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tv   Yale University...  CSPAN  December 25, 2011 9:00pm-11:00pm EST

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fields. monday, on "washington journal" a look at it to get a third party candidate on the ballot. then, richard smith, author and presidential historian on george washington. and later, a look at efforts to improve the lot or a process - that's live at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> have you tried the free c-span radio app? here's what users are saying. >> the c-span app is fast, easy to use and visually appealing and the audio quality is convincingly clear. great app, and great value since it's insanely free. >> any time, anywhere, get streaming audio of c-span radio as well as all three of c-span's television networks including
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live coverage of congress. c-span, it's available wherever you are. find out more at c-span.org/radioapp. >> in 1951, william f. buckley wrote the book "god and man at yale," a critique of yale university. on the 60th anniversary of the book's publishing. university hosted a conference on buckley's legacy and his influence on the conservative movement. richard lowrey, "weekly standard" founding editor william crystal and neal freeman, the moderator of "firing line." this is an hour, 10 minutes.
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>> all right, we're about to begin. this panel is called, buckley's legacy, how would the patron saint turbo charge conservatism, and it's a very apt question to be asking about bill, because bill's concern from the beginning of his career, it had to do with his own performances, it had to do with his own writing, but much, much more importantly, it had to do with helping to shape the direction of the country. as various people have remarked so far, he didn't use the word "conservative" of himself as a young man. terms like "radical" and "individualist" were the terms
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he favored, but that soon changed when he started -- when he and billy schlum started thinking about this new magazine of theirs. it wasn't meant to be another "time magazine" like henry luce's. this was going to be a magazine that would shape a movement, the conservative movement, and he started using that word, conservative. he specifically did not want to gather only people of his own particular -- his own particular way of looking at the world and politics. he deliberately brought together libertarians, traditionalists, people who were predominantly anti-communist and less interested in the domestic scene. he brought all these people together and his only -- his only exclusionary principle was that they couldn't be kooks and
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anti-semites. those were the only exclusionary principles. he wanted a big tent within, to be sure, one segment of the political spectrum. so since building conservatism in the first place was his mandate, his self-imposed mandate, asking what his legacy can do now to turbo charge conservatism is, i think, a very good question indeed. and we have three people who have -- who are doing this in their own ways and who i trust will have good ideas on how others can help them do it. rich lowrie is the editor of "national review," as everyone knows. he's only the third editor in
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"national review's" by now nearly 56-year history. and how he came to "national review" is -- is very much in line with -- with, again, what we've heard about bill this afternoon, that he was always concerned about young people. he saw himself as an evangelist to young people for the conservative faith as well as for the faith. and how rich first came to us was by taking part in a young writer's contest, by now, 20 years ago this year, it wasn't it? 20 years ago this year. and the very next year, an opening ifle -- a position fell open on the editorial staff and we hired rich and before long he was our national political reporter and then in 1997 when
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john o'sullivan was stepping down, bill, after extensively looking around the pool of available talent, decided rich was the one. that's when he became editor and chief of "national review." and has been running the magazine with excellence ever since. we're changing the order a little here. the second panelist will be bill crystal, only one of the four of us who has never exactly worked for bill although he reminds me he was on the board of directors of "national review" for a couple of years. he describes himself as a fugitive from academia. he did teach at the university level for several years but then he went into -- it was the first bush administration, wasn't it? and then of course became the founding editor of the "weekly
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standard," a position he has held with excellence and verve ever since. neal freeman, yale 1962, has probably served -- he hasn't -- he hasn't worked for bill as steadily as some of the rest of us. he's gone in and out, he's done other things. he's now with his own advisory firm which he's run for a very long time now. but he probably has served bill in more capacities than any of the rest of us, having been the initial publisher -- not publisher, the director, the founding director of "firing line," having syndicated bill's column, having written for the magazine and served as a contributing editor on the magazine and being the --
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basically, you know, man on the front lines in bill's mayoral campaign. senator, judge buckley was the official campaign manager but neal was the guy who made the appointments and got bill to them. >> so. >> so, yeah, right, right. and neal writes and speaks and does all those other good things but his -- what he did for bill will always remain terribly important to those of us in this circle. so i will ask rich lowrie to begin. >> thank you, and thank you, everyone. linda mentioned that a young writers' contest i entered and i actually finished tied for second. which a very rude friend once told me really means i was third. but at least i was in the top three, but it's a pleasure to be
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here. thank you, the folks at yale for putting this on. it's a pleasure to be with linda who literally wrote the book on bill buckley with neal freeman who lived and was integral with the history we're talking about today and with my esteemed colleague, bill crystal. those of you out there disappointed in the republican presidential field, please blame bill crystal because he didn't try hard enough to get another candidate in the race. he never tried walking around the streets of washington with a sandwich board on or anything like that. >> it was through "national review" that i was introduced to conservatism and to really the world of ideas and i discovered when i was in high school, i would literally sneak issues of "national review" into class and read them between my textbook. what "playboy" was to normal teenagers, "national review" was to me and i was fascinated, as many of us were, with bill buckley.
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that's back when we had v.c.r.'s and i would tape episodes of "firing line" and sit there alone and replay parts of it over and over again to make sure i was following the argument. i wasn't a very well adjusted or popular adolescent but it's really been a thrill and a blessing for me to be associated at all with bill buckley and with "national review," although i do have to say, we have already shamed part of bill buckley's legacy because right now at the offices of "national review," if you went in there and examined our junior level editors, you would find that at the moment we have two from harvard and just one from yale. if "national review" had a human resources department, they would investigate the policies that relate to this disparate impact. let me talk a little bit about
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bill and make two stipulations up front. one, i just got married four months ago so i'm just getting used to being wrong about everything. as a pundit, you spend all your life telling yourself you're right about everything. i've done this for 20 years so this is a useful corrective so i'm open to being criticized on any front. and two, mark twain at the beginning of "huckleberry fin" has a note saying, "anyone who finds a motive in this book should be prosecuted, anyone finding a moral should be banished and anyone seeking out a plot should be shot." and that's how i feel about people who speak a little too competently about what bill buckley would think, feel or do about anything because he was such an original and fertile mind. but i do think that we can
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obviously sort a few things out and i'd like to talk about what bill's attitude towards the tea party would be because this is obviously the most interesting and important phenomenon and controversial phenomenon among some people on the right at the moment and there's this view among the elite media and others the tea party, here are these clamorous, anti-establishment populists trashing conservatism and i don't think that's the way bill would view them. he was a fascinating figure for many reasons, one of which was that he was really in a lot of ways the original elitist, right? whether it was the vocabulary or accent or sheer cosmopolitism. i heard a buckley joke, that it wasn't until age 12 that he realized he was growing up in an american family.
