former ambassador to korea discusses the north korea failed missile launch and their nuclear capabilities and later, the book, "he emancipating lincoln." "washington journal"is next. ♪ host: good morning and this is a live view of the u.s. congress and this is back to work week for congress. the focus this week will be taxes, the highway bills, and we should point out that there are four separate hearings on the spending practices at the general services administration including that controversial conference that took place in las vegas. the president is wrapping up the summit of the americas this week in colombia and will be back in washington but he spends part of wednesday in cleveland where he will talk about the economy and

on to michigan for a campaign fund-raiser. it is sunday, april 15, normally tax day, but tomorrow is emancipation days of your federal income tax is due on tuesday, april 17. we will focus this morning on taxes and the economy and politics and the situation in north korea. we want to begin on this sunday morning with a focus on former presidents. we want to ask you which former president do you admire the most and tell us why. our phone lines are open -- you can join the conversation also on our facebook page and you can send us a tweet. we are focusing on former presidents because it is the subject of a new book and a cover story of the latest "time magazine."

inside the magazine,-- our question is -- which former president do you would mire and tell us why and this past week in a rare public event, former president george w. bush was speaking in new york on behalf of the bush institute in which he talked about taxes and the economy and where economic growth primarily comes from. there is more with former president bush. [video clip] >> for stall, it means work and

understanding of -- first of all, it means understanding where jobs are created. one thing that makes the economy so vital is most small businesses pay tax at the individual income tax level. therefore, if you raise taxes on the so-called rich, you are really raising taxes on the job creators. if the goal is private sector growth, you have to recognize that the best way to create that growth is to leave capitol in the treasury's of the job creators. host: former president george w. bush speaking in new york in that event is available on our website at c-span.org. it was a rare public event because former president bush has primarily done events closed to cameras but this was on behalf of the bush institute. a cover story in "time

magazine." the secret society of presidents. it is co-ridden by nancy bids and michael duffy. nevada, democrats line, which former president thieu admire the most? caller: without a doubt, jimmy carter. after watergate, it felt good. the vietnam war was done and it seemed like money was out of politics. i stopped worrying about it. then it just went off the deep and somehow. host: joanna is on the call from phoenix, democrats line, go ahead -- caller: i picked bill clinton because he really cared and he had a heart. host: thanks for the call. a number of photographs including president clinton talking to former president richard nixon.

this is a conversation with then-president lyndon johnson and a conversation with dwight eisenhower. this is the focus of a book and the cover story of "time magazine." which former president do you admire and why. you can join the conversation on line or you can join us on facebook. good morning from albany, n.y., independent line, you are next -- caller: good morning. in my lifetime, i would have to say it was president clinton started i was downsized under the father, 41. the most influential president i believe was abraham lincoln and franklin up -- franklin delano roosevelt. a president that takes into consideration the middle class is a success. host: speaking of former

president lincoln, we will be joined later by the author of a new book on the emancipation proclamation. this is the anniversary of that historic document. there are actually two documents. we'll talk about the one issued in d.c. and the one issued in 1863 which marks the 150th anniversary of that historic document and what it meant for the country during the height of the civil war. dallas, texas -- which former president to you admire the most and why? caller: i would say john f. kennedy for his commitment to civil rights and also i think for the federal reserve, putting them on notice that silver and gold should only be the currency for the country. host: thanks for the call. a former vice president is in the news. it is available on-line.

dick cheney speaks for over an hour in wyoming. he walked on stage without any assistance and spoke for 1 hour 15 minutes without seeming to tire. this was his first public engagements into underwent a heart transplant three weeks ago. he said the presumptive republican nominee mitt romney is doing a whale of a job and it has never been more important to defeat a sitting president and the republican party should be behind mitt romney. he underwent a heart transplant on march 24 in northern virginia. he initially canceled his trip to the convention the got the last minute clearance to go ahead. the story is available online at politico.com.

which former president to you admire the most and why? this is the republican line from young's bill, north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning, my favorite president is the one i first voted for and that was dwight d. eisenhower. host: why? caller: he was just a marvelous person. besides being the leader during world war two and helping us win that war, he ran on settling the debt and the deficit of the country and he did that. prior to becoming president, he was the president of columbia university. he brought that university out of debt. it was also a time in the 1950's in this country when the country

was primarily made up of small towns and we felt very secure in our towns. crime was low and people took care of each other. it was just a great time in this country and it is too bad we cannot get back there. host: from our twitter pager -- e -- which former president to you admire the most and why? a new book is out and the subject of "time magazine," the former president's club. there is a town house across from the white house that is used, it is the most exclusive town house because you have to be a former president to use the facility. walter joining us from port huron, michigan, good morning. caller: good morning, my

favorite president even though i wasn't around, i was too young for that, my favorite president is franklin delano roosevelt because he instituted loss for the people. he had a democratic congress to help him out. he instituted loss for the middle-class and that's what it should be all about. over the past few years, not so much the current president because he is pretty good, but the one before that totally screwed up everything for the middle-class. look at the mess we are in now. host: thank you. "time magazine"takes a look at george herbert walker bush and is described as a father figure. jimmy carter said he was a better former president.

bill clinton is viewed as america's coach and there's a photograph of the former president including president clinton and bush golfing in california. anthony is on the phone from indianapolis, independent line. caller: good morning. my favorite president would probably be lbj, number 36. most presidents -- their policies have some effect on the economy but overall, it is really business in general that shapes policy in america so far as business. i think lbj passed more legislation than probably any other president in the history of america. he was a transformational figure and that's what i like him the most. host: steve harrison on our twitter pager --

-- tallahassee, florida, good morning. caller: my favorite president -- host: we can hear you. we have a bad connection if you want to telephone back in. the republican line in chesapeake, virginia, go ahead. we will go to donna in jacksonville, florida, good morning. caller: i have two of them. franklin roosevelt because he pulled the country back together and brought us through the war. he formed alliances with nations that we could work with and he never seemed to take umbrage at all the slings and arrows that people to read him.

the other one would be kennedy. he was a hero and, just like franklin overcame physical problems, said kennedy. they are my two favorite. and i love bill clinton just because i love him. host: thanks for the call. robert carroll has chronicled the life of lyndon johnson. lyndon johnson and is subject of a store we found in a bellingham washington newspaper. some new audio recordings, many of which are available on our website at c-span.org but this conversation back in 1964 when scoop jackson was reelected to his fourth term and the story points out that scoop jackson was john kennedy's first choice as a running mate.

the essence of the conversation --"just a minute, i will bring the president for you," which was an introduction to some fascinating political history. the family of scoop jackson is trying to put together its own oral history of the senator from washington state. he was a conservative democrat and that story is available on- line. henry is on a line from auburn, alabama, which former president do you admire the most? caller: i did not like lbj as a person but what he did for this country is unbelievable other than the vietnam war. it was what he did for the social structure of the country. he changed it more than any other person ever has. he was a remarkable man. host: let me go back to robert carrow -

brian is on the phone from troy, ohio, welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you for everything you do for us. i learned so much every day when i watch your program. i appreciate you very much. host: thank you. my caller: favorite president would have to be ronald wilson reagan. he was a man who made us all proud to be americans and he was a president that people knew that when he said something, he meant what he said. he did not back down. he was not wish to watch. he got rid of the berlin wall. i just can't say enough good

about ronald reagan i just can't. the first president i over voted for was gerald ford. i was very proud to cast a vote for gerald ford. had he run for president, i really think mike huckabee would have gone down in history as being a great president had he not backed out and decided not to run. host: other stories making news news this is traditionally tech today but it is a sunday. taxes are due to the federal government and state government on tuesday, april 17. :"cq weekly" is focusing on taxes --

it says main street retailers are being put at a disadvantage. the congress is focusing this week as they returned from a two-week recess, on taxes. bellevue, fla., democrats lined -- caller: good morning, i would have to say harry s. truman for a variety of reasons. he truly integrated the united states armed forces and as much as he took the minority population in the armed forces and brought them into the mainstream whereas prior to his administration, their tasks and the meal. -- had been menial. he incorporated tuskegee airmen and incorporate them into

context and they had a role in our victory in europe. also, he utilized the atomic bomb to end the pacific war. he did not foresee nuclear proliferation, obviously, but in so doing, he was just carrying out what he had learned in the first world war. he regarded the atomic bomb as simply a big artillery piece. he had been an artillery man in the first world war. he was a decent individual and he thought about enormous change in the armed forces. host: let me go back to two photographs. this is former president hoover, truman, and eisenhower. truman and hoover became friends during their post-presidency because they detested eisenhower

for his refusal -- refusal to stand up to joseph mccarthy and the disastrous bay of pigs invasion in 1961, kennedy had invited the white eisenhower to camp david to talk about how it went wrong. it was a fascinating look at the relationship and discussions that taken place over the years between sitting presidents and their predecessors and the role of former president today is the subject of the "time magazine" cover story. about two weeks ago, we covered jon stored in a conversation with bill clinton, part of the clinton global initiative and this is part of that program. "road to the white house" [video clip]journ >> what to to learn this weekend? >> we had many non-american students. the students can all the way

from where they are in school. i learned all over again that all these young people, partly because of the social media and internet communications generally, have a much more global perspective on a person to person basis than any generation before. the second thing i learned is there every year, their commitments are getting better. they are thinking of things that they can do, that they really can do. they understand that they don't over-promise. they understand that the power of their ideas will rest in part on either other people replicating what they have done or putting money into what they are doing so it can be done everywhere else. host: former president bill

clinton and one of the photographs from "time magazine" is bill clinton and former president herbert -- former president george herbert walker bush. next to that is a photograph of ronald reagan laughing as he is greeted by former president carter, nixon, and ford during a trip that the former presidents took back in 1991 shortly after ronald reagan was sworn into office and following the assassination of anwar sadat in egypt. from our twitter page -- from our e-mail --

which former president to you admire the most and why? next is charles from alcohol and, california, go ahead, please. -- el cajon, california, go ahead please. caller: grew up in the depression but fdr would be my choice. at that time i did not understand what was going on but he was big insecurity. he did not say he was going to cure the depression but he offered different problems mostly to give people a feeling of security, social

security,ccc, fdic, things like that. i did not fully realize his impact until i got older and now that i am quite old but especially the ccc. we should probably have something like that today. there is a small group of ccc but i think it should be expanded. i really like president -- he was dealt a terrible and and i think he is playing it as best he can. host: thanks for the call.

here is president obama who is wrapping up his weekend visit in columbia. he is back in washington late tonight and spending much of the week in our nation's capital this week. from our twitter page -- another photograph from a 1981 reunion of former presidents as they headed to egypt for the funeral ceremonies for on a more said that. on board was not officially air force one. that was a conversation with former presidents ford and a smiling richard nixon and former president jimmy carter. in 1981. arizona, good morning to you -- caller: i would have to say i like andrew jackson because he is the only president that has ever [inaudible] i also like president monroe.

he did the monroe doctrine with scott of a lot of the other countries at the time out of america. i admire gerald ford because he is the only president that ever got elected by the fall which is interesting. host: "the new york post"has this headline -- this matter was turned over to their office.

the investigation continues of those search -- secret service agents and now five military personnel linked with that investigation. allegedly, they had a relationship with prostitutes in colombia. next is from atlanta, ga., welcome to the program for it which former president you admire? caller: jimmy carter by far was the best person who was a christian. i am not a christian but a blank and and bill clinton by jimmy carter, number one. host: thanks for the call. this is also the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the titanic. it is the subject of a number of cover stories this morning.

these headlines are courtesy of the newseum. carl is on the phone from north town, pennsylvania, republican line. good morning. caller: good to see you there. my favorite is lbj. his four little words have given us the titanic in washington today when he said to the van

black leaders, make me do it and we have had more social programs to what we have in washington today which is turning our capital into the titanic. we are sinking. host: thank for the call. this is from jan -- your calls and comments and e- mails looking at which former president do you admire the most and why. this is jimmy from california, welcome to the program. caller: hello. i would like to say it would be gerald ford. host: why is that? caller: he had two jobs he did not want and he did the best he could with them. he made real decisions that killed his career and, let's face it, he was the last true compassionate conservative.

