is worth the hassle. yes, granddad it. yes. he would look through the program and said, i see you are not suit up to got a. you are just thank you, i am out of here. of our prime time. plus a commencement speech from elon musk. it is all starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> coming up tonight on c-span, vice president biden speaks before the national education association, the nation's largest labor union. and it panel of reporters review the supreme court's term.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> vice-president joe biden and his wife spoke with the national education association. this is 40 minutes. [cheers and applause] >> welcome! are you ready for a great day? i endorsed and the lines were better, yes? i was just thinking -- if a vice president biden wants to return as the reelected vice president of the united states, we know

how to do it right. [applause] now it is my great honor to introduce a very special guest. actually, she doesn't really seem like a guest at all. she seems more like family because she is a lifelong indicator and a former member of the national education association. [applause] most americans know jill biden as the second lady. but we also know her as dr. vicodin. she received her ph.d. from the university of delaware and she wrote her dissertation on maximizing student retention in community colleges. when we talk about access and equity in education, we

understand the critical role that community colleges play in meeting those needs, especially for those students who are trying to balance education, work, and raising a family. dr. by then and -- dr. biden understands those students very well because she raised her children and received two master's degrees at the same time. [applause] we could ask for more committed advocate for community colleges and public education in general. it is a great honor and pleasure to introduce to you our friend dr. jill biden. [applause]

>> thank you. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. good morning, everyone. you guys are rocking early. thank you for that kind introduction. it is so great to be here. i love being in a room of fellow educators. i just feel right at home. [applause] for those of you who don't know me, have been a teacher really for longer than i care to read it. i taught as a reading specialist in public schools and i tutored at risk teens at a psychiatric hospital in delaware. for the past 18 years, i have been a community college instructor and i teach english at a community college right here in northern virginia. [applause]

i remember when the president and my husband were elected almost four years ago. as i was thinking about how i would approach my role as second lady, you one thing was for sure. i knew that i would find a way to continue to teach. [applause] thank you. i know that you all understand being a teacher is not what i do. it's why am. [cheers and applause -- it's cool i am -- it's who i am. [cheers and applause] there is no greater feeling when a student grasps the concept i'm trying to teach. i know i am giving them the confidence that will make a real

difference in their lives. like you, i see every day how important education is in the lives of all americans. i see how good education can put kids on a path to success. i also know from experience that, while teaching is rewarding, it is also challenging. and i can assure you that this administration is working hard to support education, to support teachers, and to provide real leadership in our schools. [applause] i can also assure you that a lot is at stake for students and teachers and for the entire middle class. the president and the vice- president have both been teachers and they know that a

great school starts with great teachers. [applause] so i want to thank you all for being here today and thank you all for the work that you're doing in your classrooms each and every day. and now, it is my great honor to introduce a man who has been an advocate for education and for teachers his whole life, my husband, our vice president, joe biden. [cheers and applause] >> how are you all? [cheers and applause]

it's nice to be with people you understand. ladies and gentlemen, my name is joe biden and i am in love with a teacher. [laughter] [applause] 0, and my love with her -- oh, am i in love with her. you know, i was told by a news commentator when we did an interview on valentine's day, this commentator from one of the networks says -- people say you and your wife have a love affair. i said, yes, but kelleher more than she loves me -- but all i love her more than she loves me. and he looks at me and says, yes, that is what everybody says. i did a three-part series on what makes marriages last the longest unhappiest. what was the conclusion?

she said when the husband loves the wife more. so i will be married a long time as long as i am alive. ladies and emtman, look, dennis, i read your speech today for real. [laughter] and as usual, it was first rate. and it forced me to change my speech because much of what you say expressed the sentiment i was trying to express, except you expressed it better. there have always been debates. i need not tell this very prestigious audience that there has always been a debate on how to improve public education. we have always debated, democrats and republicans, usually with the same objective, how to improve public education, universal education in the most heterogeneous democracy in the world. and we talk about and debated over the years that i have been

engaged about early education, its value. what can you do? does it matter? what is more important, early years or later years? how we allocate our resources, about classroom size, whether it matters or it doesn't. about subject competence of individuals in the classroom, about the need for quality facilities, from laboratories to test, moving from dilapidated buildings. we have argued and atreus has been written about how much these things matter, about standards. in nearly part of my career, with but we shouldn't demand particularly high standards of kids from populi difficult circumstances.

and decided, no, we should demand high standards from everybody because everybody has the capacity. today, it has changed as the social mores changed and the nature of the family changed. always, it was about how do we make public education better. i have always been guided by my mom's assertion, literally, when she would say children tend to become that which you expect of them. children tend to become that which you expect of them. [applause] and those debates didn't usually break down in terms of democrat and republican. they broke down in terms of the communities you live in and the region in the country that you live in, what was more

appropriate and what wasn't more appropriate. but, ladies and gentlemen, today, we're not dealing with your father's republican party. this is a different party. [applause] this is a different party. neither that nor good, just different. a different party. look, folks, let me get straight to the point. you guys, educators, teachers -- you are under full-blown assault. [applause] romney, governor romney and his allies in the congress, their plan for public indication in america is to let the state choose title $1 to boost enrollment in private schools. i think we should have a straight honest to god talked about the difference between -- [applause]

the difference between how president obama and i view education and how our republican colleagues today view it. again, i want to make it clear. a lot of you know me very well. by the way, where is delaware. [cheers and applause] hello, delaware! i am not prejudiced, but they're probably the best indicators in the room. [laughter] [applause] ladies and gentlemen, very seriously, governor romney is a good decent man pinned he is a good family man. i think his intentions are all positive. i don't make any moral judgments. i don't judge motive. i assume, with good reason, he cares much about america and the education system, as much as i

do. but the truth of the matter is that we have a fundamentally different view. and when i said that he would like to take title 1 money and give it to the states and let them use it to increase the voice of private schools, strip you of your voice because he doesn't think that you all know much about how to educate, and he characterizes you and his allies characterize you as not caring about -- not caring about the students, but about yourself. my jill is little when she says that teaching is not what she does. it's who she is. [applause] these guys don't get that. i don't think they don't understand why you chose to teach in the first place. [applause]

i honest to god don't think they understand. and by the way, like in politics, in business, religious hierarchy, there is really good teachers and there is really lousy teachers. there is a really lousy teachers and some plain good teachers. we are no different than any other profession in the world. but we are a profession. [applause] we are a profession! this is a calling. you chose to be teachers because you care. you choose to be teachers because you want to make this country better. you chose to be teachers because you know every child -- every child is entitled -- entitled to go as far as they can! [applause]

that is why you did it! afraid theaid -- i'm governor and his allies, they don't get it. they don't get why you chose this profession. i'm not even sure -- i won't say that -- they don't get it. [laughter] and look, folks, your critics either call you or imply that you are selfish. that all of this is about is an easy ride. that all this is about is you. as if you're not part of the community, as if you decided to teach for fame and fortune that you get from teaching. [laughter] ladies and gentlemen, when a parent isn't there to pick up

his or her child after school because their car broke down or some other reason and you have a doctor's appointment, what do you do? you call the doctor and say i cannot be there. i am staying with this child. [applause] getss your neighbor to watch your own child at home so you can stay with each other in class who is having trouble passing that english class and you know they won't make it it'll pass. [applause] have watchednd i this -- if you leave the dinner table early to go to a home visit to emphasize to a mother who was under great stress raising her kids by herself that there are ways she can get help.

it's you! it's you! it's you who does that. [applause] and there are so many stores i could tell. i was up in york, pa. -- where is pennsylvania? [cheers and applause] their school district was flat stripped of money. the reason is the god awful recession they inherited and the nature of the change of the city of york. more power than it ever had before -- more poor than it ever had before. they have a contract that let them get a pay increase. but the teachers and all the school personnel got together and gave up that next year's raise in order to teach kindergarten in york, pa.

ennsylvania. [cheers and applause] and by the way -- and by the way, i am confident and i apologize for not mentioning the hundred other york's out there, for not mentioning what you guys have given up in the midst of this recession. ladies and gentlemen, your the same people who coach your team all week at school and then go volunteer at a little league field on the weekend. you're the same people who organize the fundraisers for the family whose house burned down and lost everything in the house because they didn't have homeowners insurance. you're the people in the community that people turn to.

you're the people who organize the bake sale at your church to raise money for summer camp. you were the same ones who go out and buy school supplies in some of your district out of your own pocket because your kids can afford it. -- cannot afford it. [applause] governor romney and his new republican party, instead of focusing on the things the connection help you do your job better, like making sure you have modern labs for chemistry and science, using equipment that these kids will have to use when they get to college or go out in the workplace, making sure that the kids have access to computers because it is the new tablets of the generation -- you cannot engage unless you're proficient in that technology. instead of going out and doing

that were giving you the flexibility you need to teach with creativity and passion so you're not just teaching to a test, giving you a seat at the table when we talk about how to improve education in this country -- instead of those things, what are they doing? critics will say i am being harsh. i will acknowledge there are notable exceptions. but there is a pretty uniform view held by mr. romney and the republicans in the united states congress today. they criticize you and the blame you. they make you the fall guy. they should be thinking of ways to help you make your job easier, not more difficult. instead, they hector, the lecture, and they blame you. and they call you selfish. let me just say this. they have a different value set

then we do. my dad used to say don't tell me what you value. show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. show me where you spend the money and i will tell you what it says. [applause] let's take a look at governor romney and the republican congress. show was their budget. they have voted on the budget they believe should be the budget of the united states. just with education, they cut $4.9 billion out of elementary and secondary education, which may result in as many as 30,000 -- 38,000 more teachers and aides losing their jobs. yes, they continue to exist on a 4 billion -- continue to insist on a $4 billion tax

credit for oil companies so they can drill. tell me which is the greater interest of america? they cut head start by as many as 200,000 kids losing access to quality education because we have increased the standards for headstart. all those studies have shown that early education is absolutely critical in dealing with this gap. they cut programs, as many as 9 million students will lose money. they deny work steady jobs to more than 125,000 students who need the help to stay in college. they refuse to help the state's put back to work over 300,000 educators as we did the first two years so you don't end up short-handed, short shifted, and

kids not getting what they need. [cheers and applause] governor romney eliminated the $2,500 tax cut that helps middle class families struggle to keep their kids in school. why do they do this? they do this -- do they think it improves education? do they think it improves our ability to compete in the world? do they think this will better position us to lead the world economy in the 21st century? i don't think so. i think they do this because they want to make sure they have enough room for a two dollars trillion tax-cut for millionaires -- for a $2 trillion tax cut for millionaires.

