knows what they e in for. i think nobody is really fully prepared to be president. i think most people do not know what the job is like. if he had been vice president for a period of time, if you have a father is president, but when it is really yours and the responsibility is on your shoulders is all the difference in the world. nobody is rely quite ready for that job when they step into it. secondly, everybody hopefully learned on the job. i think presidents do. they learn very quickly. third, over the first term they

made a lot of decisions and a very tough decisions. president clinton and president bush had his. president bush had the response of 9/11, the decision to invade iraq. as dr. kissinger said, by the end of the first term, the president knows what the president thinks. they have said it bought a policy framework in place. the second term tends to be more about implementation and execution. i think it is very clear that a second term president is very different than a first term prident. the national security adviser's role and in some sense the nsc system needs to adapt a little bito the transition. >> it is clearly the case that there is an awful lot of learning on the job. there just is no job before this that prepares you.

all presidents have face the enormous challenges in their first year or two. they have had some difficult all comes. i've rd a book before coming into the obama administration about the first year of presidential administrations and foreign policy. if you think about our history and how many perilous moments we have haduring that time. you have learning curves about how you make decisions. you have learning curves about how to work with your team. he have learning curves about how to interact peron the world. what the dynamic is around the world you are living in. you develop a sense of confidence and how what you need, what kind of information you need or process you need and where you want to take them. i think that is why there is a sense in which people really do step up over time. and second terms, the president can then say, i know where i want to go. i can set an agenda for my second four years and take them there. i am going to rise to his

provocation about congress. i worked in the senate for five years. i think it is a challenge to make this work. it is true that the national security adviser does not testify before congress. the white house that does not. in the clinton administration, we try to find a lot of other mechanisms. there were a lot of informal confrontations. i have to say, i am not here as a representative from the obama administration. the president call the leadership got to the white house three days before he made the decision. we had extensive conversations. the senate concern -- confirmed i testified a number of times to the foreign relations committee. is a sense in congress that was not enough engagement.

i know who will the senior republican was? he is referring to. it is legitimate for congress to expect that whether we have succeeded, i think the white house administration always feels we are doing a better job in congress does. i do not dispute that there has to be engagement, there has to be dialogue. "i agree with that. it is important to rememr that our constitution provides checks and balances. it does that for a reason. a good brake on presidential action when it works is a functioning congress that has bipartisanship and seriousness. when that relationship works well, i think it helps the

country and makes this make better decisions. a couple of comments on a second term, presidents in their second term are not running for a reelection. i think that frees them to some extent for good or bad to do things that they would have been reluctant to do as they were seeking reelection. many people talk about president obama in terms of, we get to this election if he is reelected he might take on some issues that have been put off before the election season. i have my personal list and he hoped -- i hope he does that. that is another point. the prior experience the president has does matter. i am thinking of eisenhower who was a skilled military general who brought organizational skills to the security job in the white house that have been

unrivaled since. head a committee that took a 10-year look forward. his cabinet meetings which i did study because i was the one who took the minutes of the clinton -- the carter cabinet meetings were much more interesting to than some other presidents. rather than have a show and tell exercise where each cabinet member would report what he or she had been doing, he put a topic on the table. the cabinet was aware in advance. they would interact and discuss the topic which i think is -- i am not sure how much of it was on foreign policy, but i think that is a much more interesting way to organize a very talented people who need to bond with each other and who actually one would hope would bring their own skills to this.

i think it will be interesting to see if president obama wants a second term how his foreign policy changes because he is free from the real election process. >> dr. kissinger has to leave surely so we will have one more question for him before he leaves. i will ask this to the entire group. all of you have had to deal with very tough decisions over time. present nixon, president ford, a vietnam, dealing with china and the soviet union, president bush and the war on terror, iraq, afghanistan, weapons of mass destructi and all of these issues came up, president clinton had issues to deal with including the transition of the cold war and the national security policy to something beyond that. what was the toughest decision looking back that you had to make?