he is the only republican i ever voted for that i did not regret. host: thanks for the call. news from " the new york times" -- below that is a photograph of the susan rice the leading the efforts in the united nations that the -- as the head of the

security council. next is mike joining us from youngstown, ohio, democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning, i would have to say that i have three favorite presidents. the first with the george washington, the way he handled himself. he was so well loved and like that he could have crowned himself king of the show by example that this was a title you serve the people and the people don't serve you. the second would be abraham lincoln, the way he kept the union together during the civil war and the third would be franklin delano roosevelt who created all the safety net we enjoy right now like social security. without them, there would be millions of people homeless on the street right now. host: this is from a bill --

reagan references this more and from "the new york post" -- in "the weekly standard" -- \ the debate over taxes and a reagan going out today inside "the washington post" and "the washington standard."

this is from the republican line, good morning. caller: i am amazed at people calling in and saying they admire president obama. in spite of the fact that the black panthers are putting down to some people to kill them and he has not set a single word, it shows you how brainwashed some of the white people are who would call in and say they admire that man, thank you. host: next is calvin from columbia, south carolina, good morning. caller: my favorite president would be the one that opened up your segment this morning. last year he came out with his speech about holding america hostage. he is my favorite president. thank you. host: liz smith also praising

former president george w. bush because he was a strong presidents who refused to permit the media to deter them from leadership. chess a pig, virginia, good morning to you. caller: george w. bush for his leadership during 9/11. we could not have had anybody better. host: if you are interested, there are a couple of websites you can get background on all former presidents. one is white house.gov. there is a look back at their life and lives and at c- span.org, go to american presidents.org where they have life portraits. we continue to update video of former presidents. go to c-span.org to get more information on former presidents. alfred is on the phone from rhode island, go ahead, please, republican line.

caller: my favorite president was ronald reagan and the reason i say that is he inherited a terrible economy that had rising inflation and rising unemployment. with his policies in concert with the federal reserve, he ended up turning the economy around and made a strong economy and on the foreign-policy front, he really made the russians by putting pressure on them and building up our military. he actually made their economy cracks. that is what fragmented the soviet union and we ended up having the berlin wall come down. his negotiations with gorbachev -- he went against the wishes of his own party in many ways to negotiate with gorbachev to do the nuclear arms reductions. he was strong and his principles that when he had to go against his party, he did that when he

thought was right and it seems like most of his decisions turned out right for the country and the pride a and vigor of the country with as well. on some light frost, i thought did a great job. host: thanks for the call. quite a debate on our former president, the world's most exclusive club is the cover story of "time magazine." this is the front page of "the washington post" --

darryl is john is from missouri. good morning caller:. my favorite president was john f. kennedy for three reasons -- he got -- he was going to get rid of the cia, the federal reserve, and get rid of israel pus nuclear weapons. i believe that is why they assassinated him. host: thanks for the call. if you want to see these photographs from "time magazine," you can log onto oime.com. -- time.com. curt is on the fund from north carolina, welcome to the program. caller: i want to thank cspan because you allow everybody's voice to be heard and i think that is very important. i think jimmy carter is my most

admired because he was dealt a bad hand and if you look back and had we followed some of the decisions he was trying to make like not dealing with terrorists and opec and dealing with our economy the proper way, the balanced budget, no americans killed in foreign wars, i think we would be a much better spot today had we followed his lead instead of cowering to ronald reagan and tripling our debt like the last caller mentioned. host: ads for the call. here is a photograph and story want to bring to your attention from the the front page of " the new york times." you can see the density of the crowds and population and the shops and the vendors. the story is on the nigerian

population in a preview of a global problem the united nations said the global population had reached $7 billion, tax and natural resources in countries that cannot manage these resources. that is just a look at how crowded and overcrowd the situation is in nigeria and the problems in the world but especially in africa.

lauren is on the phone from los angeles. which former president you admire the most? caller: i would say it is several presidents from thomas jefferson to garfield but most importantly and notably, i would say andrew jackson for being the only president to pay off our national debt. i want to include john f. kennedy and it is interesting that he's president who was against a national bank has been assassinated or has had an assassination attempt on their life such as jackson. the gun man has had both of his guns misfire. both of those presidents and no one has done a sense kennedy. he tried to issue and was backed -- there was $4 billion in silver nodes and i think that is the number one crisis facing this country. i think that took extreme courage from those presidents who were against the national

bank. host: extra the call. news from the weekend as the present wraps up this summit of the americas the headline from "the washington post"-- in come, inequality has dominated the themes and the signing ceremonies vivian has this comment -- our guest on "newsmakers, go ahead of the congressional campaign committee and what we can expect in the general election.

we have the republican and democratic senate campaign heads. there is a portion of "newsmakers." [video clip] >> did the hilary rosen critique on mrs. romney have any impact on women you have been working on? >> i think this is a short-term side show that is interesting for cable news to cover. i noticed that the battle against women was talked about but every single term when we took the lead jobs, the deficit and turning the country around, the republicans, not the democrats, have targeted contraception, planned parenthood. josh mandell is unfair -- is in favor of a personal amendment but did not pass. we do everything we can while the republicans started this fight to ended by electing

democrats. >> the last word? >> if we have a war on women, they have a war on stay at home mothers. this is totally made up. host: a look at senate campaign politics in this presidential election year and are focused is on "newsmakers," which airs at 10:00 eastern time. inside the president's club, a new book on the subject of a "time magazine" cover story. which former president to you admire the most and why? carroll is on the phone from san

jose, mexico. good morning. go ahead. caller: by the way, teddy roosevelt is my favorite. he won a nobel peace prize and i think it was somewhere around 1900. he also took care of a lot of the national parks. he was an outdoorsman. he wrote 30 books. i don't hear anything about him. he was a terrific guy. he really loved the outdoors. he wanted us to take care of it. host: i didn't mean to cut you off. caller: the fact that he established some of the national parks i think was his best feature. host: thank you for the call. here is another iconic photographs from camp david in

1961 following the bay of pigs invasion and a fiasco that erupted within the kennedy administration as former president dwight eisenhower gave advice to john f. kennedy at camp david, the camp that was named after the white guys in our's grandson, david eisenhower. dave from new york city, welcome to the program. you are on the air. caller: i would say harry truman. how surprised he has not been mentioned very he was the one president. kohl had a low approval rating after it left office. by standards today, he is one of the most highly regarded president. he did what he believed in. he did not necessarily follow the popular approach but in that regard, i would have to say harry truman. host: the cover story -- the world's most exclusive club, co- written by nancy gibbs and

michael duffy and we will cover this subject on upcoming "q &a" program. thank you for your calls and comments and tweets and e-mails. some other news from overnight, you probably heard the warnings late yesterday of the tornadoes that swept her oklahoma and kansas from the associated press and this video courtesy of "usa today." bett left at least five people dead in oklahoma, damaging homes, a hospital, a gel, and air force base and other buildings in the region. oklahoma authorities said the five people died early sunday morning after the tornado hit around the northwest part of oklahoma in the town oklahomawoodward. the state medical examiner's office confirmed the debts and similar tornadoes set down in kansas. you can get more information by logging onto cnn.com or

usatoday.com. when we come back, craig crawford, contributor will be here to weigh in on presidential politics but first, the cspan radio studios, keeping track of the other sunday programs. >> good morning, beginning at noon, eastern, cspan radio re- airs five sunday talk shows. the economy is a featured topic today with treasury secretary tim geithner appearing on three of those programs vary we begin at noon with nbc's "meet the press," treasury secretary guide her and former republican presidential candidate michelle bachmann and new york democratic senator. abc's "this week," will have

secretary of the treasury tim geithner. ed gillespie will be on and david axelrod, adviser to president obama's reelection campaign and a trip to lake cbs correspondent mike wallace by his son, chris wallace. nn's "state of the union," welcomes reince preibus and then carolyn maloney and republican rep catherine morris of washington state. "face the nation" will be at 4:00 p.m. eastern and they will have secretary of the treasury tim geithner, john mccain, and darrell issa. re-airs begin at noon eastern. 5 networks,5 sunday talk shows

all brought to you as a public service by the networks and cspan. you can listen to the mall beginning at noon eastern on cspan radio, 90.1 fm on the d.c. area and on x and satellite radio and listen under blackberry or down load and go on line to cspan radio.org. >> april 15, 1912, almost 1500 perished on the ship called unsinkable. >> once the lookout bills were sounded, lookouts sighted an iceberg ahead and they struck the bells. three times which is a warning saying that there is some object ahead. it does not say what kind of object. with -- what they then did, is they went to a telephone last and called down to the officer on the bridge to tell them what

it is they saw. when the foam was finally answered, the entire conversation was what do you see? their response was icebergs right ahead and a response from the officer was, thank you. >> samuel halpern at 4:00 p.m. eastern today part of american histor tv. on c-span 3. "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome back craig guest:: i do anything cspan asks. i wore this the first time i was here in 1999. i even recall about this tie. i only wear this type on seized on, never anywhere else. host: let me begin where "the

washington post" begins this morning saying the presidential race is entering a decisive phase indicating that what happens between now and labor day will set the stage for what the outcome will be in november. guest: it is a defining stage for mitt romney because many of us in the game have to realize there are a lot of americans out there who have paid very little attention to this race so far and mitt romney is not a fully dimensional candidate in their eyes. this is a time for obama, on his part, to define mitt romney on his terms and, of course, for obama to redefine obama for many independents who love hy0-ys been kind of which wisd wawshy about obama.

will it be a choice election or a referendum on obama's tenure or a choice between two paths that hopefully for democrats, independents will see as the wrong path with mitt romney. i think this is a time for independent voters who are not been paying as much attention to the republican primaries as they begin thinking about both these candidates now that there really is a contrast and a choice. i always say we are still close to six months before the election. i have this theory that come election day, people remember everything they heard in the previous six months. we are approaching that point. host: you have a piece on line from "the washington post.com." it says ronald reagan trailed

jimmy carter in september of 1980 and al gore led george w. bush and early september and there is a moment in 2008 when john moat -- when john mccain was a head slightly over barack obama. guest: in a couple of those cases, events changed those patterns. in the final weekend before that election, there was a lot of noise about the hostages in iran being released. people thought that was going to happen that we can congress thought it would happen and that sunday, it turned out it was a ruse and a lot of voters turned against carter because they thought he screwed the whole thing up. he started taking, on that sunday, i recall the story, he was given the numbers that the campaign have fall apart and two days later he lost for it with john mccain, the financial meltdown on wall street and his handling of it was poured. he initially said the economy is

finer something like that which people did not buy and then he panicked and suspended his campaign and flew to washington and that event really changed things. there are always earthquakes in these campaigns and you cannot predict what might happen on the eve of the election. host: the other part of the debate is taxes and the president is talking about the buffett rule. president obama has been using the words of ronald reagan when it comes to taxes. ronald reagan does raid -- did raise taxes as governor of california of course, bill kristol says reagan was proposing an overhaul of the tax code, something obama has not done. guest: nobody does that and i have these incrementalt theseeh buffett rule is not as gimmicky as it is portrayed. on the other hand, democrats

over stage. they say the millionaire's should be taxed at 30%. that is an overstatement when you look at what people under $75,000 per year pettitte in effective tax rate. it is closer to 10% both sides are dreaming up numbers. host: from "the houston chronicle." guest: in 2010, we see the model for that on some of these super pacs. you take the karl rove uper pac which has raised $10 million from only a couple of people.

these folks will be very involved in congressional races and with that kind of money, you can target a few congressional races and make the difference meaning that one anonymous donor who gives $10 million can actually elect two or three or more members of congress. host: from the washington post and " the new york times" - this has been a cable-driven story. one author said bethey call it the mommy wars. the set was a bad week for the president because it got him and his team off message. guest: i feel like they overreacted to her comments and drove the story.

with an almost minutes after it was said and the controversy erupted, you had michelle obama tweeting and joe biden saying something and that drove this story for a news cycle because every time there is a new headline. it kept the story going and kept it alive. it is the commercial cable news that loves nothing better than talking about itself. cspan does not do that. host: our guest is the former washington bureau chief of "the florida sentinel." is now online at craig crawford .com. guest: i have been getting into blog radio. it isn't easy system. -- it is an easy system.