he proposes a new tax of two trillion dollars for those making a minimum of $1 million. as i said, this ain't your father's republican party. these people have a different view of how to move america forward. they have a fundamentally different value system than we do. just listen to governor romney and some of his republican friends. listen to some of the things they said. one said, "the government needs to get its nose out of the education system." and he compared stallone's to " stage three cancer -- he compared student loans to "stage three cancer." governor romney said, "i'm not pleased with what i read about in a plan to save 240,000

teachers jobs." he is not pleased? give me a break. [laughter] he's not pleased. with putting 240,000 teachers back in the classroom. in philadelphia, on his magical mystical tour, he told a group of teachers that class size doesn't matter. prompting one of the people, i teach a cassette, "you know, i cannot think of any teacher in the whole time i have been teaching come over 10 years, who would say more students would benefit them." [laughter] i cannot think of a parent that would say "i would like my teacher to be in a room with lots of kids and only one teacher." [laughter] when he was out at the midwest

speaking at a college, he said not long ago that these students had to be willing to take a chance. how? go home and borrow money if you have it from your parents -- if you have to from your parents. how many of you know who can go home to borrow money to start a business from your parents? [laughter] [applause] and he says the president is out of touch? [laughter] how many of you have a swiss bank account? [laughter] by the way, did you ever think you'd be choosing -- did you ever think you'd be choosing for

president one guy who has a swiss bank account and one who doesn't? if you really want to know what he thinks about the profession, if you want to know how fundamentally out of touch he is with what made you choose your profession in the first place, go to his website. here's what he says about you -- "when your cause in life -- but referring to law -- is preventing parents from having a meaningful choice or children from having a real chance, then you are on the wrong side." that is what he thinks of you. pretty astounding. your calls and life is preventing parents from seeing their kids have an opportunity for choice? your cause in life is preventing

children from having a real chance? is he serious? he is though. he is. i believe he believes what he says. that is why i believe they mean what they say about their budget. i have been doing this for a while. i cannot think of a candidate for president who has ever made such a direct assault on such an honorable profession. [applause] how many of your colleagues -- like i said, look, guys, you know me. there are some lousy teachers and you know it as well as i do just like there are some lousy businessman or some lousy bankers. but ladies and gentlemen, how many of your colleagues do you

know who entered the profession of teaching for any other reason than expanding choice, meaningful choice for kids? how many of you would trade a 5% bump when your salary for those kids to come up and look at you and say, mrs. jones, you change my life? [applause] how many of you know anything that pleases the teacher more than knowing that they help a kid with either an academic or deep personal problem and knowing that you saved them? [applause] because, ladies and gentlemen, the next generation that is well-educated will have the

freedom to choose. they will have a fighting chance to avoid some of the incredible difficult choices people have to make. 6 allen of 10 students, six out of 10 jobs in the next decade will require some sort of certificate degree after high school just to be able to compete. it is all about choices. it is all about opportunity. it is all about community. it's about america. it's about making america once again the strongest economy in the world. i know and you know that jill is right that any country that out-educate us will out-compete us. that is just the naked fact of life.

we are the only country that has had universal education for 100 years. every other country realize it is good for them, good for competition. what it comes down to creating an economy where everyone has a chance, where the middle class can live in the security that their children can do more, and reap even greater rewards. that is what i thought the system is about. and we have a fundamentally different view as to how to accomplish that then governor romney and his friends do. make sure that those at the very top have the greatest opportunities and somehow those so-called "job creators" will make everything ok for the rest of us, that everyone else will do just fine. it's from the top down.

he believes it. he truly believes it. but we believe that the way to build this country is the way we always have, from the middle out that is the way it has always been done. and when to do that is to invest in the things that have always made our economy grow, innovation, research, development, infrastructure, and education -- and education. [applause] and ladies and gentlemen, have a tax system where everybody pays their fair share. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, my conservative friends said that as well off and be -- that is wealth envy. think about this. in a jobs bill that we had, there was a part that would put 400,000 teachers, a teacher

date, cops and firefighters back to work. and the way we pay for that is we said we will pay five tenths of 1% on the first dollar you make after your first million. according to the polling data, even the millionaire's thought that was fair. millionaires are just as patriotic as poor people. the very wealthy are just as patriotic as the middle class. but nothing has been asked of them in this her run this recession. [applause] it is time we just ask. let me conclude by saying that, when i talk about a middle- class, a lot of the economists -- not a lot, some of the economists and some of my friends on the other side talk about it like is a number. the debate whether it is 49,500 or 62,900, whatever.

for me, the middle-class is more than just a number. it is a way of life, a value set. it is about being able to own your own home and not just rented. it is about being able to live in a safe neighborhood where your kid can walk to a park and know they will be ok. it is about being able to attend a modern school that is well equipped and fully staffed where, if they do their part, the parents and the child, they can qualify to go on to school after high-school if they choose to do it. [applause] and it is about being able to have the certainty that commit your child is eligible, they will be able to go to college. that the answer to college should not be your income level. it should be your intellectual capacity. [applause]

do you know anyone, rich or poor, middle-class, that doesn't aspire for their child to have a college education? one of the parts of being the class is being able to help your elderly parents and to save enough money on your own so you won't have to look to your children for help. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, one more thing. to be able to dream about the possibility that your child will do even better than you did -- the neighborhood i was raised then, we were not poor. it was typically middle-class. i lived in a suburb in a 3- bedroom house like a lot of you with four kids.

and all the time we had a relative living with us. when my grandmother died, my grandfather lived with us when he had a stroke. that is normal. you know what? the way some of these guys talk about us, they think that somehow, when you come from that circumstance, our parents and we don't dream their kids could be millionaires, that our kids can be -- can have a fortune 500 company, that our son or daughter can be president or vice president of the united states. my mother never had a doubt that i could be viper -- that i could be vice-president or president of the united states. [applause] my mother and father never had a doubt that my brother could be a successful businessman. they never had a doubt that my sister valerie to do whatever she wanted. that is what being middle-class is. [applause]

and no group of people make it more probable or possible for someone to achieve and attain that did to kate -- to achieve and attain than educators in the united states of america! you are the ones! [applause] you are the ones who give them hope! you are the ones who give them wings! you are the ones! who inspire them, like somebody inspired you when you're in high school, when you were in college! none of us would be here in the position we are were it not for the teachers andhe help get to school and somebody caring about us. ladi a gentlemen, you know,

one of my favorite poets is william butler yeats. here's what he said about education. he said education is not filling a pale. it's lighting a fire. it's not filling a pail. its lighting a fire. and you can see it when the flame goes off in that students size. you can see it and feel it. it's kind of like electricity. it is the thing that makes you do what you do. it's the thing that makes everything you do worthwhile. it doesn't always happen. but when it happens, there is no feeling like it. that is why you are educators. that is why you do what you do. that is why you're so important. so it is time to live fire! blighted fire and tell these guys we will not settle indication! we will not trade off education for their priorities!

we will be the best educated nation in the world! god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you! [applause] [chanting] >> four more years! [applause]

[cheers and applause]

>> wednesday on "washington journal," our guest is major general david berger, commander of the first marine division in afghanistan. then edwin fuller, president of the american heritage foundation. later, a look at the freedom of information act with john wonderlich. and steve redisch talks about his organization's goals. >> bartow least trip makes -- he spoke with a lot of people and explore the countryside and he

wanted to understand what makes americans stick. and he was surprised by a lot of things that he saw. he had read that americans were individualistic and he actually saw us as much more collectivist. it seems kind of hard for us to imagine that, but he saw the united states as a group of people who like to form associations, who wanted to always be with other people. he saw of the french, after you went to the united states, he saw the french as the individualists and the americans as the more social people. from that, he concluded that he would put up this colossal statue and it would have to say something to people who understand -- who understood themselves as a big group, as a society, as a kind of collective entity. >> you can watch this whole event as part of our july 4

prime time. it also includes a discussion on how social media has changed news coverage. then commencement speeches from new york mayor cory booker and elon musk. it is all starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> this weekend, head to the state capital named in honor thomas jefferson with book tv and american history and tv in jefferson city, missouri. a butcher's bill, a business contract, provisions less from ancient mesopotamia to the university of missouri special collection, the stories behind eight miniature babylonian clay tablets. and sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv -- 9 >> at one time, 1967, this was called the bloodiest 47 acres in

america. former warden takes you through the state penitentiary. once a month, c-span is local content vehicle explores the history of literary life of cities across america. this weekend, from jefferson city, saturday and noon and sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2 and c-span 3. >> next, a panel of journalists who covered the supreme court discuss the courts just- completed term. over the next hour and 40 minutes, they examine the court's decision on health care and other cases. >> i am the legal director of the aclu and an amateur court watcher. next to me is adam liptak.

in 1992, he joined the new york times' corporate legal department, advising and lit skating on defamation, privacy, news gathering and similar issues. a decade later, he became a reporter covering legal issues, including the confirmation hearings for justice roberts and alito. and an in-depth series on the contributions or political campaigns on the chicago hire supreme court. his work has also appeared in "the new yorker," "vanity fair," "rolling stone," and many others. next to him is david savage who is there longest tenured supreme

court reporter. he has been with the "the los angeles times" since 1981. he has covered the courts since 1986. in recent years, he has been " the chicago tribune" supreme court reporter. he writes a monthly supreme court called for the american bar association draw and offers jarrett -- offers little commentary in recently authored -- offers legal commentary. next to dave it is of barnes -- is bob barnes for "the washington post," originally covering maryland politics. it was the national political

editor for the first term of the clinton administration. he returned to reporting in 2005 and began covering the court in 2006. next to him is jesse holland with "the associated press." he began covering the court for the peak in april 2007. he has been with them since 1995, previously covering legal affairs and judicial nominations at the white house and on capitol hill. before that, he covered state capitals in new york, south carolina and other states. his book is "black man built the capital, discovering african-american history in and around washington, d.c." of weston 1997. today is his wedding anniversary. congratulations. at the far end, having arrived

just in the nick of time is joan biskupic. she has covered the courts since 1989. previously at "usa today" and before that covering the supreme court for " the washington post." and before that, as a legal affairs writer for " congressional quarterly." a long way, she earned her law degree at george the town -- georgetown law school. she is the author of two biographies, sandra day o'connor, the first woman on the supreme court became its first influential justice and the life and constitution of supreme court justice anthony scalia. i will make sure she tells us where she is, if anywhere, on her recent object.

altogether, as i counted, we have 64 years of cumulative supreme court reporting on our panel. and we should deal to get some interesting observations. before we begin, there are a couple of other preliminary reports. this panel has been sponsored by the d.c. bar section of the courts and the administration of justice which concentrates on matters pertaining to court, court rules, the relationship between the bench and the bar, and the relationship to the profession, including ethics and standards. it also focuses on including access to others. we're pleased to be co-sponsored by 11 other sections of the d.c. bar. those of you who are members of the d.c. bar or will be in a year or two, i encourage you. you have to join the bar.

i encourage you to join at least one section or more. there very interesting and have useful work. it is interesting to get involved in legal work in this community. my involvement in section for many years ago gained me access to moderate this panel. also, we will save some time, 15 minutes or so, for questions at the end. for those of you like to ask questions, you may be concentrating on what would like to ask the panel. we're being covered the second in by c-span. if you do what the back of your head or your voice on national tv, don't ask a question. [laughter] finally, there should be evaluation forms sitting on your table. if there are, please fill them

out and hand them out at the desk when you leave. if there nitre tables -- i don't see them -- then i guess there will be a stack. if you pick one up on your way out, maybe someone will come and ask to beat them burned program. the borrower is appreciating these evaluations. tony morrow who was listed on the advertisement to this panel, just in case anybody can just because they wanted to bsee ton, was without power and had something urgently to be done at this house and senate is regrets and apologies that he could not make it this year. but let's focus on what is on everybody's mind. who is talking to john crawford over at cbs and what is the inside story on the health care decision? i saw on this morning's papers that they had articles.