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on the other hand, there was no one who was more fiercely anti-elitist than bill buckley. a lot of us tend to have an image of him from the later years when he was this beloved figure going on "charlie rose" and isn't he segracious and cute and when he was at yale and coming out of yale in his early career, he was utterly outrageous and a radical. he defended joe mccarthy. when krushev came to new york city, he talked about dyeing the river red. and "national review" was designed to be anti-establishment. it savaged the eisenhower administration and supported the
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goldwater insurgency and one of the points of bill's mayoral run was to take down a few notches the golden boy of the liberal establishment, john lindsey, and that mayoral campaign earned the contempt of elite opinion. bill said at one point in the campaign, that if he won, he hoped there would be nets outside the offices of the "new york times" to catch the editors throwing themselves from the windows. and that campaign did not thrive in the tonier precincts of manhattan but thrived electorally among the cops and firefighters and the ethnic enclave so it was really a populist endeavor and this is why i think bill buckley -- little about the tea party that bill buckley wouldn't recognize and identify with, especially its love of the constitution and its broad streak of libertarianism because
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it's difficult to exaggerate the anti-statism of bill buckley. at "national review's" fifth anniversary dinner he said the socialist state is to justice and freedom what marquis de sade is to love. he self titled one of his books, referring to himself as a libertarian journalist. you look at his agenda as a mayoral candidate and it involves loosening the drug laws and legalizing gambling so there's a lot of ron paul type figure that bill buckley would identify with. so i think those are all very important points but it's also important to enter a cautionary note. after his mayoral campaign and a rather despairing passage in "on making of a mayor," the book he wrote about the campaign, he wrote about how there's no future for the republican party
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and we'll see the party system break up into various factions that would be adamantly doctrinaire, insufficiently thoughtful, improvidently angry and self defeatingly sectarian and i think any political movement, especially one as highly aroused as conservatives are now, will be tempted in those directions and when it comes to that, we can look to bill buckley for lessons in correctives. it's important to realize that standing history and all that and how much he cared about principle, bill buckley was also an intensely practical man and in the early years of "national review," you saw the struggle working out in his own mind between the ideal and the real and he realized you have to strike a balance between the two if you're going to be most effective and whittaker chambers and james vernom influenced him in this direction so he was
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practical. he was also a coalition builder. it wasn't just about tending to the faithful but about winning new converts and new allies and you saw this in the initial composition of the editors of "national review" who represented all sorts of different strands of thought on the right. you saw it in his welcoming of the neoconservatives into the movement. you're welcome, bill crystal. and even his mayoral campaign when he really helped discover the reagan democrats. and you also -- i keep going back to the mayoral campaign, because i think it illustrates so many aspects of bill. it was also an extremely solution-oriented campaign. this wasn't just about going out there and stating conservative axioms. it was a campaign soaked with policy and bill intensely believed that we had better solutions to the problems of the day and he very consciously addressed the problems of the day and adopted policies that
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were quite prescient and would go on actually later on to help save new york, and finally, bill was a joyful figure. he really loved our fallen world and communicated that in everything he did, not just his writing and his editing and his debate. but in his sailing and in his skiing. he never communicated a sense of being perpetually angry and aggrieved and that was a key part of his appeal. so those are just a few thoughts. but it doesn't take long grappling with bill buckley, with his life and with his legacy to realize the ultimate takeaway, which is that some losses are just irreplaceable. [applause]
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>> it's good to be here. it's great to be with neal and linda and rich. i very much liked the last few months -- i always liked "national review" but the last few issues have been and now ily strong realize it's due to the influx of harvard graduates. it's good to come to yale to see how the other half lives. enough of all that. unlike rich, i've been married 35 years so i'm used to being told i'm wrong so i don't need to have that in public. you know. i need a little positive reinforcement. i also was a huge fan of "national review" as a kid. my parents got it at home so i read it as soon as i started reading magazines. i remember reading it as early as 1963 and 1964. i spent the entire summer and fall of 1964 believing what i
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was reading in "national review" which was that there was this hidden majority that would elect barry goldwater and i shouldn't believe those gallup polls run by the mainstream media. >> i wrote some of them. >> yeah. i love "national review" and it had a big influence on me. i'm a neoconservative in many ways and i personally actually was much public interest didn't exist until 1965, "commentary" was a liberal magazine. "national review" was the conservative magazine i read as a kid. the evidence of that is that in my high school year-book in 1970, there's half a page devoted to each graduating senior and my photo has me wearing a lapel of one of those buttons people used to wear in the late 1960's and mine was a button that said, "don't let
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them iminitize the escmatize," another "national review" theme. when my kids came across the yearbook decades later, they couldn't believe what a geek i was. i tried to explain to them why this was actually kind of cool and hip. they didn't buy that. i was not, however, quite as bad as rich. i did still prefer "playboy" to "national review." but, hey. [laughter] i also liked the title of this panel a lot, "how would the patron saint turbo charge conservatives." it's funny to have a patron saint and turbo charging in the same sentence but it captures two elements of bill, a reverence for the past and eager
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tons move to the future. if i would say this in thinking about, i don't know what bill would say and i'm not going to pretend. i knew him less well than anyone else on the panel and it's a huge mistake of bill's stature to pretend that we would know what he would say about things and as rich suggested, he was a practical man as well as a man of principle and a deep thinker in a way, like many deep thinkers, he actually concealed the depths of his thoughts sometimes in his fantastic journalistic facility and he was also someone who has a deep understanding of principles, is, in a way, more relaxed sometimes about the application of those principles to practical politics. he had this aristotelian view, the key is to steer the ship in a certain direction and get to a certain port which means basic low keeping in the same direction and not permitting certain things because they're contrary to the principles of
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keeping the ship afloat, but being willing at times to toy with and engage in third-party bids, to educate people even though obviously he wasn't going to win and support other third parties. of course, his brother won in 1970 in a race i did two days of volunteer work in when i graduated from high school. that was an exciting victory. and at other times he could be what he thought was necessary to be very hard-headedly pragmatic and saying, look, this is a moment where we need to choose between the available alternatives or even modify the message for now, at least, to make sure that we can make progress in the hereof and now. so he was a complicated thinker and i think some of the complexity and subtleties in a way masked by the incredible grace and ease in which he wrote and spoke, obviously, and his cheerful willingness to engage in all kinds of disputations and
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confrontations. i was most struck -- looking back at bill -- i was struck by his own work and there are others, you can read it in many forms, but i'm struck almost more by his ability as an editor to be a circus master for "national review" and to corral all these different thinkers and temperaments and let them express themselves and i think that's important to the success of american conservatism. we try to do this and rich tries to do it but it's a different age and it's not quite the same but in a way you don't know ahead of time if they're libertarian, traditionalist, american populace conservatives, neoconservatives who are ok with some of the welfare state, who want to get rid of the whole thing. a, it's hard to know, none of
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those probably is exactly correct and the truth is a complicated combination of those things. and, b, practically speaking, it's hard to know ahead of time what's going to have resonance and which aspect of the conservative agenda will pick up popular support and i think it's very wise -- conservatives talk a lot about the limits of one's ability to predict and know things and essentially manage things and when you put a conservative in charge of an organization, he becomes the total opposite, an insane micro manager and tries to figure out exactly what should be done with his own five-year plan even though we're not supposed to believe in those things and i think bill actually ran "national review," my sense is from visiting him and reading it over the years, much more in the spirit that was appropriate to a conservative magazine, which was a certain humility about exactly who's right in some of these intraconservative disputes, who's right about how radical
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someone should be versus pragmatic. most of "national review" was vehemently denouncing the opening to the murderous regime in china in 1971 and 1972. i remember seeing bill on tv denouncing kissinger and nixon for the trip to china -- whatever you think of the substance of the outreach, really, the sycophantic treatment of this powerful mass murderer, mao tse tung and his regime. i have to remind henry of that tonight. henry's so relaxed and has such a good sense of humor about these things. won't be a problem. [laughter] but bill was able to publish both these things and i think to entertain the thought that maybe one was mostly right but in other circumstances the other could be somewhat right and i
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think that's true with a lot of different issues, both at the philosophical level and at the very practical, political level in terms of his editorship and in terms of his general shepherding of the conservative movement and i think that's a very important lesson in this moment, which is an interesting moment, a very hopeful moment, i think, for conservatism, but hard to know exactly what -- certainly a lot of us would have been wrong if we predicted in 2004 how things would look in 2008 or if we predicted in 2009 which elements of conservatism be most resurgent, what themes the tea party would come into existence at all or what themes it would pick up and find most resonant and i still think it's hard to predict in the kind of modesty bill had and humility, really, beneath the fantastic, somewhat -- what's the right word -- not so humble exterior sometimes. the great confidence he -- that
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was part of his great charm. i think underneath that confidence was a kind of intellectual and political modesty combined with turbo charged energy and intelligence to enable the conservative movement to do something really, really amazing. we do not -- i'll close with this thought -- it's very hard to appreciate it now. it looks like it happened, of course, bill buckley founded "national review" and then the cold war ended satisfactorily and ragain was a successful president and giuliani was able in new york to do things that bill buckley talked about in 1965 and conservative principles would be vindicated and practiced. none of that was inevitable and none of it was likely when bill buckley founded "national review" or even 10 or 20 years later and the degree of the vision, the willingness to gamble we
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underestimate today and i think that's also a key legacy and lesson of bill buckley. on one side, we shouldn't be utopian about what might happen in the next year or two but we shouldn't underestimate the chances for radical reform in a good direction, either. we shouldn't be too practical and think we know ahead of time necessarily what the limits of progress in certain conservative or libertarian or whatever weive or want, sensible constitutionalists, pro american directions are so i think in that respect bill's kind of latitudeinarrianism about conservatism within certain limits and his willingness to adjust and change and take his guidance to some degree from the market, the political market, and from public opinion, which may not be wise as individuals but in its entirety is often sensible. that's a very important lesson in precedent from bill buckley.