>> that is a very good question. the literature on the subject, we went on alert twice in the crisis. we did notgonize over that decision. that was done under tremendous pressure. you had to make a quick decision. i would say the decision a lot of time was at the beginning of the nixon administration was how to deal with vietnam. we had 550,000 troops in that

place. nixon made a decision that we would begin to extricate ourselves. how you extricate yourself when you are the leader of an alliance in the middle of the cold war. how to at the same time maintain a position of the united states has the potential leader of the free world and maintain the options toward the opening to china, we went through many agonizing periods full of big military outcomes without was concluded by previous experience.

bound by proposals that were not made one predecessors were in office. we chose what we chose. you are asking me about what was a difficult decision? there were many points. we spent long nights making decisions. the curious aspects is that it gets very quiet in the crisis. several decisionmakers -- to have to feel your way very quickly through a decision, at least that is how it was in my exrience.

it was a strain. in my experience, the key people who made the decision in the crisis moments work together. we are not arguing -- i apologize for having to leave. this is something i told the organizers a bout. i was eager to do this. i want to make one final point. in this year of division, people like us who served in different parties and secretaries of state for over 40 years for here, it would be the same thing on the main outlines, we would be pretty close together. we would feel we could look to

each other. we could consult each other. this country as -- is not as divided as it looks. [laughter] -- [applause] >> we are glad to have dr. kissinger for the time he was able to be here. i want to continue our discussion on the toughest decision that your president and you had to make. but i think for president george w. bush it was three things. one was how to respond to 9/11.

he told a group in 2008. he said, i did not campaign as a national security president. i campaigned as a domestic president. he had a very robust domestic policy agenda. a lot of it he got accomplice, some of it he did not. on 9/11, he said that all changed. after 9/11, i became a wartime president. how to respond to that, we can have all kinds -- all kinds of discussions. what was right and what was wrong, i think the bottom line is as you have seen with president obama and it through iterations with the congress, what has emerged is a national consensus about how to deal with war and terror. how to deal with the terrorist threat that has descended two administrations. the second was iraq.

if you read the reports that i read in 2004, 2005, in 2006, we were losing this war. when the president asked me to be the national security adviser, i was very concerned about iraq. and i said, great. i am going to be national security adviser when we revisit the vietnam. it w -- those of you who remember it was a dark time for our country. the toughest decision i think the president made was the additional troops search, the change of strategy that transformed a situation on the ground. it presented a situation whereby the end of this year, all american troops will be out of iraq with honor having

accomplished their mission. the feature of iraq is uncertain. it will be decided by the iraqi people. i think that was the toughest decision he made. the third was the financial crisis. it was at the end of eight years in office, at one. companies -- condoleza rice said i think you have had everything in your administration accept the earth being hit by an asteroid. he said, house, there is still time. very difficult decisions the president had to make in order to prevent a repeat of the depression of the 1930's. i think those were probably the most difficult. >> there are different types of hard decisions. i think the decision of -- the president has to make to send servicemen and women into harm's

way is the toughest decision. it is a tremendous personal responsibity to ask people who volunteered to defend their country to put their lives at risk. i know being involved in the president's decision to intervene in costco was something that weighed heavily on him. he had to ask and so, will i be able to look in their eyes of them and their loved oneand their children. you cannot assume it will work. there is no way to share it and now we to understand how burden and witty that decision is until you watch a president that decision. the second decision will probably surprise you but it is what i give president clinton and a lot of credit for was his decision to go to pakistan during his trip to india. not only because there were questions about if that would have an effect on the image he was trying to portray as far as

building our relationship but because of the serious risk he was receiving from the secret service about the dangers of going to pakistan. he was so persuaded that we needed to not lose that relationship. the consequences of going to the subcontinent and not trying to go to pakistan were so consequence so he decided he would do that. this was a decision on the presidt can make from the south. he stepped up to the plate and decided it was the right cision to make. the third was a policy one. that was a decision of enlarging nato. the reason i cite that is because president clinton had invested a lot in the beginning of his term with president yeltsin and trying to build a relationship with a new and democratic russia. he knew it would have deep consequences for the relationship of russia.