would anybody like to start out talking about this rapidly developing inside story? >> a think we have established that i am the junior member on this panel. i am sure that some of my senior colleagues have much better sources than i do and i would like to hear their thoughts. >> let me second that motion. [laughter] >> whoever the sources for that story was quite unhappy with the outcome, right? it is very rare for there to be leaks about what happened inside the supreme court, particularly shortly after such a big decision. but there were padilla people on the right -- but there were a lot of people on the right who were shocked and angry about

what happened. there were quite upset with john roberts. dan crawford wrote a book about the court a couple of years ago and there are a lot of sources about the conservative members of the supreme court. and we know we're not talking about john roberts. [laughter] the phrase that she used was that resource had "specific knowledge of the court deliberation." does that extend as far as the spouse of a law clerk, for example? >> the spouse of a law clerk? >> yes. i am writing the majority opinion and you get to do this piece of the draft. you get to do that piece of the draft. so law clerks get told. >> i don't think that is a good

guess. joan? >> thank you, david. [laughter] let me define the word deliberations of the people understand the process behind .he scene prin some people may have been lucky enough to go through the documents that show that there is a conversation that is constantly thongoing among the justices. they usually do it by letter, by memo, this constant back-and- forth about not just the bottom line vote, but it is part one to the whole thing, the rationale. what i presume happened to get the conservatives so happy is that the chief justice john roberts probably left his options open as he presided over the conference about how he would go on the taxing power. we know exactly how he felt about the congress clause. he was very vigorous on rejecting that power.

and it is hard to imagine that an actual vote got switched because many of us felt that, even from oral arguments, that john roberts was laying some groundwork to uphold it and even laying some groundwork on the taxing power. he might have suggested to conservatives that he was open to that and was ready to reject it. i cannot even imagine how many drafts this might have gone through. it can even it -- it can easily go through two dozen drafts. probably by mid-may, the chief circulated a draft that showed where he was likely headed and it was not with the four conservatives on a rationale that would uphold it. we saw around that time a flurry of activity among conservatives in the press about how chief justice john roberts might be pressured in some way. was he being pressured by president obama?

was he being pressured in some way by pat leahy, which something i found completely implausible? the ideas that the chief justice of the united states was somehow pressured by outsiders, i think that just cannot hold up. but clearly, as david said, conservatives were unhappy with what he was doing it they saw it as a switch and vote. i think it is unlikely that he said from the start i would vote to strike this down and then, all of sudden mid stream, decided no. the opinion have all the makings of a june meeting. there were signs within it that there were some shifting in the rationale. but his opinion for the court was actually quite clear. he knew want -- he knew what he wanted to say.

>> you haven't read the opinion, you will be interested in the way that it is structured. most of what is the majority opinion is roberts pretty much speaking for himself. the descent from the conservatives reads very much like their own opinion that addresses justice ginsberg in little bit and does not address justice roberts as writing at all. it goes through all of the issues that were in front of the court, including several ability, which really shouldn't have come into play since the mandate was upheld under the taxing power. so it is a very unusual opinion,

i think. certainly from what justice ginsberg wrote, you would think that liberals on the court had won until thehan on very end. >> you can see the depth of the anchor going on upstairs in the supreme court. they are usually good about not letting any of us know what is going on up there. but now we hear leaks about the liberation. that is very rare. this is usually the kind of information you don't find out until 20 years later. but we're finding out a week after the decision. so there's really some anger in that building. >> i am curious about what you all think is meant by the carefully chosen phrase "specific knowledge of the deliberation." >> would you assume that? -- why do you assume that?

>> if she meant to tell us it was a justice, the direct knowledge, she leaves ambiguity. >> lots and lots of people knew this, which is a way to protect your sources. >> one thing that is really dangerous is to try to parse the exact meaning of the reporters were without asking a reporter. all we know is the >> would you are doing what sources europe to be specific enough to show what you were doing. >> is their widespread suspicion on this panel that she as fur from justices themselves? >> it would not be right to speculate.

>> so no speculation here. it seems like almost every commentator but i have read or seen assume this was a political decision one way or another. the liberals are happy that reviews their liberal decision. is it possible but he called us to sort it? >> would receive the permission of a political decision? >> a decision made for reasons outside the law.

presumably a lot professor ensconced in the cut -- academy. >> i do not think it is a political decision the way you are -- i think roberts had the view and the court had a duty to uphold the law of congress if there was a constitutional basis for doing so. he did not think it could be upheld under the commerce clause which was the way it was argued mostly. he did not think medicaid could be held as a mandate for the state. i do think he thought it could be upheld as a tax. that it was a reasonable way to decide this case. they have not struck down such a regulatory law since 1936.

it does not strike me as political heat, but as what he thinks he should do which is give the laws the benefit of the doubt. there is a constitutional basis for upholding his them, he would vote to uphold them. >> this was the major plank of a democratic president. the signature of the achievement of his domestic agenda. it was already a high hurdle in times of -- in terms of, do you differ to congress? we are sitting here before a bunch of lawyers and law students who get that maximum of a judicial decision making. and i do think it has served several purposes for john roberts.

>> i give him the benefit of that doubt to. i wonder whether you guys as people who cover the supreme court think it is part of your job to stay and in what to print, maybe he actually did call it as he saw it? >> that is when you cover it the decision and give the reasons for why the court said it did what it did. i think the reactions that it was a political -- it was all from the left at first that this was going to be a political decision now it is all coming from the right. these are reactions that this is

a very divisive piece of legislation. the public is very split on it. we have a poll out today that it is almost exactly even for the people think the court did the right thing and the wrong thing. that does show that it is something that is pushed and should be pushed into the political realm. if people want to overturn it, they know who to vote for. >> one point about polls -- 41% of americans do not know there has been a health-care decision. [applause] [laughter]

>> we were under enormous pressure, and i think it worked out great. my first analysis walked through exactly the points you were making. if there is a plausible basis on which to uphold the statute that is susceptible to multiple interpretations, it is the duty to defer to congress if you can. >> if you look at this decision and were not following it closely, based on what we thought going in, you might say that eight of the nine voted as you would have a boat -- a guest.

the other republican justices voted to strike down that law entirely. only one and justice voted in a way that you would not have guessed. a republican appointee, and a relatively conservative justice voted to uphold the law. it seems to me that the last person who should say it was political is john roberts. >> there is another piece about this lot that my guess is a very few people around the country debt as a legal matter. that is when the massachusetts

passed a similar law, there was no constitutional lawsuit as far as i know. everyone at this table knows the difference, and he went to some pains to explain that difference. is that something that any of you have written about in the course of covering this issue? >> i recall doing a piece on justice kennedy's perception of liberty as something of baked into the federal structure.

i do think that distinction it came up, but maybe not enough i do think most below could articulate the limits on what that might be. >> every time i wrote about it i would get an e-mail about someone making that point. why is it ok to mandate car insurance? i would write back that the federal government has different powers than the states do. >> if you make the point about how much do we explain or not explain, and often we are limited in terms of what we believe the public's appetite is for a case. in this situation, almost all of

us wrote some heavy-duty things about the commerce clause and the taxing powers on the more popular political question there. people really had an appetite for all things healthcare. we had more of an incentive to this time around. it was so difficult to explain. >> we have all talked about this aspect. there has been more interested in this case than in anything i have ever covered at the supreme court. i have been asked about it by

everyone i meet knows what i do. the appetite has been there for stories. both from the public and from editors. courts how much preparation did you have to do for this case? did you need to educate yourselves on how the affordable care act works? how deeply did you dig in on anticipation of this situation? >> i knew the legal issues and that is what i felt we needed to know. we have lots of people at the paper who do know a lot about how it works or will not work. this was another one of those

huge things. it became unmanageable almost. there was so much information there. there are millions of briefings on this. >> i do not think our practices are much different than the justices are. i do not read every single brief nor do the justices.

>> all of us had to figure out how best to be prepared. deedrick was how we be ready for what they are going to do many of us had to pre write different versions of what we thought would happen. we were surrounded by a sea of paper and it is a matter of what will be most useful to you when the time comes to distill the documents that we get. >> i thought this was interesting for many reasons i think most of us thought the court was likely to uphold the law because of the long

president on the commerce clause. i came out of the thinking they were going to strike down the entire lot. i went through a period of thinking that john roberts would not want to go along with striking down that entire lot. i remember saying to my daughter that i thought there were going to strike down the mandate and doubled the tax penalty. suppose congress passed a lot that required american families to have children or pay tax --

tax penalty. that has got to be unconstitutional. if you don't have children you pay higher taxes is sort of how our country works. i did write a story saying at but they're going to split the middle. >> what were your mornings like last thursday. how did the day go? >> i think they were dramatically different for two sets of us. some of us were in the court room which turned out to be a huge blessing.

that is old school. the rest of us were rushing around making mistakes. [laughter] one of the things that we did before monday is that we had set up a system where we had certain code words that we would use. we were literally standing no less than 10 feet a ways from where we were getting the opinion, all we want to get it out as fast as possible. i had an open line to our bureau waiting for the code words on what the decision would be. [laughter] it was really simple.

once we got to the correct part of the decision and we relayed the code words to each other. i wanted to be sure that i completely understood what he was saying. all this happens within a minute. we split up the decision. i should give the audience a little background. some members said in the press gallery which is on the left hand side.

usually they get up and leave when the decisions are finished being handed down. there is also a press room one floor below. as the decisions are handed out, the information office will pass out copies of the decision. there,re sitting down you can be on your laptop transmitting. they will not allow you to take electronics into the room. >> is that the usual practice? >> i think it is. >> this is the first thought i could remember as a very big decision.

the reporters who had the jump that day in the 1978 said it was a big defeat for affirmative action. it turned out to be not true. i want to go through each. and make sure i had counted the votes right. i thought there was a good chance that they might do it. it was nice to be up there for

history, but we wanted to post something quickly. i look at the syllabus and looked through it. there is always the danger -- i did not watch the tv coverage, but i take it there is always a danger of making a fool of yourself by being the first one up with the wrong story. >> as the chief announces his opinion, the whole thing takes only 20 minutes, but if you were sitting there about 2-out with when he got to his first conclusion, you would have left with just the commerce clause.

he spends all of that out and then moves out to the taxing levy. what helps you do while you're sitting there is digest all of the pieces. he gets to the point where he says that the medicaid expansion is struck down and on like david, i never expected that. then he immediately says there is a remedy. that is what it did mean. you could digested a way that is easier than they had to do it the press room.

the solicitor general must have aged 10 years during this process. [laughter] it was quite a roller-coaster ride. [laughter] >> about all of the criticism after the argument, does anyone want to? >> that is another fascinating story. everybody gave don a hard time, particularly the plotters on the left the were merciless.

anybody who follows the court knows that they cannot decide cases on that. if you look at how this law works, it is not a mandate. it is a tax law. it is one of those really interesting story is that everybody wrote about.