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[applause] >> thank you, linda, bill. thank you, rich. i donated my knees to the yale lacrosse team a couple of centuries ago. i am acutely aware that i stand between you and the bar, so let me make a few brief comments. three things about bill. then i will plunge recklessly into the territory both of these wiser men refuse to travel and that is what bill would think today about things? three things about bill. one, extraordinary personal courage in both the moral and physical forms of courage. as one example, one measure of the correlation of the
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ideological forces, i think back to my class at yale. , we approached graduation that glorious june day when john kennedy got off the great line. i know have the best of all worlds, a harvard education and a yale degree. we sought to show support for our are merging champion barry goldwater. and from a class of 1000 young men, all men in those days, we have five supporters. not included in our number, i would note, was our hard- drinking classmate richard b. cheney. dick cheney was a 160-pound scatback on the football team. not included in our team was a
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quiet economics major named arthur laffer. they drawfed our the support among the faculty. the faculty, 700 strong in those days, yielded to supporters. one was a feisty lecturer in the yale law school named robert bork. the other was an asian scholar named dave rao who contributed to the journal lethat rick edit. we would have had 50% more dsupport. the second thing i would say about bill is what rich mentioned, and a critical ingredient is joy.
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every buckley enterprises was aimed at high purpose but pursued in high spirit. the sound that rings in memory is bill's laughing. bill on the telephone with a delicious story. bill on the boat with his best friend. i will give you one example here. this is years after the event, and i obtained excessive bill's interviewed for the fbi. they are investigating me for a federal appointment. at the end of the field investigation, the agent asked this omnibus fanny-covering question, "would i be likely to embarrass the administration?" witness buckley under oath is
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quoted as saying "i should think the reverse is much more likely." [laughter] let me give you, again, proceeding year-old crossing. this is how i think bill might proceed. first, he would summon the of all of the republican stalwarts . and my projection is it would go like this. mitt romney, invited to dinner at 73rd street, would have been given a pass on gun control, abortion, universal health care. bill belief that every human being is in doubt by his creator with the right to flip-flop. bill would have bored in instead of what he perceived to be eloquent. instead, the lacuna, the
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widespread perception that mitt romney can fix our economy with an economic plan that is manifestly inadequate to the challenge. bill might have asked his guest, "how do you rreconcile that which is irreconcilable?" mitt romney would score to the evening. bill would have barely survived. he hated to drink alone. [laughter] rick perry's visit would have triggered the fall but we charm offensive. tales of the original wfb would have spiced the evening. bill would have taken it upon himself as a priority favor to support rick perry's single most indefensible action as a governor.
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toward the end of a long article, bill would have recast his initiative is not only indefensible -- defensible but in some ways laudable. a boon to the nation, quite possibly to the world. rick perry would have responded with a dan rather-sized texasism, involving parched land and poisonous snakes. bill would have segued into a discourse were contemporary national affairs call for a foreign policy less program. the governor is here to fore advance. when sarah palin came to lunch, bill would have been on his best behavior. his wife might even have persuaded him not to eat the salad with his fingers. after an hour and a half, bill would have concluded under the
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block we roll, but sarah palin was sufficiently rightward but insufficiently viable. as they parted that afternoon, dole would have accepted an invitation to go spear hunting for large mammals and deep inside the arctic circle. a commitment neither sarah nor patsy would let him forget. his barbed wit, his broad range of reference and illusion might also have cost bill to remember an observation by the late herman caan, who said some people learn by reading through the eye. other city nearby listening. i learned through the mouth by talking. [laughter] the summit meeting with herman cain with excited
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high anticipation. bill would have relished a cain- buckely alliance. during their time together, he would spend his time with a quite inventory of the intellectual warehouse. what does cain know? what has he read? is it possible that cain could be bill's guy? beyond the political arena, bill weld had advice for the hardy band of right leading scholars and the american academy, including here, the would have said "the brave, but until you have secured tenure be no more brief encounters demands. reject and reverse the pro liberal st. augustin. when he famously. o lord, make me chaste but not
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yet. concentrate your career energy on evolving scholarship but celebrate love we and redundant leave the core values of the restaurant -- western canon. to the stewards of his movement public diplomacy, the educators, riders and producers, bill bill would say, "keep handy the metrics of -- and appreciate the vital contribution to our coalition made by each major strain of conservatism. avoid sectarianism, adhere strictly to principal labor without pause to coin the fresh for relations for our time was proposition. along the way, remember to have some fun. strive to be a little less constipated. let me close by saying why have chosen to support the buckley
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program. the first is to keep alive a fragile tradition at yale. decade after decade, yale has done almost nothing to encourage but just enough to permit a culture of conservative dissent. i like to think of as yale's crossing but hon. acquiescence to the spirit of academic freedom. the second reason to support this program bill would have loved it. bill had the most complicated relationship with yale of any student since nathan hale. he starts off as a golden boy student, very much in the line georgeer steweardart, h.w. bush, and the like, but bill quickly became not a
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loving son of our sweet mother yale, but the university policy designated apostate. bill once described his memories as "long and censorious." but he cared deeply about this place. not only where he formed his political views but where he formed a friendship that sustained him for a lifetime. for its part, yale, i think, nudged by the alumni fund, realized that there was no upside in the long-term feud with america's most gifted controversial ist. the ice began to melt. the door opened wide and by begins in thealks 1990's between the particle student and the university. one issue was not quite the
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treaty of vienna, but an historic document nonetheless -- an invitation to bill to join the faculty in new haven. his course in english composition, which debuted in the fall of 1997, became popular with of the students and their instructor. icon testified that from his professorial turn here, bill took a deep satisfaction. the process was completed in the spring, 2000, when yale awarded bill an honorary doctorate. copley's was he? when word began to spread of the award, i called to congratulate him. he picked up the phone and said, "dr. buckley here." [laughter] and metaphysical problems i can help you with?" to which, the answer is, yes,
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there are. and the buckley program at yale and i hope you would agree is one way to address them. thank you. [applause] >> how much time do we have? one, i have been reminded by a couple of remarks made this afternoon of a small incident that happened i guess nearly 30 years ago, but it ties in with all these things about liberals and neocons and bill's wide embrace. john p. roach had been at one
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point not too long before a president -- president or chairman of americans for democratic action. that extremely liberal institution founded in 1948 by arthur s. schlesinger, jr, and several other people mentioned today. i cannot remember who was in it. it was really a liberal. and john roche was the president of it. gradually, as the world changed, at least on foreign policy, he found himself much more in tune with "national review" it then with much more of his former allies. and he bill were talking somewhere, and john asked if he could write a column for "national review" yanda biland l said, delighted. so john of this column on
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foreign policy and it was always brilliant. i assumed we were far apart on domestic policy. then one day, something came up to do with poverty or whatever, and he gave an answer that led me to say "why, john, you sound like an israeli conservative?" and he said, "no, a catholic hinducolist." these labels can be attributed in different ways. you have any comments for each other, or shall we invite the audience? let us invite the audience with any questions, comments, summings-up. yes, nina? >> first, i would like to say it has been a tremendous pleasure to listen to these distinguished speakers and to hear more personal as well as political
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information about william f. buckley's life. i would say that the one thing i would like to hear more about, which i know about, it is to thingsey's legacy which were musical and not political. i knew mr. buckley for 37 years. at the core of his personality was always his deep concern for moral values. that was a tremendous pareve of personality and make up. he became interested in supporting me. and charles ives, because ives was interested in moral values. he made a tribute to wealth
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while the emerson -- to ralph waldo emerso. talk about the importance of 1's remembering one of's eternal soul -- one's eternal soul. i recorded -- piano music and william f. buckley supported me as a concert pianist for his entire life. i met him in 1970, 1971. i was in that infamous class of women at yale. in 1970. but i was very privileged to be in that class, very privileged to have known william f. buckley as both a mentor and a friend. and i am sure the reason that i
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became world famous is because of his help and his guidance. so i thank you. my name is nina deutsche. i would be happy to talk to about what a kind person william f. buckley was. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, nina. questions? anyone want to tell rich he was wrong? don't tell bill he was wrong. >> i will tell rich was right and bill as well. i had dinner with my long- suffering bright a couple of years ago with somebody who had been very high in the lindsay administration, but of course, swamped the william f. buckley forces in 1965.