the hudson brothers were big when i was in high school. that is not politics but to have to take a break now and then. host: let's talk about newt gingrich-and ron paul. what do they want to? guest: i think newt gingrich is out there for the intention and is enjoying it. ron paul is a mystery to me because i see all these stories and i hear these things behind the scenes about some sort of deal between mitt romney and ron paul i noticed throughout the republican primary campaign and a debate that ron paul hardly ever sat in on a kind word about mitt romney in any way. nor mitt romney about ron paul and when santorum was rising, physically romney and ron paul were sitting on opposite sides of santorum and there were beating him up for that debate.

i think that was the one before michigan when it was very critical. i think there's something going on there. there might be something going on with rand paul. i cannot see ron paul making a personal deal for himself that would cause his followers to think he is abandoning their cause for personal gain. i now see that happening. host: spading of running mates -- -- speaking of running mates -- the primary is on april 24 along with april at -- connecticut. here is senator rob portman. [video clip]

>> we need a leader that understands why america shines and i believe mitt romney is that person. he is a great leader. he has turned around businesses, the state of massachusetts, he turned around the salt lake olympics, and his business career, he created hundreds of thousands of jobs. it would nice to have somebody in the white house and knows how to create jobs, wouldn't it? [applause] the international spotlight, he took over the salt lake olympics when they were mired in scandal and a registered big gains from insolvency. this was about five months after the devastating attacks on 9/11. he made america proud turning around those olympics. as governor of massachusetts, his state faced a $3 billion budget deficit when he took over. he not only balanced the budget, he cut taxes 19 times and when he left massachusetts, they had a $2 billion surplus.

that is what we need in washington, that kind of a turnaround. [applause] host: i will not ask you who you think mitt romney will choose as a running mate but i want to ask you about this ongoing speculation about rob portman and we had speculation four years ago and two surprise's picks. people early on predicted joe biden would be obama's running mate but few predicted that the sarah palin would be john mccain's running mate. what are your thoughts? guest: rob portman is probably the most often mentioned during the campaign. he would probably be a safe choice. judging the mitt romney nature, the most careful nature, he would be the one most likely to pick.

guest: looking at the numbers and the data and thinking it through, what i like about this, i got to say it, what i love about the vice presidential pick process, i don't care about doing a lot of predictions but it's the only time in a president presidential campaign that the challenge, you see him make an actual presidential decision because picking your vice president is something that is on a presidential level that tells you a lot about how they're going to make presidential decisions and the process they're going to use and i think the way mccain went about it was a little bit scary if you were president, if he would shoot from the hip like that on really big decisions that could be catastrophic if

made that carelessly. host: speaking of vice president, former vice president cheney back in wyoming this weekend, his first public event since his heart transplant in late march. there's a story on line at politico.com. garner on the phone on the democrats line. caller: good to have you. thanks for the c-span. i want to ask you a question, given the technology that we have and the speed of news and the durth of ideas, is the process too long? it gets old and no matter who wins the office, whether it's mr. obama again or romney, the senate rules are going to be the senate rules. guest: you're right. and it's april and the general election campaign has begun and it's going to be a long trip to november and the primaries started way into last year. don't you wish we had the british system where they get it over in, what, a couple of months maybe? but on the other hand, i would say this.

it is a real test for -- for people running for president to see what kind of stamina they have but i almost wonder if it's inhuman what we put them through. host: gina is on the phone from illinois with craig crawford. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. good morning, mr. crawford. long time fan. one thing that i do appreciate about you and it's kind of many americans but your affinity and love for your mother. anecdotes that involve her are alwaysen lightning and i love them. guest: thank you very much. she's down in orlando, florida, watching now. caller: on to a couple of points. i'm a grad student and my question is i've -- revolves around the supreme court decision of unlimited funds and for cominmissions to be treateds

human beings, that will play out in this election and this campaign cycle and also, moreover, regarding w. bush's comments that though he has been lobbied to by mr. rove and others, he will not appear on fox or any other network to "undermine the sitting president." and the picture of the gentleman, the president on the magazine cover, i thought that was a very telling picture and i'll sit back and just listen. and also just one final thing, i've had a debate, i'm of american african descent and my logical thought process is the gentleman that called in, patrick from p.a. and i'd like to allay him about his fears. patrick from p.a., i can tell you roughly seven

african-americans in the united states of america follow the new black panther party. host: thanks for the call. couple of issues. let's go back to the second point, what we focused the first 45 minutes of the world's most exclusive club of the photograph of president obama putting his hand on the back of george w. bush and bill clinton. guest: making the point that george w. bush is staying out of the fray or above the fray or behind it, whatever, it's true he gets some credit for that. i think he's being very presidential about it. but on the other hand, i don't hear a lot of republicans wanting him out there. i don't hear mitt romney talking about george w. bush very much. i'm not sure which it is or if it's a little of both that he's -- he's staying out of it or if republicans would rather the country forget he existed. host: and -- guest: i got to say the caller did hit close to my heart on the

campaign finance question because i think that supreme court decision has unleashed something that is a major threat to democracy. and turning over elected office to a hand full of rich people. you know, if you look at the numbers in the report last time, there are about 20 people that have given 70% to 80% of all the money to these super pacs and it's, i think, a dangerous threat and i don't see any other way around it than a constitutional amendment to declare that some of this is not free speech. and that's going to be very difficult and the hardest part is you have to get the public excited enough and angry enough about what's happening to do that. and i'm actually beginning work on an ebook i want to do to try to make this case to average

people how they should care and why they should care. host: let me go to this story in "the baltimore sun" and it's reprinted in tribune newspapers. we've heard this from mitt romney on the campaign trail, the exceptional arc um. who we are as a country. what the founding fathers intended. i want to read one part of what "the baltimore sun" has this morning. republicans have argued that the president failed to understand that the country was divinely inspired partly based on the declaration of independence insertion that citizens were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. it's being oechoed by mitt romney, that he's trying to get favor with the tea party movement. it does get to the larger issue of the vision of barack obama and his thoughts about what the documents that pray to this country is all about and that of mitt romney. guest: that's a safe way for romney to talk about religion because he stays away from religion quite a bit, i think probably just a little nervous about his mormonism but that is

basic doctrine of the n.r.a., he said friday, basically, god gave us guns and that is something that folks want to hear. it doesn't ring true to me with romney. whole thing you can come to understand about romney, i don't think he cares about those kinds of things as he sounds. he's just saying what he knows a lot of those folks want to hear. host: patricia is on the phone, st. paul, minnesota, republican line. welcome to the program. good morning. caller: thank you, c-span very much and craig crawford, as a republican, i've enjoyed your style and speaking and whenever i see that you're on, i stop and listen. guest: i appreciate that! caller: you're welcome. my question, i hope that you do address, this issue of c pacs and the republicans, all you

hear about is how much money they're going to make and they have unleashed something horrible. but let's look back to 2008 in barack obama's campaign and his secret of the $25 credit card but your name doesn't appear, your credit card number does not appear. so you can do that as many times as you want! imagine how many times oprah winfrey can ding that $25 plus give as much money as she can. i don't -- i don't trust what he's doing. he's going to come up with his billion dollars come heck or high water and that really concerns me so this thing about republicans, they're still not going to make as much money as he does and i don't trust obama's campaign. guest: there's a big difference in scale of what you're describing did happen and one of the things that has also changed

is public financing of the general election presidential campaigns, you know, a little checkoff on your tax return. that's almost nonexistent now because president obama led the way in bypassing that, you know, the deal there is you accept the public funds to run in the general election as a party nominee and then you face spending limits. president obama was able to raise so much money in that campaign that he opted out of that system and i'm very certain mitt romney's probably going to. so we're going to go through another election where that system is just -- it's become an anachronism, it's apparently not going to exist any longer which means we're just in wide open territory. i would just say these super pacs and it's not just republicans, democrats are raising a lot of money, too. you saw the controversy about bill maher giving a million dollars to president obama's super pac. but this is on a whole different scale. what i'm talking about here is individual people, a dozen or

two dozen people can give $100 million. there's one -- there was one super pac donor, the one for gingrich, the casino guy in las vegas who said he's prepared to spend $100 million of his own money. and for him, that's a luxury weekend or two because he's worth $35 billion. >> and he's already given the gingrich campaign about $15 million in the super pac. guest: yeah, he said he'll give money to romney because he hates obama so much, he's going to give -- and he said as much as $100 million. host: and we want to know rick santorum's benefactor is saying he'll contribute to mitt romney's campaign. let me go to the issues of tax negatedness, reporting on january 1st of next year, the federal tax bill for a typical middle class household making in the neighborhood of $50,000 is scheduled to rise by about $1,750. this increase which would come at the expense of both the bush

tax cuts and the obama stimulus would follow a decade of little or no income growth for many people. the end of 2012 will be unlike any other time in memory for the u.s. government. guest: one of the most sickening things i have witnessed in my 20 years, 25, i guess now, in washington is the pounding of the middle class over and over again with the -- despite all the rhetoric about defending the middle class. i mean, we go back to things like when they saved social security by raising dramatically raising the social security tax, payroll tax and we know one of the clever things they did there, it used to be called fico in your paycheck. they changed the name on the paycheck when they raised it that much. it took people a while to figure out what it even was ending the deduction for credit card interest, for example. those were huge hit on middle class -- they weren't

technically tax increases, like in the case of the credit card interest, but it certainly was effectively that. they turn around and say we'll give you $600 this year. for everything they take away from the middle class, these little incremental things they have have no effect. host: independent line with craig crawford, good morning. caller: good morning. i thank you, c-span, for having this program. i wanted to see if you thought any of the candidates are strong enough to push for natural, holist holistic integrative health care to be covered by insurance. western doctors do not have all the answers. if they did, there wouldn't be so many chronic, expensive health plans and somebody --

people in the need of disability because they haven't been treated effectively. if a lot of doctors want to leave the system, fine. there's herbs and acupuncture which have been around for centuries. guest: yeah, some hearings on that topic on capitol hill and, of course, the concern is that if you open that door and there are legitimate ones like you're describing but there are also frauds out there and charlotteans that if there's some way to divide those two to allow what's really legitimate and keep people from being abused by criminals, basically. but it is also true, i learned in the health care debate that there are a lot of the cancer treatment and various things in europe that are not allowed here because of what medical providers and companies claim is burdensome regulation on making

it difficult to get new procedures and drugs to the market in the u.s. compared to other countries and i think that is a concern. host: brian hughes writing about health care this morning in "the washington examiner." one republican strategist saying that with so-called romney care in massachusetts, it takes the health care issue off the table. guest: i don't see why it shouldn't but it hasn't. i mean, for some reason, my biggest surprise as i look over the republican primaries is how none of his romney's rivals in the republican primaries made that argument stick. it seemed like a no brainer at the beginning of the campaign, everybody said he can't win the nomination because of romneycare but yet he plodded on through and they made their effort. part of the problem was none of them stuck to it and in politics, if you have a message, particularly one as almost fatal as that one was to an opponent, you have to pound it every day. you've got to be disciplinedment you have to stay on it.

and these guys have -- they throw it in their stump speech and then they get distracted into other issues like contraception and whatever and all these other things, and there was never a sustained concentrated attack in the republican primaries on the fact that romney would have a difficult time campaigning against obamacare and so it never really got tested in the way i thought it would in the primaries. host: where do you tweet? guest: i tweet all the time. i love tweeting. mine is craig underscore crawford. but you know what i love? i follow a lot of comedians. twitter is perfect for comedians. i mean, because 146 characters is about the length of a good line with a punch line. and there's like some old time comedians like ruth busy, remember her, from "laugh in". she's retired and lives on a ranch in california and tweets jokes all the time. a lot of them do their political material on twitter.

they don't do it in their shows because the audience doesn't want them. host: a name from the past. go to martha from ohio. good morning, martha. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say that even if obama wins and romney gets in or either one, it will go the same way as it's going now. if romney gets in, there's a party of no. everybody remember that party of no. and you can bet you that romney will be on the no side. and if obama gets in, it will still be no. they're not for the people. and they're going to go the ku klux klan way, the movement going in this country right now. everybody looks at the tea party, they're all related. thanks so much for letting me talk. host: thank you, martha.