>> on thursday there reported that they had 866,000 people turned into their a live web site at that point. does that change would you do at all, the fact that people have direct access to the news that it -- as it is breaking? or is that such a different audience from yours that it does not matter? >> we do it anyway. i also write the twitters site.

we just do it in a different way. >> people want things quickly and want to find out what happened. they want it alerts and twittered feeds. we had an hour-long meeting

about what the alert possibilities could be. we disposed of sang health-care upheld because we thought it would be a split decision and so we went with an individual mandate appellate court struck down. it is a terrific sight and resource for information. >> justice scalia did not have anything to said on monday. but he descended on the

immigration case in arizona up. let me start with david. he started covering the court when sculley are arrived. was this just normal scalia or was this a step beyond? >> i did write that i thought all supreme court decisions ended in late june with one of fiery scalia dissent. >> i can tell you when it started. at the end of his first term in

1987, it was at nine minutes of him complaining about where the court had gone on the independent counsel statute. he does have one just about every term. it was interesting that he would go outside of the record and complain about the hobos order on a young people who had been brought here for their parents illegally and undocumented. he did get a lot of negative press on it. i think he will still be doing what he does. >> i thought it was an early sign that things were going to go bad the rest of the week. usually it is not just one indecision. somebody has let him down in a big way.

there has been a lot of debate whether the dissent has helped or hurt his cause. the dissents were with the short scully of. -- pure scalia. he had some dissents that were a zingers. the downside is that you got the impression that he alienated some of his colleagues over the years. it would be interesting to see if there was any lasting divide between him and john roberts. >> the first oral dissent by justice coleco came in the

juvenile life without parole case. on like pre much every justice these days, he really was looking up most of the time. he excoriated the court for completely losing its anchors on the cruel and unusual punishment clause. was that a surprise? it affects a relatively small number of people and a bunch of juvenile who will get resentments and get a non mandatory life without parole.

it did not seem like the kind of one to me that would set someone off the way it's set him off. no juvenile can be sentenced to death no matter what. all that the most recent decision said is that you cannot automatically sentence a juvenile to a crime the. that does not sound like an especially radical decision. it seems to be in line with what judges have done since the beginning of time.

it is an interesting interplay who announced the majority decision. it is usually a lot of fun to listen to. she knew what was coming and he laid into her in a way that must have been unpleasant to hear. >> she has not learned the stoneface to look around the court as if it did not bother her at all. it seemed to bother her. it is interesting with that case too, it did not seem to be going that far from what the chief justice decided in a previous case.

the chief justice wrote at the time that they need to have the ability to look at individual cases and he was arguing against a blanket decision on that. it was a little this -- surprising that it got him so worked up. he was on the receiving end of that in his first term. >> i think he viewed as a matter of statutory construction that you had to file within 180 days. i think he was unaware until that day that she was going to file a dissent.

he basically suggested that they were blinded to the idea that women were being underpaid. he said that congress needed to step in and change the law. he found that a strange welcome to the supreme court. >> i was out of the country and did not see the decisions at the time. it strikes me that maybe after health care, those may have been the most important decisions of the term in terms of future litigation plea bargaining is involved in a 95% of all cases in the federal and state. did you report that as a

blockbuster case? did you see it as a case that will be viewed as very important in the future? >> we played it very big. i am not sure that as a practical matter we would know. it will not get a lot of redo's. as far as i know, there has been one case so far where someone has gotten out on this ground. it is a big deals symbolically. it brings the constitution back to a dark area on the lot.

almost all of these and on plea arrangements. it is an important point, but i do not know that more people will be affected by a statutory case. that will almost certainly affect thousands of people. >> i do think one of the surprising notes of this term if you look back on it is that the criminal defendants won most of the big criminal cases. this is not the norm. there is a drug dealer with a 9- 0 reversal who said the government cannot use a gps

device to track every one. there was the juvenile life without parole case, and the crack cocaine sentencing case. in all those instances, -- they -- for whatever it is worse, it is always a surprise when the bridge 40 of the big criminal cases, out where the defendant and up winning. in all of these cases, he was in

the majority and often with the liberals. there is a sense of fair play that has been offended when the criminal justice system imposes a disproportionate penalty. i think you have to take account of the message that was so strong and the arizona emigration case. it sent a really clear message to the state that this is a matter for the federal government. i thought it was a pretty strong signal to places like arizona will followed up with so-called copycat laws that there is only so much you can do. it could potentially lead to

some racial profiling, but that is far from clear that it could lead to that. i think you have to look at immigration, in terms of where they might go in terms of the federal government's power. >> i thought it was sort of a warning to be watching how this plays out. this might be ensigns of the jump the gun interpretation where everyone focused on the show me the documents decision. you need to read the opinion and get the music of it. >> this one sort of flew under the radar.

the court continued its trend on a really strong positions on the first amendment. that came out on the same day that the health-care case did. despite how despicable the language is, americans still have a right to say what they want to. they have said that it is a first amendment right to lie about whether or not you have a right to lie about the metal or not. it slid under the radar for most people. it took a while to iron out they

did not reach the first amendment question. the first amendment cases are so different than the other issues we have talked about. clearly they are ones that have caused some problems as they are figuring out where to go. this allows me to talk about microampere as an nba all-star. with my various more medals and things i've done earlier in my career. there was a ford justice plurality with the two justices coming up with a proportionality test that is hard to make sense of.

>> have there been any inside rumors as to what caused the justice came in to split from what would have otherwise been a solid majority on that? it doesn't seem quite right for that level. >> when she was a young professor, she did a lot of first amendment work. it is consistent with his concurrence. i promised that i would make you tell us what was difference from previous jobs. >> don't make her talk about that. [laughter]

this is more and -- the anatomy of nomination and politics. looking at the social and political appointment of our first hispanic justice and 2009. i track developments since the year of her birth and when latinos first became a collected -- protected class. it is mostly going to be a political book. i was working on it very intensely and getting a lot done well at usa today. my new job is a little harder to get behind. she is doing her own memoir. from the woman herself.

>> i hope it comes out in early 2013 so i have time to look at what she is saying. mine is more about political history. so you can await that. my work is not the quick at the keyboard type of work. my job is to step back and look at the broader trends. there is a sense that you have to fill a hole faster than you would for a newspaper all the time >> is anyone else working

on a book that they want a shootout? >> you did a buyer for free on the justice o'connor. what is she up to these days? >> she is always traveling. she said she did not even have time to read the statute. it turns out she was in the courtroom the week before. nobody knows when it will be handed down until the writing on both sides, or all sides in this case, is finished she could have suspected the way we did that it was going to come on june 28, but it made me quite nervous when she showed up.

the it wasn't on any big case. she is out there as a very active retired justice for the supreme court. john does such a good impression of her. >> justice stevens walked in and took a seat in the special guest area last thursday. he is doing very well at 92 years old are the kind -- current nine justices doing as well as he is?

>> one of the things i did before was covering a strom thurmond and south carolina. i am used to them staying around forever. [laughter] >> s.a. that no one willingly retires during an election year. i am assuming that no one is leaving this year or seems to be in bad health. after the presidential election, people start talking about retirements. >> the physical renovation of the courthouse has been going on for five or six years now. it must be nearing completion as that made a difference to the

court or the press? i assume it was a great improvement when that phase finished and you could move back into the building. i think it's still bugs the justice that he cannot walk into the front door. he brings that up as often as he can. it does not affect our job. >> it is an imperfect metaphor. >> if you look at the court building now, they are having to do repair work on the front from the earthquake. a lot of the front of the courthouse is covered with these sheets. they say they are putting up a scrum that will resemble the front of the courthouse.

>> the modernization it itself is completely done. let's spend a few minutes on the next term before i opened the floor to questions. the petition asking them to look at the defense of marriage case , we're all so we are likely to see some important voting rights cases coming up from dc. perhaps the same-sex marriages from california, so any thoughts on what next term is looking like? the case we know they have

taken is the affirmative action case from texas. we do have a court with five members who are very conscious of race related measures. this comes from a place with a very idiosyncratic admissions process. i will think that they will take the, the case -- the doma case. it only asks if the federal law has to track benefits in states where people are already lawfully married. it is only making the federal law concurrent with state law in an area where state law has

traditionally governed. that is a much simpler and easier case than the one of the proposition 8 case would defend. >> we should see if it will only be a texas case or a national case. i would bet that the white cases will win a somehow, otherwise they would not have taken it. the top-10 graduates of the high school of around the state have automatically been admitted to austin and. texas started using it as a race factor. as long as you have got it diversity through this one system, you can't go beyond it

to consider race. on the other hand, they could say that any use of race is unconstitutional. >> it is interesting how different it is around the country the constitutional amendment that allows using race and it is interesting if there is any legislature that would rule that you cannot use that in the legislature. >> since this is a little audience, texas has urged the

court not to take the case. they did not want the courts to go further on any sort of restriction on campus. after it was granted, taxes hired a lawyer who used to be a solicitor general, and the hiring of him suddenly upped the stakes in some way. it is going to be a very well thought case before the justices. they are making sure that it will come at this from a non ideological way as much as it could. >> his law firm was on the winning side of the michigan case.

he did a good job of luring through the particular case with the christian legal society. i agree that having to greg in the case makes it all the more interesting. >> let's open up the floor to questions. i am going to give up my mike. she will hold the mike so that you are able to be heard. >> with regard to the health- care decision, with the medicare part of the decision that was struck down, in my law practice ideal a lot with severely disabled children, and i have

announced that i'm going to be running for governor of virginia next year as a democrat. from a practical point of view, i do not see most governors turning down the medicaid expansion. maybe some states in virginia where a republican gets elected i could see that happening, but i do not see the majority of governors turning down that expansion. what is your thought? >> i would guess that the federal government will pay 100% of the cost for expansion. they may say that they do not want to do it on principle. you have to explain that you're turning down millions of dollars of federal funds to pay for the

health care to poor people. i would think as a practical matter, even if states did not like the expansion, that somewhere down the line if they're paying the cost, that they will take the money. some governors are saying that it goes down in later years and that is a budget buster. >> i also don't think it is a decision that has to be made at this point. this is a great divide. the state senate will take the money and the blue states say be our guest has to standing on principle and not taking the money.

wouldn't you possibly see an enormous emigration of old sick people from the states that opted out and the states that often in it? maybe the states that are losing -- >> you don't mean old? >> all people probably already have medical care. >> poor people, we're talking about people who make up to $15,000 a year. those people could lose out. i think they would be wise to move to a state where they could get medical care. it is hard to imagine over the long run that a state would turn down that type of money permanently from the federal

government. it is easy to say right now before we get any of the money that we do not want it. it is easy to see that a single state will say take our money. >> what i wonder more is if a lot of people will decide to opt out of the insurance purchase and pay the tax penalty. you can save yourself thousands of dollars a year by making that choice, and if you know you will get sick and buy insurance, why not save all that money and use it to have a better life in the meantime? >> people might make that choice and there are no penalties for it, but what you have at the end of the time?