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and he had been keeping score over the years as the mayor turned over from dinkins to guiliani to bloomberg and all of the rest. in the campaign of 1965, bill had recommended 22 specific proposals, all of them brinded extremist by the "the new york times", every single one of them in serial fashion. they had all been adopted in subsequent years but one. and i was dying to find out which one it was. maybe it was the elevated buckley byway. so, even though we have 13.8%, we won. and that is a message for all conservatives, especially young people at yale. i know you feel like you are
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facing a chinese army, but they are going to run out of food. think of it that way. [laughter] >> yes? >> short question. pardon my -- part of muy early life in cincinnati. the john birch society and where did bill buckley stand on that? >> he famously expelled them from polite company. the john birch society thought eisenhower was a communist when he was really just a golfer. this was quite controversial within "national review", and it goes to what bill's moral
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courage. i was reading about this recently and bill rusher opposed it. i was thinking if i was in that situation, don't do it -- all of my colleagues were saying, don't do it. but bill was bill and he did it. and "the national review" faced 10% of cancellation. betty had a long view that this is important to the health of the movement -- but he had a long view that this is important to the help of the movement and he was correct. >> we have been -- i do not want because rich he's wrong, he is my former boss, but i do have to ask about one of the things he said that all of you could address. rich says william f. buckley's anti-statism was difficult to
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state. but he had a history of purging people whose anti-status and was inversely proportional. his obituary ends with the line "yes, he believed in freedom the same way david korache believed in god." what prevented him from sliding into that school of conservative thought? >> bill takes that on, too. i do not mean to support he would -- to say he would support 100% rand paul. a key dispute with libertarian's throughout the cold war, he said there were wrong and that we needed a strong state in order to combat the soviet union, and that took priority over
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shrinking the state at home. if you had to choose, you had to defeat communism because of you were going to have any of limited government, you had to save the west first. >> come of age when bill did, the complacency of progressivism and the liberal welfare state is a was so great that it would make one, make me, more libertarian or more rhetorically incline towards the kind of libertarian absolutism that would be the case today, when in fact, progressivism, is not nearly as confident as it could of been. bill captures that nicely in the original mission statement in "the national review", where he talks about them suffocating complacency and conformity of liberal opinion.
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some of the attraction for bill -- she was a complicated thinker, a mix of libertarian and traditional. some of the policy proposals he thought the most are not simply libertarian or small government conservative. he was interested in limited, energetic government. but in any case, i think the attraction -- i wonder, i don't know -- the attraction to the real a a a shocking individualism, i have to think a lot of that came as a reaction to test the incredible complacency when they dismissed that strain of political thought back then. i do think he actively intervened in real politics in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's. he is inclined towards smaller government and inclined toward policies that would free up people and allow them to govern
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themselves, but he was not a dogmatic libertarian. anothernk there's factor here, and riched touched on it in reference to the soviet union. bill always talked about ordered liberty throughout his public life, which started here at yale. he talked about the western tradition and about america as a particularly stunning example of that tradition. so, even though he identified himself as libertarian, and even though as someone else mentioned, he did not strictly, he would never said -- but still, the western tradition was
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a very big part of his intellectual and personal makeup. so he would have been -- he was inoculated by those things, i believe. >> one thing. we all act in hindsight is if this was a doctrinal exercise of surgical precision. when i was arab ithere in the ey 1960's, no one knew what a conservative was. we were making it up week by week. i remember the first time meyer came in. he laid out the full thing with graphs and reading lists, and here is how we are going to put together the traditionalists and the libertarians and the national security types. this will be one pi bond of -- and we'll march forward into the bright future.
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[cell phone rings] [ only onei was not the of the room who thought it was preposterous. somebody came up with the line which stopped even the frank meyer for a second. he could not easily be stopped. someone said, you mean you're going to make the holy rollers lie down with the high rollers. [laughter] frank drew on his kristin background, -- hsis princeton background and said, "abba dabba." the glue that held modern conservatism together was communism. the religious people, the
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economic people, security people all knew who the enemy was. the trick for these gentleman was to find the glue going forward. trimumphll zag to . hope so. >> the key is the high roller, holy roller alliance. the question, we were talking about the question -- i didn't know bill nearly as well as the people in this room. bill was not a hater and disliked conspiratorialists. that aspect of libertarianism and ron paul would really have put him off. -- on't even like the bill
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bill wasn't like. robert welch was saying that they could be not part of the movement. that is because the birchers were crazy. some of theirht -- particular policies, but the actual analytical plane, and william f. buckley thought you o not wheant to a have political view that is nuts. but really saying about people who served their country pretty aggressively that they were traitors. that is what the birchers said. i think that really offended bill. we read at some point -- we posted on the website the
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1963 denunciation, and it is quite detailed and substantive. it is not just these people are terrible. he quotes them and shows this is an untenable argument. it it was a difference of opinion, as well as denunciation of people that were kind of evil and that was not the case. that part bill always had a distaste for and i think it was wise for those aspects, this always happens in politics on all sides certain temptation to transform difference of opinion into evil motive on the 0 part of the other side or turn bad policy you think is doing damage to people one people are con staptly ordering you to do damage, gee, there aren't such
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people. and denounce soviet spies or denounce agents of the communist conspiracy. it's important to draw the line against those used in that kind of rhetoric in the name of conservatism. >> we published that editorial just to kick the bircher's down. we really meant it. -- birthers down. we really meant it. >> this may be a logical follow-on to that subject but i really like your thoughts since this panel is about energizing and re-energizing the conservative movement, the role of conservative talk radio and that. if you set aside your whatever bias to come out of the fact you're primarily print journalists, as i have listened to themes and if you like values that bill buckley represented, it certainly conservative talk
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radio does not suffer from humility. but there also doesn't seem to be a big tent. seems to be very doctrine in terms of afaking deviation from a narrow line. i'm pointing it out to get your reaction. but are there things you would do differently in some way of energizing the conservative movement or do you see this as mostly a valuable and constructive role? >> we have a pretty full file of bill's views on these. he reached out to many of them. thought they were a critical element but thought it put an even greater burden on the giant ro scopic function of the print guys.
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if there was a balance in the public perception and totality of expression blaring from that particular mega phone, i don't think it serves us well. bill's view is they were tactical allies but not great strategic assets. of course, he was a great tax on mist. i remember one of the last times i saw him, he was going through from hannity to limbaugh to laura and the rest of them. he had a real crisp and focused view of each one. i don't know how he did that. for most of his life he worked 18 hours a day. that was one way he would have done it. in those days i'm not sure how he got so informed about talk radio. but he knew it well. >> yes?