guest: i'll just punctuate that by saying i long ago came to the conclusion that all this talk of republicans and democrats in washington is just different colored jerseys. there's only one party. money. >> let me go back to the story we focused on in the first 45 minutes. this is former president clinton sharing a laugh with barack obama. pointing out that the two democratic presidents, the first in 31 years are rivals as much as allies. guest: i don't know about that. i think they've come to terms on a lot of things and a lot of that is hangover from the 2008 which did get pretty bitter. i think things got really off track when not obama himself or even really his campaign but a lot of obama supporters accusing president clinton of racism and hillary clinton as well.

i don't like that story because it felt a little dated to me as far as how it's going now. host: the speculation continues even though all parties say it won't happen, michael goodwin, hill on the ticket? we're just asking. hillary on the ticket with barack obama? the speculation doesn't end. guest: it doesn't. no matter what hillary says, it doesn't go away. it would be a sign of weakness for obama to do that at this point plus now is when he can really use joe biden the most. they picked joe biden in 2008 because they knew that president obama had difficulty with white, working class voters particularly in swing states in the south and out west and it turned out obama did so -- was doing so well on his own that they sort of didn't need that in that campaign like they thought they would. now they do. i think they need it much more than they did in 2008. biden is a guy who can go out

there and really pitch it to the labor folks, the working class folks and -- and bring the message home that they're now defining their campaign around which is fairness for the middle class. and i think he's almost better able to carry that argument. host: those are the states that he's going to be focusing on in addition to virginia and new hampshire where vice president joe biden talked about the economy this past thursday. [video clip] >> now, governor romney and others argue that if we keep these windfalls and shower more windfalls on the very wealthiest, that's how america's economy will grow. that's how we will create jobs. that's the thesis. in a nutshell. it amazes me. it actually amazes me. he offers this prescription as if it's somehow a new idea.

folks. like something we haven't seen before. even worse, like something we haven't actually tried before. folks, we've seen this movie before. you've seen the movie! it does not end well. it does not end well. where has he been? >> where's he been? you know, could it be that he's out of touch? host: have you ever counted how often joe biden -- guest: before the clip, i said it's time for biden to speak and listening to him, i'm starting to remember in the past listening to biden and some of those folks and some of that rhetoric. but still, i think what he just said is the message he needs to be out there saying particularly in florida, you mentioned. because i really think this

campaign is going to come down to florida. of course, you know, it's my home state so i'm biassed to say that. but -- and in particularly central florida corridor from tampa to daytona. host: the i-4. guest: the famous i-4 corridor which is more specifically where i'm from so i'm biassed to say that. i really believe that's the case among veterans around there and the -- a lot of working class folks and the tourist industry and so on, the puerto rican vote is huge in the i-4 corridor, i think biden is a perfect messenger for that area. host: ivan is on the phone from rainbow city, alabama, republican line. good morning. caller: yes, i'd like to ask mr. craig crawford, what does he have against rich people? i never got a job from a poor person. people have to have money in order to hire somebody. on not to -- top of that, i have a comment. i came from another country in

1968. it's from a communist country, bulgaria. i came over here for the freedom. if people knew what president obama was talking about when he got elected, if they could have got some of the sentences in his speeches and matched it to the manifesto of karl marx, he spoke exactly like them! guest: your point about rich people, it's always -- it's always hard to avoid provoking your kind of reaction that i'm saying there's something wrong with rich people, they shouldn't be rich or what i'm saying is they shouldn't be able to buy elections and that's the system we're now in. that folks who are not rich have less and less of a voice in a system where billionaires can literally buy members of congress, senate and, unfortunately, i think, presidents is the next step.

host: alex is on the phone from augusta, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing, mr. crawford? i agree with you that made a big deal out of what he said. i analyzed that very closely. what that lady was saying in my opinion, i mean, you can agree or disagree, there are some stay-at-home moms that are not married to a rich person, a rich man. she had a choice. of course, she had a choice. because she knows that her husband is rich. so she can afford to stay at home. and i guarantee you she had maids. i guarantee you she had butlers. and my mother raised six kids by herself. my father died when my older brother was 16 years old. she didn't have a maid. she didn't have a butler. so therefore, when that woman tell me i raise five kids, i guarantee you she had a maid, a

cook, cleaning the house and everything. guest: i'll tell you one thing, ben romney, i believe it was ben, the youngest son, put on his facebook during this controversy that his mother did not have a nanny and did not have daycare. he didn't mention anything about some of those other ones that you said, cook or whatever. he said she did not have a helper or a maid or use daycare in raising their children. but to your point, your main point, i agree with you. i mean, what hillary rosen was trying to say is that we have a -- we have a system and we have an economy now where so many women don't have that choice. and that it's not a choice anymore. they don't have a choice. and, you know, now the new thing today is they found some video of mitt romney back in his massachusetts days saying that, you know, that people should get in the work force, for their dignity and shouldn't stay at home. but i haven't actually seen that

video. i saw some stories today about it. so i think that's going to be the next big talker on this sort of fake outrage. host: focusing on the battleground states, talked about florida. guest: that's my favorite chart of the week. i put that on my blog. host: here it is, iowa, nevada, new hampshire, new mexico, north carolina and pennsylvania. virginia is not on this list. guest: yeah, and that's the rise of independent voters over 2008 and that's one of the biggest trends in politics, that self-identifying independents and i mean, you look at the bottom line numbers, we're up to, what? is it like 40% or something of the -- on the -- 36% now say they're independent and that's the biggest group. i mean, the biggest group of voters in the country now are independents. not registered but people who say i'm independent. i mean, that's -- measuring that trend and that's why, you know,

independents decide these national elections. it's not so much true in congressional elections and that's where you get into the strange disconnect for a president even with his own party on capitol hill because they redistricted seats particularly in the house, of course, they redistricted seats to such a point that each side has built up these huge populations of partisans in order to protect re-election in those races and shoved and sort of divided up independent voters and they don't have as much of a voice as they should given their numbers. but the presidents have to depend on those independent voters to get elected so sometimes there's a different agenda between a president and his members of congress in his own party. host: as you look at this, too, you can see the rise of independents. 36% to 37% self-described independents and 32% democrats. 25% republicans. look where the breakaway takes place, where the republican self-identification drops, the

rise of independents increasing at 37%. guest: that's where a lot of them are coming from. host: take a call from john in st. louis. good morning. caller: good morning. host: good morning, john. caller: how are you? guest: hello! caller: hi, mr. crawford. guest: hi. caller: my question is how much impact do you think faith or religion is going to have on the upcoming elections. guest: you know, when i look at mitt romney, he's got a problem with the hate wedges that we've seen in -- from republican campaigns in the last few cycles. that's god, guns and gays. he has a difficult time using the religious issue because at least he appears nervous about his mormonism because he talks very little about it. he speaks of religion in sort of other ways like he quoted

earlier and then guns, his massachusetts record on signing a ban on assault rifles and saying he wasn't in line with the nvm r.a., he did his best talking to the n.r.a. to speak their language. host: let's look at what he said friday. he spoke in st. louis, missouri, at the n.r.a. convention and he addressed that issue. let's watch in just a moment. [video clip] >> you know, we've all seen enough of president obama over the last three years to know that we don't want another four. in a second term, he'd be unrestrained by the demands of re-election as he told the russian president last month when he thought no one was listening. after a re-election he'd have a lot more "flexibility" to do just what he wants. not exactly sure what he meant by that but looking at his first three years, i have a pretty good idea.

host: craig crawford? guest: what he was trying to do in that speech, he talked about guns very little. he was trying to appeal to their other conservative values at the national rifle association and that's my point. he's not going to be believable to a lot of gun owners based on his record in massachusetts and, you know, going back to god, guns and gays which are sort of the triple crown of republican campaigns against democrats and his record in massachusetts is far more liberal than very conservative voters would like to be on favoring civil unions. i mean, he's flipped on all these things. he's born again on all these issues since his massachusetts day but that's the only time he was an elected official and made decisions as a governor and signed legislation and proposed legislation, did things that he would -- that give us a template for what he would do as president. so it's hard for me to buy a lot of these dramatic clips from the -- those -- that earlier record and it's certainly hard for american conservative voters in the republican races.

host: one last point of money from our twitter page. money always controlled elections, it's just much more transparent with the internet and social media. guest: it's actually becoming less transparent because the recent spade of laws, even mccain-feingold made it a little less transparent, the money that was going and then this citizens united has allowed a situation where so as long as the i.r.s. deems this super pacs as only promoting social welfare and not political campaigns which, of course, is a joke but so far the i.r.s. is going that route, that means their donors cannot be disclosed. i mean, like i said at the outset, there is someone who gave $10 million to karl rove's super pac. and we don't know who it is. host: before we let you go, one last piece of video we want to share with you from last night, snl, "saturday night live" using presidential politics as part of its opening skit. [video clip]

>> thanks for meeting me here, ok? now that you're out of the race, i wanted to tell you in person that you ran a great campaign. >> thanks, mitt! and congratulations on the nomination. it was hard fought. >> when can i get you two? >> well, we're celebrating for my friend so i'll have a chocolate milk! >> and i'll have a napkin. that was certainly a primary season to remember, huh? >> sure was. there was even a time when people were saying i was the frontrunner. i got to thank you for that, mitt, because the only candidate who could ever make me look exciting. >> yeah. and you're the only candidate who can make me look gay friendly. >> you're just saying that! ♪ make the best of this known as y ♪ ♪ it's not effective but it's just die ♪ ♪ always unpredictable but in the end what's right ♪ ♪ this campaign was the time of my life ♪

♪ this campaign was the time of my life ♪ host: i think a lot of us in the media could be singing along with this. it was one of the most entertaining campaigns i've ever seen. you had so many candidates with sort of nothing to lose, they'd say anything but on the substantive side they raised a lot of issues at the presidential level anyway, candidates usually don't talk about that needed to be talked about. even 9-9-9, the herman cain tax plan sparked a debate about tax reform that we still need to have. craig crawford, thank for being with us. guest: good to be here. i'd do anything c-span asks. host: keep the tie clean. we'll have you come back again. coming up later, a look at one of the most important documents in american history, the emancipation proclamation. we'll have a conversation with that in about 45 minutes. coming up next, christopher hill will be joining us, a dean at

the university of denver, veteran of the bush administration and former ambassador to south korea to talk about the ongoing situation in north korea. you're watching "the washington journal" for this sunday, april 15th. we're back in a moment. >> april 15th, 1912, nearly 1500 perished. >> struck the bells up in the process three times, ding, ding, ding. which is a warning saying that there's some object ahead. doesn't mean dead ahead. it means ahead of the ship and it doesn't say what kind of object. with the lookout after they struck the bell, they went to the telephone nest and pulled down to the officer to the bridge to tell them what it is that they saw.

and when the phone was finally answered, the entire conversation was, what do you see? and the response was iceberg right ahead. and the response from the officer was thank you. >> samuel helper on the truth and myths of that night. today at 4:00 p.m. eastern. part of "american history" tv this weekend on c-span 3.

host: joining us from denver is christopher hill, he served as the assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs during the second four years of the bush administration and also the former u.s. ambassador to the republic of korea and now dean at the joseph school of international studies at the university of denver. ambassador hill, thank you very much for being with us. guest: pleasure. host: we want to focus, of course, on the situation in north korea and let's begin with some of the news of the day.