if you put that money into a health insurance policy, at least you have that. it is a valid question of what people will do now that they have the choice. >> if i could have an extra $2,500 in my pocket and i was healthy, maybe i would rather have that knowing that if i get sick next year, i could buy insurance. >> thank you. >> in my mind, there is an inconsistency in justice goalie ed not looking at legislative history. it would seem to me that you can do one or the other. you would look at what somebody from a softer line of thought about the constitution would be different than somebody from new

york, and that was wondering if anyone on the panel could reconcile that inconsistency. >> we happen to have a soviet expert he goes back to the real deal. he goes back to the framers and what they said and wrote in the context of that era. he speaks on legislative history. it is not as contextual as the 18th-century information that you look at. it was not what was passed into law. all of the speeches you give on the floor, all of the artifacts of legislative history, they are not what get signed into law. the bill gets signed into law. he will look at the bill. the majority of the supreme court does have a high regard

for legislative history. >> i think the two things are perfectly reconcilable. he wants to know what the words meant. he also does not care what the intention of the framers were. he wants to know what the original public understanding at the time were. that is not very different from reading the plaintext of the statute. >> next. >> i have a question about the affirmative action case that is coming up. i want to hear a little bit about it. i heard potentially that the decision, justice roberts's position, he was potentially line himself up to strike down affirmative action. do you have any thoughts about which way justices might go? i would be curious to any insights you might have. >> i think justice roberts has made it clear that he has little use of affirmative action type

programs. remember that he wrote the decision in the seattle cases in which race was used as a way to balance out school populations. he was quite critical of that. he was held back from saying that schools could not use race at all by justice kennedy who was not ready to go that far. he came up with a sort of different test that could be used in this situation, but not that situation. it seems pretty clear that there are at least four very strong votes and then justice kennedy. >> we have four does this is going to court in recent years. almost none of that matters in vote switches. they were pretty much one for one. alito.at matters was the toled

the same group of five now tilts the other way. there is some reason to think that the affirmative action regime may go down. >> next. >> this is the fifth anniversary of a certain car. i happen to work on that particular opinion. one of the things that struck me recently in looking at cases regarding representation was the opinion of justice scalia. it is not traditionally a usable basis for opposing or drafting legislation, much less a judge in debt as a justice. i think justice warrant is

turning in his grave at that notion. he got fairness was appropriate. i wonder what thoughts you have about whether this achieve anything. i wonder if it has been lost -- the and effectiveness. there is a judicial standard which legislative districts could be formed. the other aspect is that it seems to be that brown versus board has also been put in the ashcan. there was a recent new york times article that indicated that racial segregation and the public schools of america is now

even greater than it was in 1954 from the looks of the nation as a whole. especially the urban schools. >> it is very hard to measure, the impact. i would guess that the 50 years since then, legislatures all around the country are more fairly -- it had a very broad impact around the country. it says the district should represent the people. the people that live in the cities, they should be represented in the cities and suburbs and not some other representative in a rural district.

>> that appears to be the answer. next question. >> hello. with the specific fall out from the narrow interpretation -- where they think that will come out? >> that is a good question for one of my colleagues. [laughter] my sense is that the commerce clause holding -- and there is a lot of controversy whether the five votes amount to a holding and if it has any teeth. there is reason to say no. the decision itself is about the was novel.

you would also think that those same congress would use the vehicle of this kind of mandates to be the sole justification for any law in the future. it may be that this great ruling applies to an old set. >> i think that might be right, too. the solicitor general -- the court a very much wanted him to give some living principle in the commerce clause. anything he came up with is that health care is different from everything else and health insurance is different from anything. there really is no other law like this. they was not particularly satisfied with his answer. that was the government prosecute. there is nothing else like this out there. >> on the spending cost side, i bet there will be a ton of

litigation about what conditions are ok and not. that had seven votes behind it. that opens up whole new field of constitutional law. >> it is interesting the criticism i have seen so far. from the republican side. i thought there would be a lot of optimism on the liberal side. the federal government has twisted the arms of the states to do things that the aclu does not like, for example. reducing the speed limit to 55. having every state have a megan's list. it is a long list of things the federal government twists the states' arms to do. >> justice breyer and justice kagen joined that holding. it was a surprise.

i thought it was a matter of how the law was supposed to work. i thought the notion was in the spending clause that we will give the state a certain amount of money for something, and if you take the money, you have to follow the rules. you do not have to take the money. i thought justice roberts was restating the basic principle. it has to be a deal that the states can say no to. the thing that came up in the oral argument, there is a hypothetical argument of, your money or your life. you do not have to pull the trigger. just holding the gun is the threat. arkansas can say, we are reluctant to do this medicaid expansion. it seemed to be the law was written. they can turn around and say, ok arkansas, you could lose millions of dollars if you do not go along with it. i think they have restored the principle that there has to be a

deal that the state can either choose to opt in and take the money and accept the rules or turn it down. >> i am pretty curious about the case the supreme court heard in february, i think it was. it went from being whether corporations can be held liable under the statute and now it is a matter whether he meant rights occurring in other countries could beat handled in the united states. i am curious about where you think the decision will go. >> to give you a touch more background, there is a law. it is very ambiguous. it seems to allow some kind of lawsuits for human rights abuses. some courts have said, including for human rights abuses committed by foreigners abroad against other foreigners. the case gets to the court on the very narrow question of, can you sue a corporation?

can use to a corporation for being accomplices in human rights abuses abroad? when a case was argued, some of the justices said, wait a second. why are we talking about corporations? and is a u.s. court jury dat telling the case that happened abroad? they're asking the larger question of whether the statute should have application. where is it heading? it seems that some people are interested in the larger question. the answer may become no. >> my question is about that improper reporting that was done early on in the health care case. law students learn early on you need to read the whole decision before you can decide what the

case is about. lawyers know that well. i am wondering within the press corps, will there be some new rules or standards that are adopted by some media organizations to try to prevent what happened from happening again? >> i will do reports of the court steps. [laughter] >> there has been a lot of talk of going forward and how to make sure that does not happen again. >> atop the occasional law school class. -- i taught the occasional law school class. anytime i tried to have them read the whole opinion, they would go out of their minds. [laughter] >> they should know what we are talking about beforehand. this was a very difficult,

complex decision to be able to read in a couple of minutes and digest. honestly, if you were sitting in the courtroom, you have to wait a long time to figure out what happened. those of us downstairs, we were able to flip through the decision fast and find the key words. but if you did not read the entire section, it is easy to see how that miss a could be made when you are trying to do this. >> i would give a shout out to our colleague. i asked him how he would handle this. will the house of out there are run the opinion to him? he said that he would get it himself and read it on the way. that worked well for him. he is a very smart and careful guy. >> he said the hardest part was not reading the opinion, but

getting through the crowd to the stand. [laughter] >> pete is terrific. there were not many tv networks when i was there. pete was in the best position to report this. he knows the court. he knew the case while. i feel bad for the people who are out there. they have got themselves in a bad situation of trying to say, we will be on the air live and report this instantly, when they did not even have a chance to read the syllabus. someone is calling out to them and saying -- someone higher up in it the organization said say, let's not try to beat everyone to report this. it will take a few minutes to read the decision. then let's go out and report it.

let's not get on the air live and try to beat everyone. >> the only part i would disagree with is that -- be our competition. that is what we do. but what of the things of the drill is first, get it right. there is no way you are going to read one bit of a supreme court opinion and get it right. you still want to be first, but you know you have to read before you can commit anything to paper -- i guess now, computer. >> for the historical record, does anyone know who was first with the correct headline? >> i can say that "the associated press" is handed out at 10:07. there may be some arguments about seconds. 10:07 at what?

but i can say we were not the first. >> [inaudible] i do think my colleagues came really close. >> i do know this much -- "the "rueter,"d press," and bloomberg were there. >> i think that bloomberg had it first. [laughter] >> on that note, i am sure c- span wants to keep to its schedule. thank you for coming. please come again next year. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> wednesday on "washington journal" an update on afghanistan, including the r ole of marines and dealing with the taliban. our guest is a major general david berger. and edwin feulner on his book, "making the case for american exceptionallyism." beginning live on wednesday, 7:00 a.m. eastern time on c-

span. >> people thought it was the place where "star wars" began. i started taking the techniques i have used in the tunisian and expanded on them and improve upon them until it got to the point where my twitter followers -- rather being in the studio and an ear piece giving me the latest info, i was sitting on a park bench with my phone. i could essentially do coverage and revolutions and fact check and a bunch of other things. >> you could watch this whole event as part of our july 4 primetime. it also includes a discussion on the history of the statue of

liberty. we will also have commencement speakers from elon musk, the founder of tesla. >> of the life of a sailor means scrubbing the deck in the morning, working on a sales, whatever the duties that are assigned. at the end of the day, you are ready for some rest. you do not get a full eight hours of sleep. it is four hours on and four hours off. >> the life of a man on -- >> it was always carried by a petty officer. the thing a sailor never wanted to see was a petty officer who is getting ready for a flogging. it is a phrase that is still used today, "do not let the cat out of the bag."

>> that is sunday. also, up more often "the contenders." sunday, the presidential candidate, al smith. >> and former ambassador to afghanistan, he is criticizing the obama administration for not protecting what he called an image of steadiness in afghanistan. he spoke at the brookings institute. this is 90 minutes. >> good morning. welcome to brookings. thank you for coming out on the third of july in these difficult times of commuting and the weather. we appreciate your commitment to

the afghan mission. we appreciate a commitment of the two gentlemen here and the men and women in uniform and civilian the time here. i am from brookings. we will spend the next 90 minutes talking about national development and the ongoing state of his agency's efforts and the carter mission in afghanistan. the way we will proceed is that alex will speak with some prepared remarks. then we will have a panel discussion and ultimately go with you. let me say a few words about these two remarkable testament. first, ron. he had a broken leg and rest. he thought through and continued his commitment to afghanistan. he was ambassador 2005-2007. he was also ambassador to two

other countries. his father had also been an ambassador to afghanistan in that 1960's. there will be ed trivia question at the end -- a trivia questino on at the end. our featured guest and opening speaker is alex. director on thee lead pakistan portfolio. he has a longstanding commitment to afghanistan and pakistan. in the 1990's, he worked with the united nations in afghanistan during the difficult times of civil conflict. he has been distinguished scholar at the u.s. institute of peace. he has commitment to many issues.

he has obviously a huge portfolio today with afghanistan still. a lot is about to change. we can be in today in the preparations for the tokyo donors' conference. a lot of people were paying attention to the nato summit in may. it is no less important than the upcoming tokyo conference next week. donors' money to talk about their current and long-term commitments to afghanistan and what strategies might back the ongoing efforts. alex, we are thrilled to have you here to keynote this topic. please tell me in welcoming him. -[applause] >> thank you. it is a real honor to be here. thank you for coming out.