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>> two things, i wanted to point out not only did bill buckley start his career here at yale, floor of the y.p., but had his first public speech here about a year, year and a half or two before he passed away just down the street from here and i was in attendance that day. second question for mr. freeman, if you were still around, would would he have met with ron paul for lunch? if did he or didn't, what pify things would he say about him afterwards? >> he knew ron paul. had him on the firing line. if you're youtube savvy, you can see an interesting exchange between the two of them. i think the reason he never seideled up to ron paul is the reason bill clinton mentioned. he was always laying down the
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predicate. he saw it as his duty to sort of define the conservative paradigm. but he always was flexible within it. people who were inflexible on whatever the issue, i had to be the tip of the sphere in the iran campaign. i confess i went in to battle for bill and slayed the dragon. but i did not read atlas shrugged until last winter. i hereby apologize if i misran. the book has some merit. but bill -- i always thought his principle gripe with iran was her atheism. it triggered a response that had been bred in bill from the time he was baptized. he just went after it.
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but also she was an absolutist. and that was off-putting. >> yes? >> so i am a history professor here at yale and i teach american politics and i want you to know that i sign an awful lot of bill buckley in my classes, particularly early buckley. so my students have been reading, mccarthy and his enemies." and i frequently send students to the manuscript and archives division to look through the buckley papers and had this semesters i have students writing about the mayoral campaign, writing about john birch society controversy. one student here is writing about buckley and catholicism, his relationship with whitaker chamber. so anyway the legacy is here. a lot of the students -- and i guess one thing, i have two things, one of which is something that comes up in class often about early buckley, and one that is sort of
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self-interested question. so the first is students are often quite interested in this idea that -- of this outsider identity and this kind of alienation from what buckley articulated as kind of establishment. and sort of a question of where exactly that comes from. is it partly being catholic at a place like yale? is it just temperamental? yale was liberal in certain ways in the 1950's, but yale in 1940 did not go for franklin roosevelt. it goes for wendell wilkie so i think with can overstate the liberal socialistic nature of yale in the '40's and '50's. i'm curious if you have thoughts about where in the early years that sense of alienation and outsiderness comes from so important to his projects later on. the second more self-interested question is i happen to be writing biography of j. edgar hoover and trying to figure out
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a role of a figure like hoovner conservative politics and conservative movement mid-century. have i been spending time readinging buckley's f.b.i. file. which is pretty interesting. although nothing too exciting in there. i just wonder if any of you have any anecdotes or anything interesting to say about -- >> should be in the f.b.i. files that aren't? >> exactly. exactly. i want to know what he really thought of hoover. not what he wrote in "national review" and not these very polite letters in the f.b.i. file saying, thank you, director hoover. he did have something of a relationship there. i'm curious of what you can tell me what he really thought of j. edgar hoover if you know or have interesting to say on that point. >> i will say one thing, bill was never so energized as when going after large authority. one of his great battles, he
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being a loyal son of rome, was to attack popes. he just loved to get into a scrape with the vatican. when he went after the john birch society in history it looked like he was cleansing the movement of this irritant. at the time john birch society was a major player. they had strings on advertising contacts for the magazine. they had strings on distributer deals for the magazine. they contributed, their members actually wrote checks beyond the subscription fee. but bill, while he was fearless, he was also a lover of danger. you got a story time sneer >> what's the story about when
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he flew the plane in the dark? >> oh, he flew, as far as i'm aware, piloted -- >> the conservative movement, ended on bill somehow making -- >> i think he was still here at yale. >> he was still here and he didn't intend to fly it in the dark. >> right. >> he was surprised that nightfall came. there he was aloft. >> and however instead of trying to put down at say newport or someplace, he had flown a buddy up to boston and instead of putting down at providence or someplace, one night started to fall, he decided he could safely follow the new york, new haven and hartford railroad tracks back to new haven, which he did successfully do and did put the plane down. but there it was.
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he had a job to do so he did it. >> this is classic bill. you remember the '60's, pretty sad time. people who were on the edge of political consensus or not getting just criticized, getting shot. politicians were getting shot. and we have our first briefing with our security detail. then was the nypd. every cop in new york was for bill buckley for mayor, everyone. black, white, hispanic, didn't matter. they tried out this horrific file of threats and bill, i could tell he was losing patience. he begins doing this and he sits through it for a while. all of a sudden he has something very important to attend to and he leaves and gives me two directives. first, he's never attending a meeting of that kind again.
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i can attend them. the reports he must be shot in the morning did not concentrate his mind. they bored him. and the other was, you have to take steps to be sure patsy never hears about any of this. this was early in the campaign. bill was -- excuse me, bill was still hoping that patsy would support him in the campaign. >> our time has come. we thank you all for being here. [applause] >> here's what's next on c-span -- former attorney general roberto gst talks about his, --
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alberto gst talks about his years in the george w. bush administration. michelle fields and former lobbyist jack abramoff talks about conviction on fraud, tax evasion and bribery charges and his time in federal prison. tomorrow on c-span, the dedication ceremony of the new martin luther king jr. memorial of a national mall. president obama is among the speakers. that's at 10:00 a.m. eastern. and each night this week, we're bringing awe a different episode of our series "the contenders." at 10:00 p.m. tomorrow, a look at 1948 presidential candidate thomas dewey.
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>> next weekend look behind the scenes of the history and literary life of baton rouge, capital of louisiana and home of the l.s.u. tigers. on book tv on c-span2, a trib into the macabre, bloody book said to be in the hands of john paul memory marat when he was assassinated. it only aired once but maybe the most famous political ad ever produced. robert mann on daisy petals and mushroom clouds. it served as the model for the civil rights boycotts to come. historians and participants on the impact of the 1953 baton rouge busboy cots. also toured the louisiana state archives with materials dating from the louisiana purchase in 1803, 1810 document that created the very short-lived west florida republic of louisiana.
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plus, louisiana statehood documents. all next weekend on c-span2 and 3. >> next, remarks from former attorney general alberto gonzalez, who served in the george w. bush administration before resigning in 2007. the former texas secretary of state and texas supreme court justice really spoke about his experiences at the bush white house. the judicial confirmation process and his thoughts on current legal issues. this is part of an event sponsored by the birmingham, alabama, chapter of the federalist society. it's about 40 minutes. >> i'm often asked, what is it like to work in the white house? what is it like to work in the oval office and give the
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president of the united states advice on terrorism policy? what it's like to be in a the situation room in 2003 and witness the president give general tommy franks the order to commence operation of iraqi freedom? what is it like to be on the south lawn on the evening of september 11, 2001, and greet the president when the marine one lands on that historic day? what is it like? you know, for a lawyer, for an american citizen, for the son of a poor construction worker, it's a privilege, it's a duty, it's a source of pride and excitement. people come from all over the world to see the white house, most recognizable 18 acres in the world and i have yet to meet an american who is not in awe the first time sthep into the west wing. it takes your breath away because history is made there every day.
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i served during a notable period in our nation's history. following the 9/11 attacks, lawyers worked side by side at the policymakers in washington and we tried our best to defend this country in a manner consistent with the constitution . advising the president of the united states is more difficult than advising a normal client. president bush looked to me for legal advice but i want his lawyer. i represented the white house and the office of the presidency, not the individual. for example, in the criminal investigation of the plane leak, president bush had to hire private counsel because i could not represent him in his personal capacity. if the president gave me evidence related to a crime or criminal investigation, i would be required to report it to the department of justice. the president and i are mourning people and did our best work in quiet conversations early in the mornings in the oval office
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before many of the other people in the white house had come to work, before the president scheduled meetings for the day. we spoke of on about the scope of his commander in chief power at a time of war. exercising executive power in a system of checks and balances fueled the constant struggle between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government to define the limits and time of armed content. i use the word limited intentionally because i want to emphasize even in a time of war, time of crisis, there are legal and constitutional constraints on the presidency that has to be constructed and has to be defended. that is a great debate today. most often resolved in the political arena and not in the courts. in reality i observed the limit of the president's authority is
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often a function of political authority and his courage to do what he believed was necessary irrespective of public opinion. however we choose to define the limits i think boundaries are desirable, even necessary in our system of government. it's true that americans sleep easier when they believe they are safer because of the actions of the president. but more important to americans is knowing that the presidential action that keeps him is within the limits of the constitution. with the measures taken in response to 9/11 attack controversial? yes. were they tough? they had to be. did they save american lives? without question. which is why many of those policies continue today under the current administration. the world changed so much in the past ten years. now more than ever americans yearn for leadership. we want men and women who value courage and commitment over
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popularity, who are not focused on the next election, rather than the next generation. leaders who say this is who i am is and where i stand. in less than a year americans will choose the next occupant in the white house for the next four years. during the 2008 presidential campaign, we heard a lot about the promise for change. in truth every election represents an opportunity for change, a new beginning, the next chapter in the american story. a prominent newspaper in d.c. correctly acknowledged talking about change is not new. people talked about change even before there was an america. this is why the framers of the constitution came to this land but we continued to talk about change, to want change. why is that? it is because our nature as americans is to strive for something more, for ourselves and for those we love.