the associated press reporting that north korea's new leader addressing the country for the first time today since he's taken over. and dealing with some of the issues that he's been talking about, national security, the rocket launch, your impression of what you've been able to see so far from this speech that he delivered earlier today. guest: first of all, it's, of course, very unusual for a north korean leader to deliver a speech. usually they stand up there and kind of wave at the adoring crowd. so i would say this is all part of an effort to sort of showcase this next generation of leadership and it was, you know, the text, i don't think, was all that remarkable. it was the usual sort of blood curdling admonitions to the world and, you know, the idea that they're going to, you know, march forward to victory. you know, even totalarian state,

that's not too strong a word for north korea. even a totalarian state has its politics and i think we're seeing some of those politics play out in these couple of days of marking the 100th anniversary of kim il-sung's death and the sinking of the titanic as well. host: here's a look at the boston globe who has the associated press, appearing calm and measured as he read what was a 20-minute speech, kim jong-un covered a wide range of topics, foreign policy to the economy. his speech followed by a parade capping festivities that commemorated kim il-sung's birthday. it was best to look outside the world that had given kim jong-un the power believed to be in his late 20's. the speech that essentially dealt with a way to showcase his authority as the new leader. did he do that? guest: well, i think so far, he has. now, obviously, this rocket

situation isn't helping. he can argue that a lot of the problems predated him and, in fact, the previous rockets have not succeeded either. so, you know, that would have been icing on the cake. but i think overall, you know, the transition is going remarkably smoothly. the issue that i think everyone should be a little worried about is the fact that they reach a deal with the u.s., heavily brokered by the chinese to link food and nuclear stand down or nuclear missile stand down and then within two weeks, even when the -- when the sort of atmospherics are real positive, they renege on it. so i think the question is why did that happen? and i would disagree with those who say it's the usual pattern of north korea reneging on previous agreements. i think what is happening is that they haven't quite figured out what the lines of authority

are yet to this 20 something year old leader. host: let me ask you to follow up on the situation in north korea with regard to china. the story last week in "usa today" where officially the chinese government saying it has very little influence in day-to-day operations within north korea but the perception is very different outside of north korea and china. guest: well, nothing makes the chinese grouchier than when you tell them that they can determine how the future of north korea is going to be. i mean, they always point out they have limited connections there, that the north koreans have a kind of , you know, they're not really sure whether they want to take every cue from china so the chinese often say, look, there's a limit to what we can do. but as you go down to the river on the chinese side and you see the fact that there is interaction with north korea, you see the fact that there are cars and trucks crossing the bridge into north korea, you

realize there is some commercial connection to north korea that really you don't see anywhere else. and then if you look at the trade data, especially trade data in the last five or 10 years, you see that increasingly, north korea is very much a kind of -- kind of a wholly owned subsidiary of china so i think the international community is right to focus on the north korean relationship with china. i mean, we often talk about the idea that we need to further sanction north korea but when you look at the list of sanctions, we've got on north korea, it's the most heavily sanctioned country on earth so why aren't these sanctions working? and i think the answer is -- is china. and so just to continue on that theme, and the chinese have a lot on their plate right now. i mean, they have a succession coming up where they will give way to another leader, they have

problems within the communist party as we've seen with this corruption issue, with one of their -- one of their top leaders. and then we also see that the chinese economy is kind of slowing down and a lot of people say well, it's slowing down to 8%. what's the problem with that? the problem with that is china has a massive royal population that is really not shared in the wealth and the way they need to share in the wealth is to have continued very high often double digit growth rates. so the chinese are very preoccupied internally and they're not prepared to kind of put north korea front and center and make a decision that would essentially change relationship they've had with that country for over half a century now. host: from your perch now as the head of the school of international studies at the university of denver, is there a policy or are there things that this administration has not done that should be doing with regard to north korea and this region of the world? guest: well, you know, i know in the united states because we

also have a succession year, an election year, there's an effort of what's going on with north korea policy and point fingers but the fact is, i think the obama administration has picked up pretty much on the bush administration's efforts to try to contain the problem and ultimately roll back the problem. and i think the key ingredients of it and i credit the obama administration for doing this is to understand that negotiating with north korea may be what the public sees. i mean, they may see american diplomats talking to the north koreans. that's probably the most visible element. but there is more that goes on beneath the surface. not unlike an iceberg. i don't know why i have an iceberg on my mind today, but the relationships, the diplomacy with china and especially the diplomacy with south korea where the issue of north korea is a

very emotional one and i think it behooves any american administration to try to stay very close to the south korean allies who are very worried about north korea. you look at a map, seoul is just a few miles from north korea. so the south koreans like to see us engage but they like to see us consulting with the south koreans and i think we're doing that. so, you know, from my perch in denver, i'm not really comfortable sort of giving gratuitous advice to the administration on it except to understand that we need to be engaged in this problem. we have a lot of options. we don't have the option to walk away. and especially we need to show that we care about the people in the region. it's not just a question of north korea, we care about these key relationships in japan and south korea. i think the degree to which we would be seen as just making bellicose or sarcastic

statements about north korea, i think that would lead south korean people, as they have in the past, to believe that the u.s. is really not serious and we don't understand the truly deep dimensions of this -- of the problem of north korea and how the south korean public perceives that problem. host: our guest is christopher hill, veteran of the state department and the dean of the school of international studies on the campus of the university of denver. we'll get to your phone calls in a moment. you can also send us a tweet at twitter.com/cspanwj or send us an e-mail journal at cspan.org. before we get to your calls and comments, ambassador hill, the school has a connection to two former secretaries of state. what is it? guest: we're very proud of that. madeleine albright, of course, is the daughter of joseph korbel. joseph korbel came to the united states in the late 40's with

this very young daughter in tow and he got a job at the university of denver. and secretary albright tells the story of the family, you know, driving from new york off to -- off to denver and secretary albright's mother saying you sure we're getting there? this is supposed to be a kilometer and a half high and we don't seem to be going up so there's quite a story of sort of the american dream of this family coming from -- coming from eastern europe and making a new life and making a new life in a town that, you know, in those days was probably known more for its stock show and cattle show than it is today for its performing arts. and then when joseph korbel got settled and became the dean of this -- actually created a separate school for this international relations program that he was running, lo and behold, he had a very young and

extremely talented well who became a ph.d. student after getting her bachelor's degree at the university of denver. her name was condi rice. she was at our school a couple of weeks ago and met with a lot of our students and did a kind of town hall performance talking about foreign policy just as secretary albright did as well and we have some other graduates. the last couple of weeks, we had general casy, the former head of our -- the u.s. army and former commanding general in iraq. so it's been a -- kind of a busy spring term and i'm teaching a course as well on diplomacy and those of you who haven't taught, in government, i never had a meeting that i allowed to go on for 45 minutes but when you teach, it can go on for three hours so a real learning experience. host: christopher hill who is joining us from denver. bob is on the phone from florida. good morning.

caller: yeah, a number of things that kind of was referring to and that mitt romney said that obama's policies embolden to the north korean rock and he's also inferred that iran will not become nuclear under mitt romney. administrations. and he's prepared to go to war. host: thank you, bob. we'll get a response. guest: well, first of all, as a professional diplomat, i never interfered in any country's internal affairs including my own so i try to avoid getting involved in sort of partisanship but as i said earlier, i think

there has been a lot of bipartisanship in how we go forward with north korea. i think there's an increasing understanding that you do have to talk to them. it's not so much to have that moment where the north koreans bang the side of their head with the palm of their hand and say now, i get it. we'll disarm. i'm not sure that moment is really going to come. but i think it's very important for our other partners in the region such as the chinese and the south koreans who i think are prepared to -- maybe prepared in the future, especially the chinese to do more than they're doing now. but have to be assured that the u.s. is not just prodding them with a point of a bayonet but rather engaging in a process. so i think, you know, that is what is happening and i'm just not sure it's emboldening north korea. north korea, i've been several times, it's a pretty isolated place and i'm not sure they take their cues from washington or

anywhere else. as for iran, that's a little off of our subject, but that is another extremely difficult process but as we saw yesterday, there was an initial discussion of the multilateral process dealing with that. and i think what is a little positive about iran vs. north korea is at least the iranians are saying they don't want a nuclear weapon. the fact is we believe they're doing otherwise. but when you -- when your declared policy is not to do something, it's a little easier maybe to live up to the verification standards that we're demanding of them rather than north korea that's already exploded a couple and lo and behold, there may be more. host: mark williams has this on the twitter page. hung on your earlier point, christopher hill, north korea flexing its muscles in front of the world to gain attention. north korea style politics. guest: yeah. well, you know, a lot is said

about how the north koreans are trying to gain attention from the rest of us or banging their spoon on the high chair or something. i think they are really more preoccupied with internal affairs and, you know, that's -- this is a country that has not been too interested in the international community so i take the point that there has been times where they want to get our attention. i don't dispute that. but i think overall, for example, that speech by kim jong-un was really a domestic speech. now, the fact that we're all listening to it is an added element. but i think he's really talking to the north korean public that has to be sort of wondering, you know, where are we going here? because after all, there's more -- there are more and more signs that north koreans hear what's going on in the world. you know, the process there is

let's say you bring in a boom box from china and you're required to go get that boom box fixed so that it only gets north korean broadcasts and there are signs that not everybody is doing that these days. that's something that used to be done in stalin and eastern europe. there's signs that they listen to western broadcasts and there's a million cell phone users in north korea so i think the information is beginning to kind of trickle in and i think the regime needs to kind of keep after this, what could become in the future a more restless population. the way they do that is to, you kn know, exhort them into patriotism, turning the missile launch into the need of rallying around the flag and somehow protect the country. host: if you're listening to c-span radio, our guest is christopher hill who served in

the bush administration and the former u.s. ambassador to south korea now dean at the school of international studies at the university of denver. donald is on the phone. independence, missouri. hometown of harry truman, good morning. caller: now you know who my favorite president is, anyway. hello, mr. hill. i'm stuck in a rubber band a little bit here because the previous caller was thinking just like i am and i know we're talking about north korea and it was brought up that the chinese, they claim they don't have as much sway over north korea as we think that they do. but who knows what's really going on. but to me, to me, north korea and iran are in the same basket because we -- they're really similar problems. and the question -- what i never hear about is always in the

shadows and the background, holding hand in hand or shadowing china is russia. and i wonder when -- when china votes against the u.n. sanction against iran and russia does also, and then china votes against sanctions or too strong of sanctions against north korea and russia backs them up, i mean, what's going on with russia? guest: yes. yeah, just a couple of months ago, we marked the 40th anniversary of the shanghai communique, the agreement that president nixon reached with chinese premier when essentially, we peeled china away from the soviet union, i think in a broader sense it was the beginning of the end for the soviet union and we were able to

get china to be more independent of the soviet union. and so it's a kind of bitter irony to see in recent years especially and as you point out in recent months, the fact that china and russia have been voting together and often voting against the consensus of other countries. so i think it's -- they do have kind of similar views. neither, for example, neither china nor russia wants north korea to have a nuclear capability. nor do either of those countries want to see iran have this nuclear capability. they know, for example, that were iran to somehow announce a nuclear weapons capability or conduct a test or something, this would be extremely destablizing in the middle east region. other countries would be tempted to go that route. it would -- there could well be military confrontation in such a

circumstance and neither country wants that. the problem is that neither country believes in the tools that are out there to deal with that. neither country is a proponent of the use of economic leverage, of sanctions, for example, the chinese are always opposed to these things. russia is the same. they often look at their own situations when they consider these -- these measures and by that i mean, they're concerned that today it may be iran and tomorrow, they may come after us with some type of sanctions things so they try to hold a kind of principled position against sanctions. so it's been frustrating to see the two of them working together because i don't think they really share the same interests. and frankly, i think their views of how to resolve these issues is a little long headed. i mean, as much as the chinese oppose sanctions for iran or

sanctions for north korea, they've also failed to articulate a way forward except to call on everyone for dialogue. i think dialogue is important. i'm always in favor of talking to people but i don't confuse talking with people with solving problems. so i think they need to show another model that they felt will be more successful. and so far, neither china nor russia can point to much success with their policies of essentially criticizing countries such as iran and north korea but never taking measures to do something about it. so i don't think there's any magic formula for this. i mean, the problem with diplomacy is, you know, unlike the use of military force where you get a sort of yes or no answer, the problem with diplomacy it kind of goes on and wonder what are we doing with that? i think these problems will be -- will be solved, you know, when these problems are finally

solved, it will be because we were able to find a common language with the chinese or a common language and we need to continue to do. it's fine to talk to the north koreans and more important to have relationships with china and russia that can exert the kind of language that we believe. i'm personally convinced that they have it. that they can really have policy changes in those countries. host: let me fill up on that point and talk specifically about the u.s. ambassador to south korea. we have this twitter comment, what would happen if we open the d.m.z., the demilitarized zone to north korea's residents. don't they try to leave through china? let them see prosperity and, of course, president obama was recently at the zone inspecting with u.s. troops on the ground along the u.s. north -- along