i cannot help remarking that yesterday morning, we have a large and video conference with afghanistan to discuss our ongoing efforts to develop national gas and power project in the north of afghanistan. we almost had to cancel because of lack of power in washington, d.c. but really, it is a pleasure to speak alongside two people who have been indicated so much to keeping our engagement in afghanistan on track and honest and an eye to solving problems. michael stole my line. when you go to the embassy and you see the remarkable roads, maybe it is because of the moments, but the father and the signs are right below each other at the moment. that is a record of a multi- generational service and its perspective on the country. every time i see michael, i am

reminded of the incredible work he has done. particularly when i saw his work. incredible graphics that are run through the new york times for almost a decade. i think it is rare that you see a data set that is expertly presented. it can change people's opinions, if not thousands. it certainly did for me. we are in the midst of a political, economic, and security transition in afghanistan. to my mind, it will likely the future of the country and the region for decades to come. for this to succeed, it is going to require an enormous degree of sustained commitment. after 10 years for many people, that is asking a lot. first, this commitment has to come from the afghans and their leadership. but it also needs to come from

us and our allies in the international community. together, we must overcome the ghosts of 1991. at that moment, after about 12 years of international, intensive focus on afghanistan, it was a turning point. but it was the point when the world turned its back on afghanistan. they made a summit in chicago, the donors summit coming up in tokyo this week, the u.s.-afghan strategic partnership, are all about showing the afghan people and the taliban and the original actors and our allies, and indeed, our souls, that after another decade a joint action and investment, we're not leaving afghanistan to the wolves. the lessons of al qaeda and

extremism left unchecked is not lost. the stability of this region matters to u.s. foreign policy. this is what president obama said, "we are building an enduring partnership. the agreement we signed today sends a clear measurmessage to e afghan people. as you stand up, he will not stand alone. it establishes our cooperation over the next decade. we will combat terrorism and strengthen democratic institutions. it supports out in the commons -- developments. there be transparency and accountability. and to protect the human rights of all afghans, men and women, boys and girls." our relentless focus for the

past several years has been to get results from our investment of taxpayers' dollars in afghanistan and make them sustainable over the long term. in the last decade, we have helped afghanistan to develop more rapidly and reaching were deeply into a society than in any previous decade in their history. i realize that some of the commentary and reporting that is passing for conventional wisdom these days. let me repeat it, we have helped them develop more rapidly than any previous decade in their history. i know this because i first decided to go to afghanistan in that fateful year of 1991. for four years, i witnessed a civil war that was part of the systematic dismantlement of afghan society and state.

as a result, a decade ago, afghanistan ranked among the world's lowest for life expectancy and literacy, and the highest for infant and mortality. one-third of the afghan population were refugees. more were leaving. another third were dependent on food aid from the international community for their survival. half of the population, after an women, were about to be plunged into darkness and institutions by the taliban in 1996. over the last decade, we have invested approximately $14 billion worth of civilian assistance to afghanistan. this is a significant figure. but it is important to remember this is the equivalent of

roughly four-six weeks of the costs of our military campaign. let me give you a few examples of some of the progress we have achieved before going on to talk about what is happening next. there is a report that was available outside that we released recently. it outlines some of these things statistically. it talks about the results we have achieved. for example, gross domestic product through economic growth in afghanistan has been about a to-10% per year on average for the last decade. wouldn't we kill for those sorts of figures. per-capita income has risen, basically tripled, create millions of afghans out of property -- poverty. think of public health. life expectancy in afghanistan in the last decade has increased 15-20 years.

that is the largest increase in that time period. infant and child mortality have plunged below the previous highest in the world mark. over 60% have access to basic health care. a decade ago, only 6% had access. in 2001, approximately 900,000 afghan children almost exclusively boys, went to school. today the figure is over a million children in school. over 35% of them are girls. there are lesser known, but equally important statistics. if you look at energy, there were handout passed out. the number of energy connections in megawatts a bill in afghanistan has soared.

they now have 24-hour reliable power. we have worked with the afghan utility, which did not even exist five years ago. it has gone to only $40 million today. they are well on the path to sustainability. they have increased eight fold over the last several years. it has doubled in the last few years. if the afghans will sustain the progress, it will have to come from their own economy and their own revenues and their own private sectors. i want to say that by no means have all of these projects been successful. we are aware of that. we have tried enormously to learn from our past failures and

make significant reforms over the last few years in the way that we do business. i will not go into detail, but i encourage you to look at the report. a few things. in afghanistan, we issue the first sustainability policy. and to cars us to examine every single project that we do to ensure -- it requires us to examine every single project that we do. we issued something of accountable assistance in afghanistan. it has limited increase in betting for contractors and dramatically increased the level of staff an oversight that we have to make sure that we are safeguarding were taxpayer dollars are going. we have also signed on with other donors to some of the best and boehner practices that have emerged -- donor practices that

have emerged. bottom line, afghanistan, although one of the most challenging places in the world to do this kind of work, we have also decided to make it rather sure it the -- it is using the best practices or have the biggest portfolio. what i want to say is that this progress remains fragile. due to ongoing insurgency, lack of a political settlement, corruption, impunity, and institutions and is decided that remains a week after 30 years of turmoil -- and a society that remains weak after 30 years of turmoil --

i am often called to ask, what is normal for the people of of afghanistan? how did they see their own future? what is it that we need to do to break those patterns and overcome the ghosts of 1991? the din from the last 30 years, -- judging from the last 30 years, what you saw was constantly shifting sands. vaders., in bather they come, take their toll, and are swept aside. but i believe we have the chance to help them change this dynamic. this is the heart of what we are trying to accomplish in tokyo. tokyo is not just a conference. it is a process that has included a year of dialogue and

debate. it is leading us to understand together how we can secure afghanistan's future. we have to accomplish, i believe, four things. first, i have outlined that there has to be a long-term commitment to afghanistan. we have to convince our partners and the afghans and ourselves that we are not leaving afghanistan in the lurch, even as transition moves forward. we have to cement the incredible gains of the last decade. we have to address the potential factors are causes of instability, like the economic impact that the withdrawal will have on afghanistan's economy. second, we have to set priorities. we cannot do everything in afghanistan. the needs of afghanistan are virtually endless.

with a donor funds going down and this transition going forward, we need a narrow, achievable set of priorities that need to be focused on a few critical things. private sector led economic growth, and enabling environment that will allow that growth comment better laws, and human capital development. in other words, cementing the gains and making them more ready to become part of the workforce. third, there needs to be reforms. these reforms in government and on economic policy will enable a successful, economic, and political transition. a failure to make some of these critical reforms will disable that transition.

finally, as someone who has watched this process intensively over the last decade, we need clear follow-up mechanisms that will set and tracked benchmarks, so that we know where and how we are on track and where we are off track and how we will correct the process. we also need more effective means to incentivize some of the types of reforms that i mentioned. what you will see coming out of tokyo is something that tends to find all of these four things together in a mutual and accountability framework. it is a framework that is in agreement between the international community and the afghan government. it is about how to gather, we will achieve those four objectives. i close by saying that i believe that these changes, these commitments, the is reforms, and

the need for real results, are no longer nice to have a. they are imperatives if afghanistan is going to avoid it prior fate. there needs to be a transition away from what has been a donor- led economy to an afghanistan that is much more self- sufficient. there needs to be integration. finally, we need is successful political transition. i think it is absolutely fundamental to remember that the peaceful transfer of power that must happen in 2014 will be a historic first for afghanistan. not only in this era, but ever

in its history. you did not get to the second one without going through the first one. at the end, i think that we look at afghanistan with these realities in mind. the troop levels are going down. over all, donna investment over the next decade will decline. -- donor investment over the next decade will decline. at the end of the day, we must be there to support them. but they will have to make critical changes in order to succeed in this process. thank you for your time. it is a pleasure being here. [applause]

>> ok. i think we are good to go. thank you for those remarks. congratulations on what you and others have accomplished in afghanistan. there is no doubt that there has been remarkable headway in many areas. that is one of the distinctions between this effort and many of the efforts or go into a conflict zone. it can be difficult to see the quality of life is better sometimes. the amount of headway you have made any metric of quality of life is quite remarkable.

we will juxtaposed that with the stater question of the of the afghanistan. we are focused primarily on development on government matters. that carries over into politics and corruption matters. we are going to broaden the scope a little bit. when they get to discussion, audience can ask anything you wish. i will invite ron to comment on whatever scope he would like. for those of you have not yet read it, i recommend it. it continues to be a very important commcommentator. ron, over to you.

>> thank you. it is an invitation if to chaos if you're not very disciplined. while i am out of the are met, i speak only myself -- out of government, i speak only for myself. i cannot be a disinterested observer. is book off the lights coming on. that is a particular project -- you spoke of the lights coming on. that is a particular project that we invested in. we could drive around a city that is no longer a black city at night. what i would like to do for the

next few minutes is reflect on a few broader realities of afghanistan and of our working there. which often i think complicate your life. i am skeptical of some things. the first thing i want to talk about is this business of developing capacity. we use this phrase and the people in the business understand it. i think people outside do not understand it. there has been a huge gap between our military and our civilians, for instance. in the difference between training and developing capacity. in that gap, there has been a demand often for progress very fast. someone said to me, it was not that long ago. the problem is that we do not

have synchronization between our military, economic, and political strategy. in the two years we have left before we turn the security to the afghan lead, we are supposed to achieve a really modestly functioning government? you are asking for a rate of progress that has never been seen in the 60 years of post- colonial development or in the world. you are asking for something that cannot be done. then you blame people for not accomplishing what was never possible or feasible? there is a need to be realistic. there is no capacity in developing afghanistan. you mentioned bill collection. this is an interesting example. is their major progress in the collection in afghanistan? we have beat them over and had on that issue for 10 years.

it took 10 years of work to transform a bureaucracy that was based on a large fleet patrons and was antiquated. it is now collecting bills. that means they can pay for things like fuel. this is critical to keep lights on. i use this example because on one hand, it is an example of progress. on the other hand, it is an example of how long it takes to achieve process. we have strained on this as americans. we want things now. we want things done now. it will not work that way. i remember talking to the first

a director who told me about going to the education ministry in early 2002. they went to a building where they had a glass in the windows. they had all been shot out. they broke away in a dark call to find the minister working by the light of a kerosene lamp and no power in the building. no computers. if they have computers, probably only to the people would have not to operate them. on one hand, you have enormous development from then to now in the education system. 8 million kids in school, etcetera. on the other hand, there are enormous gaps. i raise this to illustrate that reality of where this country is coming from and how long it takes to get change. we freshet ourselves enormously. we also waste a lot of money sometimes by trying to do

things at a speed that is unrealistic and then criticize the program for failure for not doing what is impossible. that does not mean there are now lots of things to criticize. but we need a certain amount of realism. this goes back to the difference between enthusiasm and implementation. we have been bedeviled to charge off in new directions. this is exacerbated by personnel. we will never did them good by leaving them in place for a few years. you cannot build an learning organization on the -- everyone who,

comes in new bonds to look and find out what they ought to change. the result is program exhaustion on the part of a d afghans. this is the fourth or fifth person who has changed things. why should i exert myself to buy into their latest enthusiasm when it will change in a year? we could take the money and watch the corners exhaust themselves. -- the foreigners exhaust themselves. wagered things around. that was bad enough when we had a lot of money. now we're going through an enormous process of reducing the funding. there'll be a double economic shock. it is not foreign aid that is going down. it is a huge amount of economy that has been bolstered by military spending.