he had to balance against that to be part of this community that have been so important and had been there aspiration for so long. he had to wait two choices about what the risks were in a deep and consequential way for our american policy. they were different views about how to persuade waiting and prioritizing. there was one in ich the president had to think deeply about what he thought the core of dali's work, the core strategic interest work, and to make a decisive choice one way or the other. you could not split the baby on this one. ultimately he decided that sustaining the democratic movement and keeping faith with that commitment was important. >> that was the islamabad trip. i remember the secret service covering that. in the presidency. --that period in the presidence.

there were a lot of precautions on takeoffs and landings. i remember when he left to go to lamabad, it was a controversial decision. he did not even want chelsea and hillary to be with them because of the concern about his safety. as i remember when he was taking off there was at one. a plan to have him pretend to be on one plane and really get on another plane. there was some debate -- he will not get on the first plan but people will think he is on the plan. we will put the press on that plan. it was a decoy moment. we did not appreciate that when we heard about the discussion later. i do not think we heard -- i do not think they did that in the end. >> congress gets involved deeply in some of these decisions as well. here i have been dragging on

the executive branch. on 9/11, i w at 9:00 in the morning heading to the dome of the capital which is where the intelligence committee was housed. it is now in a bunker. out of nowhere came these attacks -- that is not really fair. i had been on something called the congressional commission of terrorism which had been one of three commissions that have predicted it would be a major attack on u.s. soil. to the surprise on that beautiful morning and every one of youho were inlved in it , this happened. as a member of congress with senior responsibility for national security, it was very personal to me. congress immediately did the wrong thing which was to close the office buildings in the capital. the congress needs to be going -- is to be open at a time of

great crisis. it finally reopened later in the day. but to be supportive of an enterprise where there was no disunity on that day -- not any. everyone understood this was an attack against america, not a political par or a subgroup. trying to find a way to force the unity is an enormous occupation. i used to represent 700 dozen people who look to me to represent them here. i always took a very seriously. we are much closer to the ground level than a president is. the decision since 9/11 had been excruciatingly -- very tough decision.

some of these issues have been very tough. some more right and some were wrong. the stakes that congress made that i think the president made have been a number of mistakes. something henry kissinger said is sticking in my mind. that is if you are focused on national security wherever you are, if you are in a fairly senior chair in very serious about your work, there is a bond that is forged ang those people. i was in a rare position in congress where i got to know the senior national security people in botthe bush administration's and early obama on the intelligence side in defense side. i got to sit next to henry kissinger for a day and a half this week. it was quite amusing and interesting. all of these people know each

other. they are different ages and from different administrations. that is a good thing. he wanted that to happen. it does not mean we have agreed on every decision. but the fact there is some can -- collegiality should make everyone a little bit more short -- assured that the primary work of the united states government, which is to protect the security of the american people, is getting a lot of brain cells focused on it. >> if i could add something to that. one of the times that is most important his presidential transition. you cannot imagine how perilous a moment thises 11 president leaves -- especially when there is a change of party. these are moments where the world is watching. people who would not wish the united states well are watching. i have been transitioned in and

the transition out. it is remarkable the degree of cooperation and suppt. what he has done as far as providing information and cod to do in each -- continuity is extraordinary. it is something that testify to the professionalism. there are often very vivid differences highlighted in the campaign. there's still a sense that came from president george w. bush and to present >> . >> i want to open this discussion up to your questions. if you have questions please make your way up to the microphones. i am not going too with the moderators of the debates do and just ask you to raise your hand to answer a question. th would be a little too