the north korean and south korean border. >> well, the old line goes there's no d in demilitarized. it is a heavily militarized strip of land. very sad, i mean, it can almost be seen from outer space, this scar across the center of korea and i think to understand korean views or south korean views is to understand the country did nothing to be divided. i mean, after all, this is an ad hoc decision to try to work with the soviet, the red army where they would take surrender of the japanese troops north of the d.m.z. or north of what became the d.m.z. and we would -- we flew in troops in 1945 to take surrender of the japanese troops south of the 38th parallel. and so sadly, this kind of surrender arrangement became the basis for creating two states

not unlike east germany or west germany except there was a reason that the allies purposely divided east and west germany. i mean, korea just happened through happen stance and i think for many koreans, this is one of sort of great, you know, sort of safe -- it's a source of sadness about what happened in the -- in the 20th century. in terms are, you know, could we just open up the d.m.z.? we could. but, you know, you have heavily armed and quite capable north korean military very much forward deployed. you have some 14,000 long range artillery pieces. just north of the d.m.z. there's a lot of reasons that we want to be up there in a way that will deter any effort by north korea to try what they did in june 1950 to try it, try it again. so the twitter suggests that

perhaps people might go to china. they are doing that. there are many north korean refugees that have gone to china and, of course, the chinese have taken the view that these are more economic refugees than political. quite frankly, we take the opposite view. and so this has involved at times a very delicate effort to get the chinese to accept these people and china doesn't want to be a magnet for these refugees but they need to understand they have some international responsibilities to take care of these people and make sure harm does not come to them. i can assure you over the years, there's been a lot of quiet effort, quiet because it wouldn't work if it were in the newspapers, quiet to help these people who somehow get to china to help them eventually get to south korea so i think it's -- this is another example of where the u.s. really needs to work with the chinese, but i would like to make one other point on

this which is that many people say that china doesn't want to be helpful on north korea because they fear a north korean collapse that would cause refugees to flow into china. if there were a north korean collapse, i think there would be means by which refugees should they choose to -- to leave north korea would flee south to south korea rather than north to china. so i think the chinese concerns about a north korean collapse go far beyond the issue of refugees. and really go into questions of, you know, how would this affect china, geopolitically. after all, if north korea is down, this is a victory for u.s., defeats to china. a lot of issues like this come into play. host: our guest is christopher hill who served as the assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs and the u.s. ambassador to the republic of korea, south korea. our focus, of course, last week's unsuccessful rocket launch in north korea and the

larger issue of relations with north korea or lack thereof and the issue of china and other neighboring countries and ambassador hill, i want to show you, of course, our map of the region. you're quite familiar as you serve as the u.s. ambassador to south korea but then this rather iconic google image, a nighttime view of south korea fully lit up and then you can see very clearly the d.m.z. zone and very few lights in north korea. this is a picture that's been making the round in the last couple of years. but your thoughts? guest: first of all, it's not a fluke. it's not that everyone in north korea had turned out their lights that night for the picture. they have precious little electricity and for all their talk about needing a nuclear program because of their electricity needs, they have never connected their nuclear program to an actual power generating source. so north korea has serious

problems in energy. when i have been there, i took one trip out to the nuclear site and then came back, back to pyongyang which was about a trip of a little over two hours from pyongyang and as we went through these towns, you realized there were no street lights and building lights, you know, a few 25 watt light bulbs and then all these people sort of walking along presumably they had just come out of work. this is around 6:00 or so in the evening, this is in december so it was very -- it was very dark and there's no lights at all. so -- and even in pyongyang, if you drive around, you see a lot of apartment building where it looks to be, when you look up to the windows you can see these very, very dim light bulbs like one dim light bulb. for a country that's really energy starved, all the more reason to maybe focus on producing electricity than producing bombs.

but it's a country that may be energy starved but it's also prestige starved, it's starved in terms of showing to their people that they're making progress so they engage in the sort of circuses of missile launches. host: that's what one of our viewers are saying. the north koreans are all about show, very much like the cold war and the saber rattling. it's all about perception. mark is on the phone. gwen, michigan. good morning to you, mark. caller: good morning, steve and good morning, mr. hill. guest: good morning. caller: yes, i've been studying this very closely and for a week, they kept showing that rocket sitting on a launch pad but yet, when it launched, there was no footage of it. nobody has seen this rocket launch. nobody's seen this rocket crash! don't you think that's a little weird? they stashed that rocket during the night.

host: dr. hill? guest: you know, i'm not a rocket scientist but my understanding is we had a number of technical means to monitor the fact that the rocket did lift off and we also had technical means to determine that it did break up. it reached a certain altitude far short of what it needed to reach in order to put that sort of bread box sized satellite into -- into space. it appears to have been a failure of the actual liquid fuel missile system, you know, it's a free stage rocket so it's not even clear that the first two stages worked so i think it was a failure and a failure along the lines that they've had before. what is essentially a 1962 soviet technology. so it may be back to the drawing board. or, you know, often, missile tests fail and it's something

simple but catastrophic. maybe it can be fixed but -- well, first of all, i wouldn't want to be a north korean rocket engineer this morning. and secondly, i think it might well be that they have to go back to the drawing board. i think what is very important about all this is not so much that it failed. it's the fact that the north koreans despite sort of means by which to climb back into the international process, despite a means to get additional food aid, that they -- that they desperately need, instead for this -- essentially to put together this component of their nuclear program that is the delivery component of the nuclear program so as much as i think prestige is a big part of this, i think there's another part of it and a more serious part of it which is the delivery component of this very kind of crude nuclear program that they have going on now.

host: let me just point out last thursday's "new york times", you talk about technology and just from this one photograph, it looks very much like something out of the 1960's at nasa. this past week, you can see the bulky computers and the technicians and engineers monitoring the situation with that failed rocket launch last week. next is ben joining us. caller: good morning, ambassador. i'd like to address a third factor in the korean nuclear program. and i have a two part question. please comment on the north koreans' sense of vulnerability as a prime motivator for the program and the extent to which the absence of a formal agreement ending -- or formally ending the korean war and the

absence of a nonaggression pack between north korea, the united states and key regional players. host: let's take that point and stay on the line and we'll follow up in a moment. ambassador hill? guest: that's a very important point. there's an argument made that north korea is doing -- has this nuclear program as its sort of nuclear deterrents. after all, it doesn't have a peace agreement with the u.s. and, perhaps, they've come to believe their own propaganda that we're poised to invade them at any time. in order to address this and i am not convinced that the problem is, you know, north korean concern about our acongressessiveness, but in order to address this, back in 2005, when we reached a joint statement within the six-party talks, the six party talks being the negotiating mechanism for dealing with this. it's a process led by the

chinese in the chair but involving russia, the u.s., japan, and south korea as well as north korea so we put on the table and indeed we incorporated into the joint statement the fact that in the context of denuclearization that is getting rid of nuclear -- all their nuclear programs, abandoning their nuclear programs that we were prepared to negotiate a peace agreement with the north koreans. we're prepared to engage in cross recognition of states. that is that everyone would recognize north korea, we put that all on the table. how the timing would work, we weren't going to do something and hope the north koreans would do something. we have to have some notion of simultaneousity but we're trying to address the supposed concern of the north koreans that they are a country living under a sort of u.s. -- u.s. threat.

they have hsd they wanted this. they either want something or they don't. so you kind of move heaven and earth through your own internal, you know, inner agency process back in washington and you come back to the negotiations and you say, have i got a deal for you? i'm going to put this on the table. and then they kind of look at you like they're kind of disinterested so this raises the basic question of how interested are they? in dealing with the international community. i thought it was very important for us to engage in these negotiations and be prepared to put these elements on the table because not so much because of the north koreans but the south korean public who in the early 2000's, many of whom, a great percentage of whom were blaming the u.s. for the north korean crisis. if the north koreans can be portrayed as victims in their own nuclear places, you know, there's something wrong with

your public diplomacy. so i think we've fixed that problem. but we certainly don't have indication that the north koreans are serious about picking us up on this and by the way, the chinese pushed the idea that even if we can't have diplomatic recognition, recognition on the part of the u.s. and other countries and north korea is indeed a state, indeed a nation state, if we can't have that immediately, can we have the solution that china had for a number of years which was to open a u.s. liaison office in pyongyang so the chinese came to us with that idea. they had a good experience with it and we said great. we'd be prepared to look seriously at that. the north koreans weren't interested in having a u.s. facility in downtown pyongyang. what they said we were interested in was recognition. we could do that but only in the

context of denuclearization. host: let me go back to ben. follow-up on that question? caller: you largely anlsed the second part of my question and the only point that i would make additionally is we do sanctions quite well. i think we have to put more effort even though as you suggest we've put a lot of effort moving the bureaucracy in washington on the negotiation aspects and recognition that the other side has things that it's concerned about and need and in this sense, i'm encouraged by the recent talks in istanbul with iran and the fact that they are going to be follow-up talks and that there's going to be some kind of sustained dialogue and interchange to try to solve some of these very difficult problems. thank you. host: thanks for the call. let me take up on ben's point, included with this one twitter comment that struck me saying is there anything more irrelevant to my life than north korea? how would you address that

issue? why is this important to america? guest: well, i think it's important to america because if north korea gets away with this nuclear capability, you're going to see a lot of pushing and shoving in the region. you're going to see the japanese, south koreans very, very worried about this. it could actually affect how the chinese regard things in the immediate region and also how china regards its relationship with the u.s. we have staked a lot on this -- on resolving the north korean issue in the context of our relationship with china. so i would kind of agree with -- with the point that what's more irrelevant to me than north korea? but you cannot just look at north korea in a vacuum. it has to be looked at in terms of these very important relationships we have in the region. and if the u.s. and china can

truly resolve this issue and by resolve, i mean, disabuse north korea of any of these nuclear ambitions, if we could do that together, that would be a very, very important sign for our relationship with china and i think it could really mean a lot to all of us in the united states, even those of us who live in places like denver. i think having a relationship with china where we can address problems in the world, where china can understand our concerns, where we understand china's concerns, i think would be very, very positive for us. so i think it's very important that we stay engaged on this and i must say the state department under secretary clinton is really fueling a top notch negotiating team and so i'm pleased to see this effort continue. host: background on our guest. christopher hill who is a former peace corps volunteer in west africa and he's represented the u.s. in a number of different

posts including iraq, south korea, poland macedonia and kosovo and served as the assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs. time for one more call for bill from california. go ahead, bill. caller: good morning, ambassador hill. thank you for your outstanding service. north korea and iran, for that matter, pose no threat whatsoever to the united states or one citizen here on the continent and this is just an easy sell for the pentagon and all its big money contractors to push through their agenda, to keep distraction going, keep people on edge. and just perpetuate the propaganda. host: we'll stop you there and get the final comments from ambassador hill. guest: well, i believe that the u.s. can defend itself and i am not afraid of north korea or afraid of iran but we do have relationships out there with

countrys that are much closer to these -- to these trouble spots and we have treaty alliances with countries like south korea and japan. we have treaty alliance with a country like israel. and so i don't think we can be indifferent to these issues and look, i understand the problems of the military industrial complex but on the other hand, i think we need to be prepared to work with our friends and allies and to, you know, give -- give the kind of , you know, protection that we are treaty bound to provide. i think it's very important that we have this nuclear umbrella with these -- with japan and south korea. so that they don't ever have the temptation to go nuclear themselves. so it's kind of a complex process, not all of it is inspiring. some of it is. but much of it is very, very necessary for our country to be

out there, engaged in the world. engaged in diplomacy. but having force that backs up our diplomacy. host: ambassador hill, we'll leave it there. the dean of the school of international studies fortunately you can get more information by logging on to the university of denver's web site at university of denver.edu and ambassador hill, thank you very much for being with us here on c-span. guest: thank you. host: it is tax day, april 15th. but it's falling on a sunday. and tomorrow is d.c. emancipation day so your taxes are not due officially until tuesday. we're going to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the historic document and d.c. emancipation which later led to the emancipation proclamation. "the washington journal" will continue in a moment. >> we asked students to make a video to say what part of the constitution was important and why. we're going to florida to meet