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every time i cast a vote, it is a reflection of hope, a tangible act towards making demrimes come true. poor, single mom wants to take her sick child to the hospital. unemployed child to get his job back at the factory. college student votes for her future. our lives are about these kinds of choices. a person we choose to work in the oval office will have to work with congress to resolve a staggering aray of challenges. how do we stop iran from becoming a nuclear power? what should we do to get more americans back to work? how do we sustain the hard-fought gains in afghanistan and iraq and continue the momentum of the arab spring? how will we resolve our deficit problems? what what role should we play in dealing with europe's debt
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crisis? did we as a country of immigrants find the courage to pass comprehensive federal legislation that sustains our economy and compliments our national security objectives? when and how will our military be deployed and used around the world? the president will also have to make another set of important decisions that gets far too little attention from the public and media. the appointment of federal judges. many of the decisions i just spoke of, when they're ultimately made are going to be challenged in our courts. whether you like it or not, the judiciary will have its say in whether the elected branches can move forward with policy. i'm reminded of a dinner speech gave to a very, very conservative group in d.c. shortly after i was named white house counsel. i was just this guy from texas. they didn't know who i was. you know, here i was from austin. and when discussing the u.s. supreme court, i told that audience that the role of the
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course is interpret the constitution and judge tells us what the constitution requires and allowed. i was booed. it was vicious. i went back to the white house and was puzzled over the reaction. evidently the audience didn't understand that why i believe the constitution means what it says, as a goal eye try to discern in the norm, the international treppeds places too much power in the hands of unelected, unaccountable judges, i also know and knew back then the realities judge s can and do affect policy in the way they decide cases. this is why presidential elections are consequential. other than sending young men and women into battle, no decision by president is more important than who he or she in the future places on the u.s. supreme court. they represent the president's most lasting segly.
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-- lasting legacy. in april 2005 i invited d.c. judge ronts to my office on the third floor of the r.f.k. building. i had been attorney general just a few months. it was early evening and judge roberts and i sat down alone in my office. bush had been re-elected a few months earlier and we anticipated finally after four years in office the president would get the opportunity to appoint a justice to the u.s. supreme court. judge roberts was our so-called short list developed after multiple conversations that i had with the president. as white house counsel i vetted him and recommended to the president his appointment to the d.c. circuit. in 2001 much like i had vetted and recommended judge pryor to the president. however brrks i could be comfortable recommending judge roberts for a lifetime appointment on the court i wanted to question him again about his ideology and judicial
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philosophy. and we talked about an hour. we extorted views and debated when it would be appropriate to override precedent. we discussed how personal views and bias as a judge should play a role in judging. i asked him how he should interpret the constitution in law passed by congress. how did the constitution allocate power between the three branches? we debated the appropriate ways to give to the judge history and statements. i was impressed with john's intellect and quiet confidence and easy going manner. attributes that i knew would serve him well in a tough confirmation hearing and in conference with the other justices. months later i was proud to stand before the justices of the supreme court in that majestic courtroom and present roberts' presidential commission as each
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in the use. each president places different emphasis on judicial appointments and every white house approach these nominations in its own way. during the presidential transition in 2000, pre-bush and i guaranteed -- president-elect bush and i agreed on the importance. it was important for president bush. we agreed recommendation on district and appellate court judges would be made to the president by the white house, to the selection committee which i chair as white house counsel. but supreme court recommendations would be made by a smaller group that included the vice president, chief of staff, senior adviser karl rove and attorney general. and in making my recommendations, let me tell what you i looked at. when i made recommendations for john roberts and sam alito to go on the supreme court. first i looked at qualifications. was this a person of professional excellence and high achievement. was this person capable of handling the job by virtue of
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their education, skills and experience? how would the nominee be rated by the bar association? is this someone i would be proud to have standing by the president as a rose garden or east room announcement? second i looked at character, courage and discipline. does this person have the character to stand up to the unimaginable scrutiny of the nomination process. and difficult questioning in a confirmation hearing. does he or she have the courage to do the right thing for applying lawsuit no matter how unpopular or contrary to the nominee is the personal biases? does the nominee have the discipline to apply a consistent set of principles in deciding cases over a period of 10, 20, 30 years and not be seduced by the sovereign call of the elites in the bar and academia. third i looked at confirmability. did we have 50 votes?
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did the president's party control the senate? who was the senate judiciary chairman? was the president trying to fill a seat considered a swing vote? for example, was this the o'connor or kennedy seat where an appointment by conservative or liberal president might tip the balance of the court. was this a nominee who had executive branch experience and was the author of executive branch memos. would this nomination produce an institutional fight between the senate and white house over these documents, and was the president strong enough to win this fight and was this nominee worth the fight? fourth, i looked at intangibles and political considerations. president bush cared about gender and racial diversity in our courts. for example, he wanted to fill the o'connor vacancy in 2005 with a woman. thus the harriet myers nomination. i offered considered the nominees' age. i looked for someone old now have the wisdom and maturity
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that comes through life experiences but young enough to be on the court 30, 40 years and impact jurisprudence of the country. for longevity i took in consideration the health of the nominee. fifth, and this is more important, although i'm talking about it last, was the judicial philosophy of potential nominee. my views about judicial philosophy are matter of public record. judges should apply the law, not impros policy preferences. when courts apply a policy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences they reduce credibility and authority of the judiciary. in so doing they undermine the rule lauf that strengthens our democracy. but in contrast a judge humbly understands the role of the court ourn system of government decides cases based on totally neutral principles. owe or she generally defers the judgment of the political
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branches and respects precedent. collective wisdom of those who have gone before. in so doing that judge strengthens respect of the judiciary, upholds rule of law and permits the people through elected representatives to make choices about the issues of the day. whether by appointment or by election, it's not easy to anticipate how a person will decide cases once they are judged to happen all the time. as white house counsel i interviewed hundreds of men and women interested in serve on the federal bench including judges prior, and others in alabama. when i became attorney general my interests in judiciary became more personal because it was my lawyers making arguments in the courts and defending the laws passed by congress. in summary what we looked for was a general philosophy of restraint in our judges and i
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believe a judge who understands the importance of these principles is going to take the right approach in every case. this is the judge who i trieded to be. i tried to help the president appoint and i believe most of you here in this room agree this is the type we need in our judiciary. let me close by saying a few thoughts then i'm happy to take some questions. i talked about the many challenges this country faces. let's remember no matter how bad we think things are in our life, our business new york city matter how frustrated we become in our elected officials, america is still the grittest country on the face of the earth. fire too many of us forget how privileged we are just to be citizens of the united states. as attorney general i had the opportunity to visit many, many countries and i know there are many great things beyond our shores. but if hi to choose one country as my home, i would choose a country that provided all of its people with opportunity.