simple. just look at the range of challenges we have. i would like to ask you what you think the single biggest challenge to our national security is. is it still terrorism? is it dealing with china? there are so many challenges now. if you had to pick one, what would it be? >> one of the thing about the modern world is people in national security positions are dealing with 12 or 14 things at one time. it is the world we are in. i think there is a lot that has to go in anyway. getting our economy back on track is a national security issue. [applause]

i think there are two there is over the next decade were a lot of important issues are or to get decided. what happens in asia and the middle east. these two things have to be a real focus. i am very worried about whatis happening in europe. challenges we got as my old boss would say, he would say inside of every challenges and opportunities. your job is to find it and take advantage of it for the united states. [laughter] that is what the folks in the

warehouse at the do it right now big time. >> i agree that it is the economy. it is not stupid. it is more than just getting our fiscal house in order. it is the broader sustaining of our competitiveness. i in focused on making sure we have opportunity for our young people. it is distressing to see people coming out of school without a sense that they can build a future for their children. we have the infrastructure. it was support sites and technology. that is the platform for america to sustain and preserve its interest. without that, we cannot do anything else. if youook at the history of the competition with the soviet union, they could not sustain it and we could. we have to sustain that. we will not be able to meeany

of the challenges. i answer concerns about nuclear proliferation. we are on the cusp of a very difficult time. it could become a domino effect if i ran it moves forward at others will want to move forward. also the danger that some will get access to nuclear materials. it is aoncern of mine as we think about the challenges of what is broadly called and the needed to sustain our own interest and an open vibrant use of these technologies that can sustain our economy and support freedom, our vibrant les in ways that doot threaten our security. we can meet them. we can meet the challenge of rising power at all of these things if we do wt we need to to sustain that.

>> last word. >> i agree, but a couple of additional points. there was an interesting point in the washington post. the most important thing in these emerging democracies will not be constitution's but smartphones. if you think about that, smartphones enable us to be linked to each other. the world is geometrically changed. the challenges we have going forward are going to be what the could not have imagined 10 minutes ago. i was going to say on the foreign-policy side, i think our biggest chaenges fastening a narrative about what america stands for that is not perceived and much of the world as we are

anti muslim and what we do to protect our paris's >> muslim countries. i think that is a misunderstanding of what we are about. it is important to demonstrate to millions of people all it around the world the dollies we actually live by. >> we will take some questions. weill alternate one side to the other. >> unfortunately, you have preempted my question. i am trying to think of some fallback question at has to deal with how important it is for a president to have some kind of understanding of the culture and history and be sensitive to that of other people. the state department is supposed to be their expertise.

nixon seemed to do exceptional in his grasp of the big picture. i was wondering if you recommend a president actually do some kind of scholarly boning up on the history of china or the middle east or so forth? >> what do you not start off on that. >> the question was about whether people need a cultural understanding of the different parts of the world. i would say yes, and a respect for differences in the world. i in not sure any particular president needs to bring that inventory into the white house. here is a plug for woodrow wilson, our only ph.d. president who was highly skilled and ford and domestic issues, he was only a politician for two years before he became president. before that he was a professor. i think not only a president but

congress needs to have some skills and understanding about the different parts of the world. [applause] i think it is just appalling to hear a number of members of congress and bragging about the fact they do not have passports. it is not that everyone needs to take a vacation and beautiful -- pick one. it is willing to travel and learn about the trouble spots in the world. take the trough -- tough trips. i have got to north korea and libya twice. it was extremely useful travel and helped me do my job better. i think that is a very good question. we have a culture sensitivity gap that is huge and is one that we should both recruit people in our government to bring those skills including language skills but also reach out to people

living and around the world to learn from them how they perceive their own lives and how they perceive us. a little key military would go a long way. -- a little humility would go a long way. [applause] >> with all the present -- all the things the president has to do, it is amazing that there are readers. i think presidents do have this understanding that they need to deepen and find a broader way to get their understanding. just reading options and memos. there are looking for different perspectives in history and culture. think it igreat. i do think there is a neeto get to this broader community. the old days when diplomacy could only be done by eight heads of state and foreign