with the third prize winner, an eighth grader from the middle school. hi, taylor. >> hello. >> why did you choose the topic, preparing youth to become responsible voters for your video? >> i choose this topic because i think it is actually really big issue and that our students aren't really -- they don't know about our government. >> ok, and you interviewed several students at the beginning of your documentary asking them civics questions. how did this help you understand that issue even more? >> i think because we can see that it's like an example of that and students don't know about our government and we ask them who our president is and they don't know who our president is and i think that's pretty bad. >> and then you went on to discuss i civics. what is i civics? >> it is a web site that has a lot of computer games about our government and they're actually pretty fun because when we came back from the interview, we went on the computer and we started playing games and it was really fun. >> and how did your interview with retired supreme court

justice sandra day o'connor help you understand this issue? >> well, before we interviewed her, i didn't know what i civics was and we got an interview, she told us. i didn't notice about the issue that our students don't know about our government and she started explaining it and then what she does and stuff. and i learned. >> what was your favorite part from creating this documentary? >> it has to be interviewing the students because they really didn't know about our government. and i got some pretty funny answers like when we asked who the vice president was. >> what was the most important understanding you took away from all of your research and creation of the documentary? >> i actually got to learn about our government and i didn't know what our five freedoms was. and i really didn't know what the president does or the vice president and i didn't understand that a lot of students don't know about our government. >> what would you like others

who watch your documentary to learn? >> i would just want them to notice the fact that our students don't know about our government and they really should be taught that in our schools because when it comes to a time to vote, that they're not going to know what to look for in our president and that's not good for our future. >> taylor, thank you for talking with us today. and here's a portion of taylor's video, preparing youth to become responsible voters. >> we want to be able to say yes, this is my government. this is how it works and i'm able to communicate with them. and help make it what i want it to be. so that's why it's important because you need to start learning in that school, i think. >> would you rather be remembered as the first woman on the supreme court or the woman that taught civics to children? >> well, i'd like to be remembered for both things. do i have to do one or the other? good. i really think it's so important that young people learn how our

government works. as i grew up, i wanted to be part of my community. i wanted to be part of what happened in the place and city and town and area in which i lived. and to do that, i had to know how it worked. and so i think each of us needs to know that. and it's more fun for you, isn't it, if you know how things work? and if there's some -- something you think that needs to be changed in your city to know how to go about it and who to talk to and what to do, that matters, don't you think? >> and you can watch taylor's entire video as well as all winning documentaries at studentcams.org and continue the conversation at our facebook and twitter pages. host: we want to welcome back to c-span lincoln historian harold holzer. his latest book, "emancipating

lincoln", the text and context in memory. this is your 42nd book on lincoln? guest: but who's counting? host: yes. it wasn't one document. this is the 150th anniversary of the d.c. proclamation. and yet, it was the evolution that led to the emancipation proclamation fully issued in 1963. so walk us through this. guest: well, you can even start with the 1849 resolution that abraham lincoln introduced in congress for d.c. emancipation which didn't even go to committee, wasn't adopted and 13 years later, 150 years ago this weekend, he held on his desk. by the way, he has it on his desk for 48 hours. but infuriating, worrying and frightening supporters of d.c. emancipation. what is the president doing? why doesn't he issue it? why doesn't he sign it? so this is the act that freeze or sets in motion the liberation of more than 3,000 slaves still held in washington, d.c. a year

and a half after the beginning of the war against the slave power. host: why did it begin in washington, d.c.? why not in maryland, pennsylvania, elsewhere? guest: lincoln, by the way, was concurrently trying delaware, maryland, missouri, kentucky, the border states under union control where slavery still existed. he didn't want to chase these states into the confederacy by pushing too hard so he was proposing compensated emancipation. in other words, paying slave owners, buying the slaves in effect from these states. that wasn't going anywhere. but washington, d.c. slavery was a huge embarrassment. it had been for 20 years when lincoln served here as a congressman in 1848 and 1849, he could see slave pens right next to the capital. in his boarding house where the library of congress now stands,

slave catchers shackled one who tried to defend himself and drag him out of the question, apparently he had come about $60 short of a $300 effort to buy his own freedom so they simply dragged him back into slavery in front of mrs. lincoln and the children. that kind of thing had been going on in the capitol. by 1862, slaves are actually leaving maryland and virginia and flocking into washington. saying i'm not staying on the other side of the potomac or other side of the line where slavery is enforced. i'm going to hang out in washington and it was just something that had to be adjudicated in law and i think lincoln came to recognize that. host: let me ask you about the cottage in northwest washington, d.c., its version of camp david becoming an a iconic symbol of legacy. in your book, you had a

conversation that he had with his vice president where they talked about this government. what happened? guest: can i also be doing a plug that today at 2:30 we'll be doing a d.c. emancipation program where our c-span viewers frank williams and others from the district and some music. it should be nice. host: at this location? guest: at this location. at the lincoln cottage and we'll be there. it will be hot but we'll be there. lincoln begins his residence at the cottage this summer 150 years ago this first time. he didn't go in 1861. he begins in 1862 and there he begins writing the step after d.c. emancipation is the executive order, the military order as commander in chief warning the south that slaves would be freed on january 1st, 1963, if they didn't return to the union. the preliminary emancipation proclamation so the story is interesting. hannibal hamlin recalled in his

memoirs years later when lincoln was dead and couldn't dispute them that he ran up to say good-bye to the president because he was going home for the summer, for the rest of the summer, to maine. congressional session was over and he was going back to maine, probably wouldn't come back until december. and lincoln said, you're not going. and he said what? he said you're not going. let me show you why. and he took out of his drawer in his library at the soldier's home which one can still visit a document and when hamlin began reading it, he realized this was the preliminary emancipation proclamation. the only problem with the story is that when the preliminary proclamation comes out a few weeks later, hamlin writes a n congratlatory letter from maine. something is messed up about this story but it's a great story. host: while history has consistently acknowledged lincoln's leadership?

preserving the union, they have not been kind to lincoln's emancipation proclamation or his leadership in hasteening the destruction of american slavery and with it the redefinition of american liberty. guest: i think it's been chipped away by historians, by african-americans understandably eager to celebrate their own efforts toward their own freedom. but i think looking at this arc, a two-year arc from d.c. emancipation which was a huge deal in 1862, to emancipation by military order in the south which was a controversial event. and lincoln was attacked for inciting race war in the south. he was criticized in the south.

he was criticized in the north by democratic newspapers. he was criticized in europe. his neutrality, he really needed to continue. it was a daring, daring act. and as many what we would call public relations maneuvers as he exercised to prepare the public for this revolution order, it was a revolutionary one indeed. host: along those lines, let me go back to the book. you touched on this a moment ago but critics often condemned lincoln for waiting as long as he did for issuing the emancipation proclamation. he had doubt that he had the military power or the political opportunity without risking political ruin. exactly what was he facing? guest: a number of things. he's facing the fact that the military as overpowering as it is, as superior in numbers as it is can't seem to eke out a

success. as he's planning a move against slavery in the confederate states, general mcclellan is failing miserably in a long and foolishly conceived and managed march up the virginia peninsula to capture richmond. it doesn't work. he retreats. then lincoln realizing he has to play what he calls the emancipation card. but he's reminded by secretary of state sewer that to do so in the wake of all these losses would seem like what sewer calls a last shriek on the retreat, an act of desperation so lincoln has to wait for some military success in order to give his proclamations some left so that his word will be respected and not mocked and ignored. the north loses another battle at the second bull run in the summer so he has to wait longer. they fight to something of a draw and that's the opportunity.

that's enough. but he was right. he had to prepare the enemies in the north who were not all in agreement that this act should be promulgated and look at the result. look at the political result. lincoln's 1862 congressional elections were very much like barack obama's 2010 congressional elections. and it was only waged in the north where you think that lincoln would do well. republicans did not do well. they were punished for the proclamation and lincoln sensed it could be politically ruinness as well and it nearly was. host: yet, he was re-elected in 1864. guest: two years later, yeah. host: the book is titled "emancipating lincoln" by harold holzer. he's here in our washington studios and dean is on the phone from london, kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. you know, of course, slavery has had a terrible effect on our country and is still true today. but some of the facts that writers regarding the history of

slavery in this country is totally inaccurate. for instance, there was 10 million slaves that were carried out of africa, a lot of them were sold by their own country people as well as a lot of them were -- had gotten drunk on rum that was hauled over by portuguese as well as other slave traders and brought back. and only 400,000 ended up in this country. and something about lincoln and his proclamation, you know, he did not free one single slave. when he had the opportunity to do so. there were over 800,000 slaves in border states as well as areas controlled by unions, he would not free. so to say he's a great emancipator, i think, is just a flat out lie. he was not. guest: let me answer that. first of all, we're not talking about how 400,000 or so slaves came to this country. my own view is that 400,000 is a pretty large number.

and pretty horrific one as well. however, it was managed. let me get to this old myth that i think really needs to be addressed and punctured. that lincoln and the emancipation proclamation freed no slaves. that is absolutely not true. he issued the emancipation proclamation as a warning. and the second proclamation as a military order just like the declaration of independence that did not establish american independence without military fighting to secure the blessings of that document. the military of the union had to fight to secure the promise of the emancipation proclamation. historians dispute how many slaves were actually freed by the proclamation but it's hundreds of thousands as union army did ultimately sweep through the south. i would add that lincoln within a year was actively advocating for a 13th amendment to the

constitution that would end slavery everywhere including the border states. one more myth to puncture. lincoln acted in a place where he had no authority and i've already addressed that because it was the military's order to make the proclamations good in those areas. he did not have the power to free slaves in the border states that were still loyal to the union. they were protected by the constitution. and that is why lincoln first tried to make a deal with them, to purchase slaves because he believed strongly that it was cheaper to buy slaves than to wage war which was true. and then second, when that failed, he went on to the amendment process. all very controversial at the time. but the proclamation did indeed have an effect. host: 150 years ago since the d.c. emancipation and it's been 148 years since abraham lincoln died. guest: and 148 years this month as well since he went to richmond, virginia, and actually had strangely enough, his only

encounter with what you might call slaves who were freed by the emancipation proclamation, visiting richmond with his son on his birthday, he encountered a group of dock workers who literally had been officially freed when richmond fell to the union only a few days before. they surrounded him. they knelt to him and he said you must not kneel to me. you must kneel only to god and to thank him for his freedom. one of the odd things is how insulated lincoln was from actual african-american people. and it was tragically since he died 11 days later, it was the only real encounter he had where he could see and feel the impact of that document. host: as you point out in the book, great pros in the declaration of independence and the u.s. constitution, these are the words of the emancipation proclamation as issued on january 1, 1853, which was the -- which came up as a result of the d.c. emancipation "by virtue of the power of the presidency, i do order and declare that all

persons held as slaves within said designated states shall be free and upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the constitution upon military necessity, i invoke the considerate judgment of man kind and the gracious favor of almighty god, president abraham lincoln." guest: steve, you make it sound great. but i would also add that the last part, that actually does sing a bit was written by william seward and suggested by lincoln because he felt that the proclamation was so dry and so legalistic that it would sort of fall like a dud before the american people. he thought it should have some resonance and some poetry. lincoln, if left to his own devices, thought this document should be legally perfect. that it could not be challenged in any court of law where the courts functioned. he looked ahead and thought of the 1864 election which he might

lose. he wanted slaves as the document said to be then, thence forward and forever free, and he needed the kind of legal perfection that would not be challenged in a local court, a federal court or the supreme court where roger tommey, the chief justice as ancient as he was, about 85 at the time, still reigned and showed no signs of leaving and that was going to be -- this is the guy who wrote the drake scott decision that said that african-americans could never be citizens. so he had a fine legal line to walk and, unfortunately, the reputation of the proclamation has suffered a little bit because it is so legalistic. host: to our radio audience, nationwide xm channel 119 streamed on the web, our guest is harold holzer, author, historian, 42 books on abraham lincoln. his latest on the emancipation proclamation. frank is on the phone from new castle, pennsylvania. good morning, thanks for