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i would choose a country whose people are generous and strong, willing to sacrifice to preserve freedom at home and to defend abroad. do we have problems here? i told you many that exist but name a tchaupt doesn't have their own set of problems dofment we have poverty? we do. name a country that provided more around the world to feed the hungry. do we have racism here? unfortunately yes but name a country more tolerant of different cultures and religions . make a country that has sacrificed more than sons and daughters to preserve and protect freedom. i spoke to families who lost members in afghanistan and iraq. fathers spoke in tears about their son as children and the way they died as heroes. america remains the beacon of democracy and the world's best
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hope for freedom and safety. a am the son of a mexican farmer and cotton picker. my father did not go to school beyond second grade and yet i became the attorney general of the united states. we live in a country where dreams still come true. and for that reason and many others, america is worth fighting for and she's worth dyeing for. noted physicist albert einstein said there are two ways to live your life. one is as though nothing ways miracle. the other is as though everything is a miracle. i choose the ladder. my father and met working in west texas steel young my grant workers and looked back on the days i was a boy and played on the field in the lot where my father and uncles built a small two-bedroom house i gru up in with seven brothers and sisters. no hot running water the entire time lived at home. no telephone until i was a junior mother would wake me up before dawn to eat breakfast of eggs and tortillas with my
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father as she prepared modest lunch of beans and tortillas for him and placed them in a brown lunch sack. i can appreciate my father walking down the field to catch a ride to a construction site because we couldn't afford a car. i would run outside to and wave good-bye. several years ago when i was working in the white house, my mother came to visit me in washington. we toured monuments and museums like all of the other tourists. i took her in the oval office. shy little woman about 4 feet nofplgt i wanted take her in and see president in the oval office and show her what i had accomplished because of her sacrifices and sacrifices of nargee. and it dawned on the last day of her visit she was up to make breakfast for me just as she had done every morning for my father. only i wasn't going to construction sites wearing a hard hat. hi my suit on -- i had my suit on. ways reporting as president of the united states. think of the wonder that must have filled her heart. snever dreamed of this miracle i would take her to the cotton
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fields to the oval office. now, you honored me me by your invitation to be with you today. nibble god's goodness and every day i see his grace in my life and my country. in your work and home i pray god shows you the miracles he's provided. may he bless this community and continue to bless the united states of america. thank you very much. >> please stand and ask us if you will and walk to the microphone to give questions so it will be picked up on the broadcast.
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>> the administration continued to enforce the laws but would no longer defend them. could you comment on the executive branch's ability to engage in constitutional interpretation and ultimately decide to enforce laws or not enforce laws, not as concerned with the underlying policy as the simple ability of the executive branch to say we will no longer attend this because we have constitutional concerns about it? >> of course, every administration takes a position, every attorney general takes the position they have authority to make that decision. we begin with presumption that the laws passed by congress are not that constitutional. if there's a basis in which that law can be defended then the department of justice will defend that law. at the end of the day, let's be
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candid here, we have to realize the office of the attorney general runs the department of justice and makes these decisions in consultation with the solicitor general. he reports to the president of the united states. the president has a particular view on it, the department of justice is going to follow that view. i have disagreement on some issues as general holder but always remind myself he works for president obama. oftentimes the decisions are reflected, made at a particular department reflect the decisions, wishes of the president of the united states and that's just the way it is. >> the issues that certainly resonate with society.
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my question to you is how do you think the legal academy, what role that's played in the last 20 years or so in this understanding of what proper judicial philosophy ought to be and role in judiciary in a constitutional republic? do you think law schools have been promoting a correct understanding of the role of the judiciary in our constitution for republic? i don't know whether or not i'm qualified to say categorically law schools have done a good job, not done a good job, in terms of presenting both sides. you i suspect depending on the law school, depending by professor, you will have differences in terms of what students are taught. quite frankly, i think it's important for students to be exposed to both sides, both sides of the argument, to understand -- when i talked to students, when i asked ask about
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the supreme court, till them it's not enough to be right on the law. you're paid by a client to win the case in court the precedence supports you but unless you can count five votes, that's what the client will care about ultimately is winning that case in the courts. one of the hardest things for me as counsel to the president was walking into the oval office and telling the president of the united states, mr. president, we didn't do well in the honda case. we didn't do well in the rasaul case. the court disagreed. that's hard to do. what the client expects is to win those cases in the supreme court. i think that more needs to be done in terms of education. i had a professor asked me the
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other day do you think it's still relevant today in teaching constitutional law, is it relevant today to talk about the original intent of the constitution. to me that was an alarming signal about the state of legal education in this country, of course it's important. absolutely it's important. i wouldn't stop there. to me he gave the original founder's intent, look at the words of the constitution. have you to understand there are many people in the judiciary who don't agree with that philosophy. if you're a lawyer, it will be presenting cases before the court, you need to understand that. you need to understand, try to get an understanding and feel about what does this judge believe in? how does this judge support cases because that will make a case for success in your argument before the court.
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>> with the rating systems they have now, a person being rated by the legal association, a.m.a. and so forth, i woppedfer you can comment on that as something more of a controversial point, also as to how broad that should be and what is your view of the rating systems were. >> personally, i had a position in the american bar association but as counsel as president, one of the things i worried about is could i get this person confirmed? for members of the judiciary committee, certain members of the judiciary committee and members of the senate, the rating would be important, in terms of a judge, example, that could mean all of the difference in the world. to say i looked at that, tried to anticipate where the a.b.a. would rate someone, it's because
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for some senators, it could mean difference in a positive or negative vote. but i do have some concerns about ratings of the american bar association. it's for than that i can't remember what year it was. 2002, 2003, we made the decision we 0 wo not have the a. bshes a. involved in waving somebody for the nomination process, which was a change of long-standing practice. we have to be realistic in terms of getting someone confirmed to the federal bench, that rating by the a.b.a. and other bar associations could make a big difference. it wouldn't reflect how i felt about that person, whether or not the person should or should not be a judge but would it make a difference in the confirmation of someone that might be viewed as controversial.
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>> when it comes to what happened on 9/11, can you fill in the holes what really happened behind the scenes on the white house on that day and what happened in the immediate aftermath in terms of your participation, kinds of decisions you were faced with making and kinds of advice you were having to give the president? >> we all have a story from that day, right? everyone know what's they were doing on 9/11. i flew out that morning from dulles airport about 7:30. this is the same airport. terrorists hijacked american 737 crashed into the pentagon. i wondered did my path cross that morning because they were in the terminal that morning in dulles. i landed in norfolk, virginia, because i was giving a speech to a government's ethics group. it was about 9:00. i had got to the hotel. white house contacted me. first tower hit. i didn't know what to think
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about t gave my speech whcht it was over, second tower hit. we knew we had a major problem. they rushed me to the airport in norfolk. by the time i got there, they grounded all air traffic. so i'm stuck in norfolk. my deputy tim flanagan down in the situation room. occasionally communicate by cell phone butcht he's in the commun room. my lawyers get evacuated from the white house. and i'm stuck. navy officers at the airport, they take me to the post commander, tell him who i am. he said we will try to get you back. they're transitioning is the highest alert of the base. here you have a washington person in the way. they stuck me off in a room somewhere. i was with one of my lawyers. finally about 12:30, they gave me a navy helicopter. one story that i tell is that they asked, where do you want me to take you? get me as close as you can to the white house? they said we will land you on the south lawn.
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i said nobody but the president of the united states lands on the south lawn. plus, worried if we got too close, the white house, that might be a problem. so we agreed they would take me to andrews. they flew me to andrews and when i landed at andrews, white house van there, took me to the underground bunker where cheney was at. other senior officials. about this time that's when they had a secure video conference with the president. he was frustrated. he was now ready to come home. and we waited for the president. all my lawyers had been relocated to commercial buildings in downtown d.c., tim flanagan and i were the only lawyers in the white house from my staff. finally about 7:00 i ran into karen hughes, communications director, and we went down to the oval office and waited for the president to land on the south lawn. afterwards he went back into his private study. it was me, karen, ari flasher,
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conde rice and andy carr, chief of staff with the president and worked on his speech and talked about what happened that day. we all had a different story from that day. and went home about 1:00. my car had been impounded at dulles because a terrorist had parked their car in the same lot. i couldn't get my car oufment my deputy took me home. we were back in the lot at 6:00. from then on i was in meetings all the time. meeting with lawyers or policymakers in the situation room talking about policy that i would then take back to the lawyers. back and forth, back and forth. that weekend we had all hands on deck meeting at camp david. and that's when we started talking about things like ok, we can't -- not only can we not connect the dots, we can't collect the dots. we can't gather information. that was the genesis of the patriot act. john ashcroft was told start drafting the patriot act. we looked at things, was iran involved? north korea involved? iraq involved?