ministers have long passed. understanding what we do is going to be served by people in pakistan or india or bridget -- brazil is everbit as important as understanding what the prime minister is going to say to us we need at high-level meetings. the biggest challenges is not because policy was partly intended but because we do not have the good sense of what we think we are doing the right thing how it is perceived by the audience is we have to reach. having that understanding about what we do will be perceived by others is critical to making sure we achieve the intended results. >> i think the more cultural experience and understanding we have the better. i would echo two things. one thg is respect. you may not understand these cultures but if you go in and show respect to people, whatever their cultural background, it

gets you long way. congress and members of congress traveling. you get 70% credit just for showing up and showing people the respect to come to them rather than expecting them to come to you. >> there has rightfully been a lot of discussion about the process of the national security council and how decisions are managed when there is time to make a decision. i am interested when there is a crisis moment. how do you manage a crisis and how you make sure the president is hearing from who he needs to hear from? >> does anybody want to start with that? >> i think you are always in a difficult situation and those kinds of moments where you have to respond quickly. a failure to act quickly is consequential and its own right.

just one example from the clinton administration is after the bombing of our embassies in africa, there was a clear impulse had to ask very quickly and respond because there was a need tshow we were not going to take this, we were going to get out and have a response. there was a fair sense of where it had come from and why it had happened. there was a back-and-forth about if you want to take more time to develop a stronger case and the conviction before you respond or argue risking that you will not have a risk -- effective response at all. that was the period of time that ultimately left to some military action by the united states. you have to decide in each case , how confident are you you have

the in formation to make that decision? what would be the consequences of being wrong because it turned out to twas otherwise? i do not think there is some -- a magic answer. there is a challenge for the president to decide how to make those trade-offs. in each case it depends on how the experience of the team has to come together quickly and to use the ability to convene the senior advisers and be available at all times to get, what do we more, what might we know - of? >> you can be sure that despite the best of four -- efforts, you will not knoall you should not. yet you have to make a decision.

if it goes bad, there will be some commission of inquiry. hundreds of people, they will find all this fuss -- stuff you wish you had announced. that is how it is. a lot of tough decisions you have an hour-and-a-half to make because the world does not stop what you're dealing with a crisis. you do the best you can. you can be sure you will not have all o the information. >> we have time for one more. one more question. >> my question concerns -- concerns the influence of the media. my target is the 24-7 news. it seems that it spends more time on generating the news and

interviewing each other rather than reporting the news. [applause] i think it leads to a lot of polarization, not just between cable channels but also sometimes the conservative channel or the level -- liberal channel some to argue with each other. >> i know you would have thoughts on this one. it is a problem. i am not one who likes to take positions on things. it is not just the velocity of the news cycle, the provocation. everything has to be pushed to an extreme. i remember when president clinton took over, his communications director said

there was a missile strike. he said the commentators were already talking abut the mission and they hadn't even landed. to me, it is a problem, it is the idea that more and more in our news business, we're push to make snap judgments to push things as far as we can. that does not help anybody. [applause] >> it is easy and a fashionable to dump on the 24-7. it puts pressure on the ministrations. if you look back over the last 20 years, decision makersre getting used to it and figuring out at the end of the day you

make your decision. you know you will be beaten up. everybody is trying to see if it is growing. you're judged by the outcomes. we are learning how to adjust and to t steel ourselves and hang in there when you have convictions about what you're trying to do. and then be judged by the outcome. >> i want to say wanting. we can talk about the 24 hour news cle. but a free media is important in this country. as a national security practitioner, the news was a terrific source of information. especially some of these reporters that are in combat zones like afghanistan four

months on end and have a perspective that is important. there are tensions between the government and the press but it is a terrific resource for this country. [applause] >> i agree. i would add wanting from my perspective. if you are running for elected office, the pressure on around yourom organized groups of of various kinds are huge. they do not give the room to think and deliberate. it is hard to find room to think and deliberate. it takes courage to take any one of these groups, passionate groups that are in your face