that is going down as well. this will be a huge economic shock. there are some good parts. the foreigners have been working hard to turn afghans and paying them extravagance salaries so they will work for us instead of the afghan governments. but over all, there will be a large economic shock to afghanistan. one of the things that will be terribly important, and this is something that i give them great credit for, it is trying to focus down on what is resolvable and to hold steadily through a course of action. this is going to be very hard. it will make it very hard because of washington's tendency to change. when things do not go well, this is a place that likes to talk about policy. every time things are going badly, we like to change the policy. an awful lot of the power in

afghanistan, the big piece is implementation. it takes years to do something. wins which constantly, you are letting other things drop -- when you change things constantly, you are letting other things drop. you're leaving stuff all over the floor. you need to stick with things. you'd need the ability to change and analyze what you are doing. it gets criticized a lot for what happens with contractors. the contractor model is deeply flawed. for one thing, you hire a contractor to do what ever you hired the contractor to do. you do not hire them to tell them that you are wasting your money producing something that is the wrong projects. you have a lot of trouble but we have supervising contractors.

until we allow them to grow to a level of staff for a can do things again, and until we give them more legal flexibility in how the contract, they will continue to fight with essentially work around fixes to a model they cannot alter. we need realism in this town when we look at these problems. we cannot fix it always on the immediate, but see that there are deeper, underlying problems. we cannot cut this agency to the bone and explorer -- expected to perform. aid was 10 times as large in the world back then as it was today. we have reduced the organization by 10 times. then you say, why are you screwed up? as we go forward but now, the steadiness will be enormously

important. we had to convince the world that we will stay. there is no more important point about succeeding in afghanistan other than that. the majority of the problems we have with pakistan are based on their strategic that we will not stay and that afghanistan will crumble. the fact is, if we do not convey a message that we will stick, we constantly undercut everything else we are doing. we are such a major player in afghanistan that everyone takes position on what they think we are doing. whether they are friends or enemies. the insurgents take position on whether they think we will bail out. they do not wonder whether the afghan army will win.

the question is whether the afghan army will be strong enough to lo. we are winding down the part of our war were returned it over to the afghans. we may run out of national commitment. i hope we do not. but our most critical challenge in afghanistan, i believe, is to make up our minds that we are going to stay at a level sufficient enough's about the country will not lose it. that changes the entire political dynamic. it changes the economic dynamic. the i fear that what we will do is that we will manage to stay possibly another decade or more, but every year will look uncertain so that we will never reach a strategic benefit of the effort we actually make. we are predicted at that for a number of reasons.

-- we are pretty good at that for a number of reasons. our ability to project steadiness is going to be enormously important. with deeper respect to what alex has to say, i do not think we are projecting at right now. the general does not know how make chips he will have in 2013 or what he will plan as a post- 2014 present when we cannot ascribe to the american people what we intend to do in the 2015 in afghanistan. we're not conveying steadiness. that is a political twist that will have to be made after november in this country. if it cannot be made now, anyway. the major tourist of the next administration -- the major

tourist of the next administration, if we're going to stay in afghanistan, the find it at a level that we believe we can sustain. we need to be honest about it. if we are not going to do that, we are causing americans to die for a fallacious policy. let's stop saying we are winding down a war the we are not winding down. we can say that we are winding down our presence. that is a fact. we are not winding down a war. we need to say what this relationship of 2015, 2016, 2017 in sufficient detail. we have to show that we can

maintain a steady course. today they seek a level that is half of what it was last year. it does but aid through the most excruciating business of trying to responsibly downsize. i give them great credit. a.c. troop levels that are uncertain and rapidly changing -- they c. to levels that are uncertain and rapidly changing. having lived that way your entire life and you see the troop numbers getting changed, decisions that seem somewhat unconnected to the ground, budgets that are affected as much as by our does it and our policies, 50, we're not conveying. this is a decision we will have to confront. we have to speak honestly about

it. i hope we stay. alex, thank you for all that you are doing. the wisdom you will bring from try to do the things you have done, congratulations. to that. we will go to the rest of you for the remaining time. four points of a like to make. we have been talking about the remarkable progress in the field. i want to thank the diplomatic workers. there has been reset critiques. other folks on this panel may i may not want to respond to the critiques in a new book by washington post reporter. i personally would disagree with

the notion that the civilian search has not been impressive. i think it has been quite impressive. there are many caveats. there were troubles, but of the dedication is very impressive. second point, this is not all hapcopy points. i will ask a tough question. how can corruption be so bad? how do you balance this exhibit ends with the mission? before i get to that, it is not discussed and not in washington and, i want to commend the informers, especially these two

men who have worked so long in afghanistan. there are many impressive people. on the chip that we're on in may, he was kind enough to let me go along for -- on that trip that we were on in may, he was kind enough to let me go along. signs. let me mention a couple. the minister of finance has been it harder to carry suitcases and money -- suitcases of money out of the country. i will not go into detail, but there is a general sense that there is some progress. i am not trying to say this is a happy place in terms of eliminating corruption, but there are significant steps. the army inspector general has been following through on a lot of the corruption cases you might have heard general petraeus talk about with army supplies being sold off and not being available to their soldiers.

they are continuing on with the criminal pursuit of the people. it was not just one time. there is a legal follow-up. that is one example i was informed about. we visited the asia foundation office, which is trying to encourage good governance at the local level and afghanistan. there are 34 provinces in afghanistan with an average population of close to a million each. for the most part, they do not have a lot of control over their budget because most of them are centrally controlled. there are now efforts to try to give these governors and a little bit more of a sense they have some control over their budget and the amount of money will be tied to their performance.

there is a performance based governor's fund and the asia foundation administering this, i was impressed with the trend line. things were getting better on average in their mind. they had an objective system of evaluation. i do not want to make too much of it. all of these things are somewhat mushy and you cannot claim that it is scientific, but their overall trend line was an improvement of 10 or 15% in the overall quality of local government. there are a lot of good people doing things with in afghanistan, even as our news accounts focus on the karzei elite. we wrote about this when we came back from our trip, as you probably know, there is an expectation -- all of this effort we have made over the last few years -- which is a fairly small number for a country of this size.

that is only about half the number of the iraqis have in uniform, for example. that will happen almost as soon as nato has withdrawn its forces. we raised a lot of questions about that particular planning assumption. i would reiterate that i hope this is not becoming an expectation among policy-makers. just because we're tired of spending money, we preemptively decide to downsize the force.

i would want to raise some questions about whether in the pursuit of saving a billion dollars a year, at that we lose the war because of a false economy on downsizing the afghan security forces. you may or may not want to address that. it is relevant to the broader question of financial commitment by the united states. by last point has to do with an area where i am a little sheepish to mention this because iran does not agree with me -- because ron does not agree with me. we need to send a strong message to them.

we need to remind the afghans, this is conditional on you folks not electing a corrupt warlord in 2014 for president. that may seem obvious. how could we possibly give a billion dollars a year to of regime that is hypothetical worse than the current karzei regime? we do not know who is going to win. we're not going to give $5 billion to $8 billion a year to that kind of government. we're not going to walk away. it is not credible that we will continue to treat afghanistan as our top two or three aid recipients internationally if the corruption problem remains such as it has been in afghanistan.

we need to find some way to signal this. not to pick the winner of the elections. there are two or three people with whom we cannot work. as a matter of fact, there are some people do u.s. congress is not going to support at the levels alex is hoping that we might. that is my last comment. how do we wrestle with the corruption challenge and make sure we do not give the afghans the sense they're getting a blank check from the international community? >> i think this issue coming back to where i ended and you ended of mutual accountability is fundamental.

afghanistan has to have the government, and institution better capable and legitimate. without them, they will not succeed. the decline will be slow, but it will happen. coming from both of these comments, something important occurs to me because i go to afghanistan it so much and have almost over 20 years, you have to be able to see afghanistan as the tale of two cities. people like to look in afghanistan and say, it is failing. the reality is, those things are happening simultaneously. there is remarkable progress in some areas. when you go into these afghan ministries that maybe had a good minister, maybe not, 10 years ago, had very few other people.

today, you see the young graduates and the american university, men and women both, and the work they are doing, the deepening of the bench, it is remarkable. when you travel around the country and see the infrastructure that did not exist. today, all the security does prohibit movement in some places, -- all the security does prohibit movement in some areas, it is much better. they have experienced globalization. afghanistan sat outside of globalization for 30 years. there were a few thousand land lines in afghanistan in 2001.

most afghans had never seen or used a telephone. today, 85% of the afghan people have access to the mobile network. there will probably be more afghans as a percentage basis using mobile money then there will be americans. some of the things -- look at the explosion in media, all of these things. it is remarkable. these things are existing side by side. what we have to do to stick with the good side and held them persevere through the long challenges. even as afghanistan does become more stable, it is still gone to be a fragile post-conflict state.

it is a place we will need to continue to support throughout the process. on issues of corruption, two great examples. on one hand, you have kabul bank. it was an undermining of the afghan financial system. it demonstrated a couple of things. there is an afghan financial network that did not fail amidst all of that. a network of banks and financial institutions that survived that challenge and have been strengthened as a result. last week, afghanistan got a positive report on the imf program. the reason that is so significant is because when you have something like that happen, it threw off everything. it threw off the international confidence in their financial system. but things in place, such that many of us believed would not happen.

and then you see things on a positive sign. i am going to come back to mobile money for a minute. we are starting to use telephones to pay the afghan national police. this is a policy that has been going on for a few years. when this first happened, the afghan police who got their payments theirself funds believed they had gotten a 30% raise. -- payments through their cell phones believed they had gotten a 30% raise. cash was going straight into these accounts. it demonstrates that even as you have ongoing challenges like corruption in afghan society, by strengthening institutions, by being creative and and powering the leaders to demonstrate that they do care about these issues, you can make progress.

wages have to keep on pushing on the people -- we just have to keep on pushing the people and supporting the people able to make those reforms. it is a gradual process. amen to what ron was saying. what has been demonstrated by the past decade is that afghanistan is not a lost cause. i am always amazed by the potential that i see in afghanistan when i go. despite the setbacks, the progress that we make on a consistent basis continually gives one hope that the bigger challenges can be met. >> thank you. i really agree about the young people, the most inspiring thing that i find is talking to the 20 and 30-somethings.

in an educated generation that did not exist -- an educated generation that did not exist. an enormous number of impressive people who want a different country. that does not mean you did change right away. when a younger person goes back into a ministry, they may be a threat to leadership. it takes time for them to develop the critical mass to make change. a lot of change in ministries i have seen has occurred, some of it, you feel now. some of that will be progressively available. it does not happen all at once. it is a plea for the detail and patience rather than for broad generalizations, which we lead to on anecdotal basis.