waiting. caller: thank you for taking my call and thank you for having mr. holzer on. i consider him to be the premier lincoln historian. guest: thank you. caller: my question. i'll give my question very succinctly and then i'll try to give the reason why i'm asking it. my question is -- is your opinion about the efficacy of the war powers clause as a legal basis for the emancipation proclamation. now, let me give the reason why. 94 years after lincoln died, the united states supreme court in the case of youngstown chietan two was wrestling with president truman's decisions to take over the steel mills during the korea war and the steel mills were threatened with a strike. at that time, the united states supreme court mentioned lincoln's emancipation proclamation, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and all these other acts he did

under the war powers clause, and questioned his ability to do that in the constitutional way. now, i can understand the rational because during the civil war, slaves were considered property. they weren't -- i know it's difficult for us today to appreciate that fact. but that's -- that was the legal status of the black person who was a slave during that era. and lincoln could not give freedom to the slaves without compensation because that would be taking the property without due process. and i know that's rather convoluted in the sense that we don't consider human beings property but given the dread scott decision, that's the way it was. now lincoln himself had said, this is a quote. he said "i felt measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful but by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution through the preservation of the union." and he used the war powers

clause as a rationale for this emancipation proclamation. my question again, just to restate it is what is your opinion about the legal basis for the emancipation? and i'll take my answer off line. thank you. guest: frank, thank you. i think it wasn't convoluted, you are right on point about the fact that lincoln and the public had to accept the fact that he was greatly broadening executive power and basing it, of course, on the constitutional out clause which is in the legislative part of the constitution, the legislative section. that the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus could be suspended in times of revolution and war. lincoln expanded on that hugely to create what he called war powers and immediately after the attack on fort sumter, as you know, tested those powers by calling up the militia, by

committing federal funds for their support, and by instituting a blockade of southern ports which is, you know, all over the place in terms of constitutionality, recognition, the confederate independence and etc. in the end, lincoln felt he had to do what he needed to do constitutionally or otherwise to save the constitution itself. and i think no one ever put it more succinctly to the american people because it is a tough subject as you've said, than lincoln did in his famous letter to the albany democrat in 1863. he questioned arbitrary arrests, military tribunals and he said, you can -- you would never kill a person to preserve his limb but many times in this sad world, we have had to sacrifice a limb to save the body. lincoln was willing to sacrifice a liymph limb of precision in o

win the war and no executive had ever assumed so much power as a commander in chief and it has been a matter of debate ever since. host: jean is on the phone from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning, mr. holzer. good to see you. would you please address the impact of the radical republicans, the abolitionists and the articles in president lincoln in his issuance of the emancipation proclamation. guest: good question. i don't think people realize as we have become increasingly to lionize the advance views of the so-called radicals and abolitionists how small a minority they were in the 1850's when the slavery crisis came to a head. how they were -- how they were shunned. how they were mocked. and how people didn't even want to utter the name of abolition. in fact, when it came to d.c.

emancipation which the anniversary we're celebrating today, lincoln used the word abolishment. he didn't like the word abolitionist because it brought up painful memories of the violence that abolitionists and, of course, slave owners had engaged in for so many years. undoubtedly, they were influential. lincoln came to admire people like garrison. he certainly admired henry ward breacher, the preacher from brooklyn who famously advocating purchasing slaves and liberating them in brooklyn. he came to admire and befriend the most famous african-american abolitionist of the 19th century, frederick douglas. i would say on the provocative issue of greeley, that's a little bit different. i don't think his articles really influenced abraham lincoln. i think lincoln was two or three steps ahead of his old congressional colleague horace greeley. when greeley wrote his famous

editorial in the summer of 1862 saying that lincoln was strangely and disasterously remiss for not issuing a proclamation sooner, lincoln just sprung at that letter and wrote a famous reply saying my paramount object in this struggle is to save the union. what i do about slavery is to save the union. what i do -- i'd treat all slaves, no slaves if it would save the union. president lincoln thought it was a perfect opportunity to couch the proclamation that he had already written and was simply waiting for an opportunity to issue and he just used greeley and when greeley read that answer that he was so smart that he didn't give it to greeley in order to publish first. he gave it to a washington paper to publish first. a little pushback at an old part. old abe was too smart for me. they either had a security

relationship more on which in a couple of years with the new book i wrote. host: your day job is senior vice president museum of art in new york city. our guest is harold holzer. one of the viewers saying is there any connection between the slavery crisis and why washington, d.c. continues to be refused statehood by congress? guest: well, there is somewhat of a connection and that is in 1830 or so, congress had been given the authority to manage d.c. affairs and that's why congress had the unique opportunity to free slaves in washington, d.c. which they could not have done for the rest of the country including the border states unless they passed a resolution by 2/3 vote that they ultimately did to send a new amendment to the constitution so that's why congress struggled and took a six or seven months to do this -- to create this bill. there were only 3100 slaves in washington, only. and i'm not minimizing their

suffering. 3100 slaves in washington when this act was signed by abraham lincoln. most of them were freed, not all of them by the act because owners had to petition for their freedom. they had to be judged by a panel, one really ugly irony, they needed a judge for the claim and they didn't have any in judgment. the slave trade didn't exist here anymore. so they imported a slave trader from maryland to be sort of the judge and jury in these cases and he sat on a commission and the owner would come in with a slave and say this is my slave. he's a good carpenter and he's a nice man and he would get $300, $500, $400 and he would be free. host: many of those slaves built the u.s. capitol and there's a marker inside the capitol now commemorating that. guest: at long last and no doubt the white house, too. even earlier. host: our next call is terry from baltimore.

good morning. caller: good morning. with all respect to the previous caller, there is one case in american law where human beings aren't treated as property and that's in the abortion laws and if you think i'm kidding, read the arguments against fetal rights. the question i have for you, dr. holzer, is to what extent was lincoln's movement on emancipation influenced by the military situation in the early 1862. it's kind of ironic that if mcclellan had taken it to the south and surrendered in may or june, it doesn't look like the emancipation proclamation would have been proved and i'll hang up and listen to the rest of your response. host: thank you for the call. guest: i think it's a very valid and painfully ironic point as you suggest that lincoln had to walk a fine line, not appear too desperately militarily to have the power to issue a proclamation that would be

respected but also desperate enough, frankly, to impose an executive power as commander in chief. executive order as commander in chief on an area that was in rebellion and not really listening to his words. it is true, i think, if richmond falls in the spring and early summer of 1862, there might not have been emancipation as quickly. but lincoln, i think, is beginning to understand that something that the south will never be able to be admitted under the status quo and develop a delicate situation indeed and lij on had to walk a very fine line to make it happen. host: harold holzer, if you were one of the owners of those 3100 slaves, how were you compensated? where did the money come from? on average, what was the compensation? guest: the congress created a fund of about $900,000 to buy the 3100 slaves. and if any of them would pick up on the bill's incentive to relocate and to leave the country.

nobody took advantage of it. and i think it was just a token so that, you know, mostly racist america did not become outraged by this bill. the average was about $300. and so the $900,000 was spent. this only applied to loyal slave owners in washington. washington was a very hostile to lincoln at the beginning of his administration. slave owners had to file a loyalty oath. within 90 days as the bill promised, then some slaves came in under a supplemental piece of the legislation to claim their own freedom. and about 85% of the final slaves, the last slaves who were impacted were in fact liberated. this has been nicely handled by a colleague of mine named

kenneth winkle on a civil war washington blog called civilwardc.org. very good blog entry on the statistics and as he points out, these are only 1/10th of 1% of the slaves in this country. yet, if you read the press response, it's -- it's as big as the emancipation press response because this is the first time that the congress and the president of the united states have acted to emancipate slaves after hundreds of years. in deference or resistance or worse, on the issue of slavery. it was immediately seen as the tip of the enormous iceberg. fateful metaphor today. host: a lot of iceberg metaphors. from the book, the words of harold holzer. he writes it was meant to stir public sentiment, the emancipation proclamation and the d.c. emancipation, it was remarkably short on sentiment itself. one thing is certain, lincoln never doubted himself or his document and yet, the word free appears but three times.

jamie is on the phone from cosby, tennessee. good morning. caller: yes, sir, thank you. i've watched and is abraham lincoln was one of the best presidents he never had. what he had to do so what the war was fought over was money. i believe if memory serves me correct the people in the united states were in new orleans. new york had the money. ok, so they got lincoln in there. lincoln was a good man and he did what he had to do, living in the bubble is not right. host: thanks for the call much the battle between the south, new orleans and the north new york. two business financial centers, new orleans and new york city.

guest: there's no question at the beginning of the war, in fact, even as lincoln passed through my hometown of new york city en route to his inauguration, the mayor fernando wood was seriously exploring what he thought was an option which is to have new york city succeed from the union, too, and become an international port that can continue to maintain profitable cotton trade so no glory in new york in those days. on new orleans, an interesting irony to the proclamation and that's since new orleans fell so early, its parishes were exempt from the proclamation. the emancipation proclamation only fell to areas of rebellion. he began working to do emancipation for all of the state.

enormously complex legally. host: dwayne is joining us from michigan. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you doing? guest: fine, thank you. caller: i have a couple of questions for you. i wondered do you know during the research that lincoln ever meet john brown? did they ever meet each other? and i was actually in doing the research did lincoln have any slaves? and also want to know do you think that by blacks by law being forced not to be with a white, do you think it's affecting them today? guest: he never met john brown. he took pains to a that john brown was an anomaly and not a real republican and not indicative of what republicans wanted. they were totally separate. no, lincoln did not own slaves. that's a question that comes up every once and a while. another friend of mine wrote a book saying "did president

lincoln own slaves or other myths about president lincoln"? his wife grew up in a household that had slaves and she was raised by an african-american woman who was an enslaved domestic at her home. that could be how that rumor started. i don't think i'll get into the hereditary question but there's no doubt that they -- forcing -- forbidding enslaved people from learning to read or write was a horrendous act of sort of intellectual violence that had repercussions for generations. host: one of our viewers saying speak to us about the coming slave revolt before the emancipation. what was president lincoln facing from the slaves, if anything? guest: there's no question that slaves were leaving their plantations because they were managed mostly by women in the age in the south and that there was "a problem" meaning that these people had no status

except what was called for, they had no legal status and lincoln needed to create a status for them. i think that was part of the issue. host: in your book, you write although lincoln remains among the most widely portrayed images in our history, his image persists in paradox. heersz here's the man that performed the deed and was not immune from what it stimulated. guest: he's not immune. one of those proclamations he signed, it's a delicious irony, i would say, is hanging in oval office now. and a couple of years ago, president obama brought the veterans of the civil rights movement to washington to see the leland volker copy of the proclamation in the oval office. it's right in the beginning. no, in the front of that section. television in action. oh, well. host: continue.

guest: so is there time for one more? the day that lincoln signed the proclamation, ever the alert editor, he found a typographical error in the proclamation and had it reinscribed by a clerk. so by the time he got hold of it on january 1st, african-americans had been in churches, in camp gatherings waiting for this news for hours and they were seriously wondering what on earth is happening? is this going to happen? and lincoln finally got up to his office, took out his pen and put his pen down in front of witnesses and picked up the pen and then put it down. and people wondered is he changing his mind? there was some -- i've been shaking hands at my new year's reception for hours and my hand has no feeling in it. if i sign and the signature looks tremulous, people will think i hesitated and i don't want that to happen so he massaged his hand back into -- into operative status and then signed abraham lincoln and

looked at his signature and said there, that will do. host: harold holzer, his book is "emancipating lincoln." thanks for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern time, 4:00 for those of you on the west coast, among our guests is the managing of the hill newspaper and the shiner of roll call. it's a back to work week for congress. we'll be talking about taxes with nina olson, the i.r.s. national taxpayer advocate. and also some news from afghanistan over night. in case you missed it from the news this morning, taliban has confirmed it's launched a series of coordinated attacks against seven sites targeting nato he headquart headquarters parliament and other residents. at least two of the attackers so far, according to associated press have been killed. five others wounded in the kabul attacks and a taliban

spokesperson claiming responsibility saying in a statement that scores of suicide bombers were assaulting the capital and three other provinces in afghanistan. the story that we'll continue to follow and have more tomorrow morning on "the washington journal." thanks for being with us on this sunday. i hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]