about, you have to do this. back off, i am going to think about this. it is going to be what i think is the right thing to do. mahaling the personal courage and the energy to do that is a very hard. it is human nature, the taking the easier course. let's do this because the pressure will be to artist we don't. that is not good for sound policy. its my hope that someday at the screening and screeching and the amount of money in our potical system will reduce end we will let our best people, including our young people, to

run for office and be what wasn't supposed to be the greatest deliberative nobody on earth, the congress. that would be a help for our republic. instead of having a silly season where the most outrageous thing gets the most attention, would never be nice if the most intelligent thing out the most attention. [applause] >> that will conclude our panel. thank you for being with us. for taking an interest in this important theme. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> tomorrow on newsmaker, gene sperling, the white house economic council director. he talked about the jobs numbers and economy. that is at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. in his weekly address, president obama talks about the november jobs report and urges congress to extend the payroll tax cut before the christmas recess. then, senator olympia snowe gives this week of three republican address. she calls for a balanced budget amendment. the senate is expected to vote on the measure this month. a balanced budget amendment recently failed to pass the house, falling short of the two- thirds majority.

>> we need to keep this growth going and strengthen it. that is why we have been fighting to pass a series of jobs bill in congress. independent economists say it will create more jobs and grow the economy even faster. now it's the time to step on the gas, not slam on the brakes. unfortunately, too many republicans in congress do not share that same sense of urgency. over the last few months, they have said no to most of these jobs bills, notes to putting teachers and firefighters back to work, noted putting construction workers back on the job. this week, they said no to cutting taxes for middle-class families. last year, most -- both parties

came together to cut payroll taxes by about $1,000. that tax cut expires at the end of this month. if that happens, those same families will see their taxes go up by 1 per thousand dollars. we cannot let that happen. i think we should cut taxes on working families and small business owners even more. we are going to keep pushing congress to make this happen. they should not go home for the holidays until they get this done. if you agree with me, i could use your help. we have set up a tax cut talk later at whitehouse.gov. try it out and then let your members of congress know where you stand. tell them not to vote to raise taxes on working americans during the holidays. tell them to put country before party. put money back in the pockets of working americans. pass these tax cuts. we are in this together. the more americans succeed, the

more america succeeds. if we remember that and do what it takes to keep this economy growing, i am confident we will come out of this stronger than before. >> hello. i am senator olympia snowe from maine. the united states senate will have a vote on a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. let there be no mistake -- there is no greater division to one -- we need the government to live within its means and spend no more than it takes in. i have been a longtime champion of the balanced budget amendment in both the house and senate. asked our federal government borrows an astounding 40 cents of every dollar we spend. the fact is debt and deficits do matter. we have now entered what some have called an economic danger zone. our outstanding debt, which has now reached $15 trillion, has

stunted economic growth, costing millions of american jobs. just as deserving the, the government currently pays a staggering $200 million a year in interest to foreign countries who hold our treasury bonds. countries like china and russia. that number is expected to increase to $1 trillion by 2021. in the three short years since president obama as taken office, the national debt has increased by nearly $5 trillion when the president stated last summer that we do not need a constitutional amendment to do our job, not exactly if congress were capable of doing its job, they would not have added nearly $10 trillion to our national debt since 1997, the year a balanced budget amendment failed to pass the senate by just a single vote. just imagine where we would be

today if we had accomplished a then what we must achieve now. let's be clear -- the impending vote to amend the constitution represents a choice between changing business as usual in washington, or embracing it the status quo we can no longer afford -- the status quo that has led to an an excusable 950 straight days without passing a federal budget. the status quo that has brought us the first ever downgrade of america's triple-a credit rating. the status quo that is exemplified by the so-called super committee's inability to agree on $1.20 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. even the automatic cuts, resulting from the super committee's failure to reach an agreement, could all be undone by congress unless we pass a balanced budget amendment. balanced budget amendment.