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we talked about congressional thors use military force? all of these things started bubbling up very quickly. ry ebb in the couple days, probably day after 9/11 i was in the meeting in the oval office and everyone kept talking about, we're at war. we have to do this. the lawyer in me said we have to be careful about what we call this. after the meeting everyone left the oval office and i'm with the president. mr. president, we need to be careful about saying we're at war because, saying we're at war means we're going to trigger a bunch of international treaty obligations. we're going to trigger a bunch of domestic statutes. it may affect private contracts, performance obligations in a private contract if we're at a state of war. he looked at me and said you lawyers can call it whatever you want to but we're at war. i got the message very quick. that was a very important fundamental decision in deciding this was not just a criminal act. this was an act of war. and we pulled all leavers of
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executive power, economic, military, intelligence, everything we could to defend this country. and don't -- it's hard for me now to remember what my life was in the white house before 9/11. afterwards, all of my personal attention was on terrorism and terrorism-related issues, work with john ashcroft, department of justice. and rest of the stuff that we like judges, which is very important, of course, you know, i had to handoff sort of the to the other lawyers on my team. let me say this about my team. the president obviously, not surprisingly, will get the best lawyers in america. the team that i had when president bush became president wases unbelievable. i think i had 12, 14 lawyers. eight or so clerked on the u.s. supreme court. several partners at major firms. these were all superstars. it was such a joy as a lawyer to be able to work with that kind of talent and to be able to do
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it in the white house on these tremendous issues of such great consequence. it really reminded me of why i wanted to be a lawyer in the first place. to live a life, to do something you would really make a fundamental difference in the lives of others. unfortunately, we were given that opportunity by what happened on 9/11. i could go on and on about what we did and how it was like. it was hard. at the same time it was exciting because we felt like we were doing good stuff as a lawyer. that's great place to be. >> when are you going to write your book? >> i'm writing my book. so -- and i've written most of it. i've been waiting for everyone to tell their story. and -- [laughter] it's always good to have the last word. >> what is your opinion about the president's health care bill
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? >> well, as i said to one of my lunch partners, i quit trying to predict a long time ago how the court will come out on a case. it's so unpredictable. there are so many variable and factors in my judgment that go into a decision by a supreme court justice on a particular case. i don't know what will come. i don't mean to dodge this question but i just haven't studied the issue closely enough. you read things in the newspaper. you hear things on television but that doesn't really tell you anything as far as i'm concerned. i literally have to sit down and read the briefs and talk to the lawyers. i would like to do that before offering -- people who don't like the law were probably surprised and disappointed.
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[audio difficulties] >> can you give us your take on the fast and furious tip-off? >> this is another where i don't know all of the facts but i do have comments, observations. i know when you're the attorney general of the united states, you have 105,000 people that work for you. they are all doing all manners of things. hopefully all of them or most of them are ok and make good sense. wise policy. of whether or not oftentimes when the department is engaged in an operation or agency of the department or branch of the
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department is engaged in an operation. as attorney general you may or may not have personal knowledge. there may be a memo that comes up to the a.g.'s office that, quite frankly, doesn't get beyond the chief of staff because there's nothing in that memo that alerts the chief of staff or many times the deputy attorney general is the chief operating officer for the department of justice and oftentimes things do not go beyond the deputy attorney general. if he doesn't believe there's anything here that the attorney general should know about. so, you know, when general holder testifies before congress he had no knowledge of this, first of all, it would be silly, crazy to lie to congress. testify untruthfully to congress. but the notion that there might have been a memo that went to the attorney general's office and that he therefore is charged with knowledge of it, there are many things that i think that would be unfair based upon what i know. in terps of the actual mechanics of the program, president bush is very concerned about the level of guns going from the
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united states into mexico. he was concerned and i was concerned about it. we did look at what could be done to try to help mexico with this drug problem, violence in mexico. by limiting the flow of guns from the united states into mexico, i have seen good reports from this program, predecessor to this program began during the bush administration. i have no recollection of that. that doesn't mean it's not true. was i ever briefed on it? i might have been. i had no recollection of it. if the program was in place, it obviously was, i assuming, executed in an effective way. i am assuming because it was effective that's why it continued under the obama administration. i don't know enough about this -- i'm asked often should general holder resign over this. i have seen no evidence general
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holder did anything wrong in this. however, i understand this notion when there is wrongdoing in an agency, like if you're the c.e.o. of a company, sometimes you have to assume responsibility for what happens in that agency. i think the attorney general is harmed in a way that president obama has election in a year. that may make a difference in terms of what happens in his future. based on what i know of the man, he's an honorable man, public servant who worked hard to serve our country but i don't have facts about what happened in this particular case. >> judge, i have an ethics question for you. a followup.
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interesting in your perspective, given your service in the judicial branch. a former executive branch lawyer who may not have been counsel of record before eric holder but provided advice of counsel inside the executive branch on drafting of the law, constitutionality of that law, where that executive branch lawyer now sits on the court and may be called on to -- to decide the constitutionality. i don't mean to pick on the justice -- >> oh. >> but more generally, someone in the department of justice who is advising the president on constitutionality of a bill and helping to crack this, then being called on the supreme court or lower court, being called on to decide whether or not that law is in fact
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inconstitutional? >> are you asking whether or not i would recuse my snfl >> yes, sure. [laughter] >> you know, i would say when people ask me before she was nominated whether or not she would be nominated, i said no way. for that reason, i just felt that she would have to recuse herself on so many important issues. i also thought, as i said in my remarks, she was privy to executive branch decision making. all of that would be put into play. i thought that would be too dangerous for any president, quite frankly. so i was a little surprised at her nomination. and, you know, i'm not going to put judgment on justice kagan as to whether or not the she should have recused herself in this particular case. i think it looks a little odd, quite frankly. i will just leave it at that.
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>> well, then, as a general proposition -- do you feel that the members of the supreme court should be subject to the thing called professional conduct of the supreme court and what could the chief justice do if he feels there is some improper ethical or -- this must be some recent debate because i had a student just a couple days ago send me an e-mail asking can the chief justice recuse another justice from hearing particular case. and my answer was -- and maybe i should have studied this before this luncheon, was i wasn't sure but i didn't think so. my memory is -- and maybe just pryor, you can correct me on this, this is really left up to the conscience of the individual justice. fortunately for this country in
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most cases, virtually every case, the justices have done the right thing, recognizing that it's not -- just the appearance of impropriety hurts the institution of the court. for that reason you always err on the side, if there's any combe or appearance sitting in on a case where you have some kind of relationship to the issues like that, that you recuse. that's how i respond to your question. >> all right, we will let you go. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> on c-span tonight, on "q & a" daily call are video journal michelle fields. and jack abramoff talks about his conviction on tax evasion
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and bribery charges and his time in federal prison. and later supreme court justice clarence thomas speaks at his hometown of pinpoint, georgia. monday on "washington journal," a look at efforts to get a third party candidate on the ballot in all 50 states with khalil byrd of americans elect. then richard norton smith, author and presidential historian on the legacy of george washington. later, a look at efforts to improve the electoral profits and the help america vote act of 2002 with the pugh center's david becker. that's live here at 7:00 a.m. eastern here >> with the iowa caucuses next week and the primaries leader in the month, "the contenders" looks back at 14 candidates that

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