it is complicated. you will never understand this country as clearly as on the day you arrive. that is very much true of afghanistan. the more you know, the harder it is to generalize about the country. on corruption -- i think we will make slow progress. whether we are staying or not, the results are important. if we are going, we incentivize corruption. you incentivize people to grab what they can before the collapse. our lack of clarity polls against ourselves. it is also very important as one looks at corruption and aid to be careful.

we tend to want to -- washington tends to say, because we give money, we have influence. it is very important that you recognize when you try to make that argument, you are using the lever against the right holder. those who say, by god, we have the leverage. miss understand where aid has leveraged -- misunderstand where aid as leverage and where aids is not have leverage. political survival may be connected to personal survival. age is leverage against the state. -- aid is leveraged against the

state. it has no bearing on the political survival of the particular politician. survival is number one. the state in its functioning are someplace down below. i have this great leverage to apply to priority #3 and somebody is dealing with priority number one, you are irrelevant. we need to understand where aid is relevant and it is not. there are plenty of places where it is useful pressure. it has to be carefully calibrated.

on the elections, i do differ a little bit with mike, not much in the desire to send the message. i have no problems saying it, i just do not think afghans will believe it. they do not understand our political process. i have come to conclusions about the elections. a bad election can be absolutely disastrous for our policy. by causing all sorts of explosions in afghanistan. two, we ought to basically keep our hands off. how could i possibly come to that conclusion? i do not think we understand what a bad election is. we are very focused on transparency. you can have a very bad election when it comes to score saddling. you could have that result -- scorer settling. the election is cleanly carried out and regarded as illegitimate. i do not even know if this sort of a brokered election between power holders is more or less disruptive than a deeply flawed contest in a politically immature society. we do not understand what is more or less destabilizing.

to think we do, is an exercise in hubris. i do not think our leverage is up to the task. our european allies do not want to rock the boat. they did not have any appetite for the level of interference. i am not sure if it is credible on our part. the one thing you want to be very careful of when you are a big power, do not bluff and lose. it means that you have less influence the next time. we intervened in a lot of ways and we can say a lot of bad things about the last election, but at the end of the day, president karzei outplayed us.

if we make threats we are not fully determined to carry out, we will again fall short. there are a lot about can politicians sitting on their behind waiting for us to fix the issues of the electoral commission. i believe we lack the power to do that and we probably lack of the will. therefore, we ought to make it very clear, this is potentially a disaster, but this is your disaster. or your success. i do not think we gain anything by leading afghan politicians to believe that we will fix their electoral process. i come to this counter intuitive the view that we ought to make it clear that while we will help, we will support, this is their election.

>> thank you. let's go to you in the second row. please identify yourself. >> international crisis group. i want to agree with the comments about the courage and commitment of u.s. civilians and our military there. i do have some questions. ron, you just said something that seems to be contradictory. you want the united states to stay in afghanistan and to maintain our presence and commitment. yet he say it may be that we do not have the ability to press afghanistan to have an election we consider to be halfway decent. if so, it seems to me that undercuts our validity tuesday. if it appears that the government and afghanistan is worse than the current government, it seems there are two other issues on the question of being realistic.

you said we should not be thinking that in two years, you can get a competent, capable ana in place. $35 billion, and everything we see from the evaluations is that it is not capable of autonomous action, the evaluation of about 220 units, all of the army units, only 7% of capable of autonomous action when they have advisers with them. we have a huge gap. command and control, the analysis from department of defense, 47 units in the ministry of defense, not capable of carrying out their mission.

five, including the ground force, airforce, are not able to carry out their mission at all. the level of confidence in what the military is able to do in terms of security is highly questionable. >> i gather those are to me. >> i want to make sure we have the developments -- pair these things together. >> if it is not a development question, you cannot ask it. >> at this moment. >> i hate to be the guy who gives a long question here. >> make it short anyway. >> all of you mentioned the youth in afghanistan. the biggest development has been in the military. last year, out of the 170,000 students, about 60% of them did not get in because there are not enough seats at the university system.

we have 8 million other kids in the system coming towards universities. we only have one or two master's degree programs in the entire afghanistan. in a country with 70% illiteracy, building a functioning modern economy, you cannot do that based on fundamentals like that. what are they doing to actually create a skills transition in the next 5-10 years? this is something that gives quick turnover results. give somebody a bachelor's degree or a master's degree, and you have them ready for a good job.

>> it might be easier [unintelligible] [laughter] >> it is a terrific point. i think that one of the things, as we have focused very intensively on basic education in afghanistan, and those figures, the 8 million children in schools represent a revolution in terms of the number of afghan children going to school. but there will have to be gains in the potential for employment in order to realize that potential and to take all those people and give them opportunity. the two ways that i believe we are trying to pursue that is that, first of all, a huge new focus on vocational training and education developing skills. the reality is that -- and this is true when you look at construction and other industry in afghanistan -- the demand for skilled labor is a higher than the availability.

that is a good problem to have. what we need to do is to make sure that there are more afghans capable of engaging, not only in their own economy, but in the regional economy. the next big thing on the horizon is the extractive industry. i say this with caution for a couple of reasons. if there was ever a case out there for the resource purse, afghanistan is dead. if afghanistan is gone to be successful with this new extractive industry, they will have to have a good governance scheme in place to make sure those revenues are dispersed transparently. it will create a lot of jobs. the most important thing that it will differ afghanistan is not the direct jobs in the mining industry, which are very important, but all the ancillary industry that will result around that are really critical.

you have to have a mixture of skilled afghans and the potential to take up on to premiership. all of those bags of cash were being taken now by afghans. there has to be an investment climate or afghans want to keep their money in side of afghanistan. you need enabling environment in order to do that. at the end of the day, it is about governance. their challenge is with governance and corruption and availability of electricity and other things that prevent them from keeping those dollars in side of afghanistan. that is going to need to change. >> can whether there is not a contradiction in my position, yes, there is a contradiction in our interest and capacities.

if the election is really bad, it may be disastrous to our ability to sustain ourselves in afghanistan, which i believe we should do. that does not lead me to the conclusion that we should massively inject ourselves. that is the conclusion that naturally follows for a lot of people. i do not believe we have the capacity or the will or the ability to follow up that conclusion. if you cannot do one thing, understand that you cannot do it, and make it clear to the others. there is a contradiction between the importance of the election to our policy and the fact that i am recommending that we hold back. it is a recommendation based on what i think is the reality of our means and what is credible in the afghan context.

on the army, i didn't mean my comment to apply quite that way to the army. i am relatively more optimistic about the army. although i am relatively pessimistic about the way we rate the army. i have. complaints about the lack of transparency and the standards by which we do military rating. i am a civilian and i worked with a platoon in vietnam as an infantry officer. i do think i know something about the subject. it is very important to understand how much of this we have not been doing for 10 years.

we have been doing it for two years. when i left afghanistan, we were building a total force that was going to be less than -- just over 200,000. we have not reach those targets. we did not began to finance the building of sufficient radio, vehicles, artillery, airplanes, any of those things that allow a force to operate in the field, until the budget of 2007. when we decided, and i think it was the correct decision, to have the enlargement of afghan forces, we had to delay building a more complex support forces because we needed every physical space there was to train and a tree. -- infantry. we have only been engaged in building the logistics base to support this force and sustain it in the field within the last two years.

a lot of it, we for gets in our criticism the last time between the decision, financing, and delivering. big decision 2009, bill before us. november of last year, -- build the force. november of last year, at every battalion was able to leave with a full set of radio equipment. that is the time lag from making a decision to unit going out of the door with a full complement of radios. what i am watching now is the process that is very critical in which we are turning over responsibility now to afghan security forces. the picture is usually mixed across the country. it is not one you can generally -- generalize about.

there were no afghan forces. there are 25,000 security forces. they are making decisions about how there are redeploying their forced to handle the drawdown of the marines. i heard enough about interaction between police and local police and army to be reasonably impressed. probably the best story in afghanistan. but it is different. the east is different. one thing i heard from all three american division commanders was the excruciating difficulty of getting hard-charging marines and paratroopers to take their hands off said the afghans take the lead. -- so that the afghans take the lead. in short, the process of building this army is a very recent one.

it is not a 10-year process. it is about a 2.5-year process. we have examples of having done this well, not a guarantee. vietnam is an example of having done it well if you look at 1972 and a massive north vietnamese attack. by 1975, the morale was already going to hell, then they fell apart. i do not say it is certain, i simply say that it is possible. we have critical issues to get through in the next couple of years. these two years our movement from quantitate to quality. we have done quantity, but we have not yet achieved equality. there are some big problems of politicizing, the upper levels

of the army, which we're not talking about sufficiently in our public discourse. we need to have a presence that is dense enough to build quality, but to let them take risks. that will be one of the critical part of the troop decision that president obama is going to make. if the yanks down the level of troops so far -- too far, the process will be endangered and could fail. i think in two years of hard training and hard fighting, if we keep the support of the level we have, we have a serious chance of producing an army that will not list its war. >> i will take three more questions and then we will finish up because we have a hard stop at 11:00. we will start here. gentlemen in the fifth row.

>> i was with usaid until january. this is about corruption. the performance based governance find rated r governor as one of the cleanest governors in the province. the afghan network rated our -- said most corrupt in the country. one of the things i saw, different people were using different data that i do not even think was data, to decide if the government official was correct or not.

how do you create a more evidence-based, objective rating of corruption? >> thank you. >> ibm a member of peace and democracy -- i am a member of peace and democracy for afghanistan since 1996. my question is to mr. ron, he said about a national commitment of the u.s. to afghanistan. afghanistan, we are under influence of england for 250 years. how do you separate the united states supreme politics over england?

we want to be allied with the united states, not england. >> we americans can identify. [laughter] >> thank you very much. i want to come back to the question that mark posed and the response and link it to the message i feel like i have heard this morning. if there was a word to describe afghanistan, from my perspective, it is conundrum. the conundrum seems to be best captured by the fact that on the one hand, what i hear from this panel is we must stay the course and we must convince friend and foe alike that we are in this

for the long haul. countering not, we are in the process of drawing down the troop level. to most people, it will sound like we're getting out of town nicely. we are advised by the ambassador, anaya understand that it is a point of view shared by a lot of people, we need to understand what age can influence and what it cannot influence -- what aid can influence and what it cannot influence. here we are in a troubled democracy with its own set of problems with the bank accounts running low on money and the intense heat of the political system ramping up.

what i don't feel like we have heard this morning, and i am wondering whether we should or can, is there a factual national security basis that can be articulated for why we must continue to invest in afghanistan and settle for our relative lack of influence and power in the process? >> alex, we can begin with you. you can respond to any of the questions he would like. >> first, i would give two different responses. at the technical level, when we work on governance and

corruption issues, i think there are many things that stand out as good indicators of performance. you are right, we need to measure those things. we need to measure them rigorously. >> we have to have a system that does that and looks at those things consistently over time. i will say that one of the things that i tried very hard to do usaid is it focused on results and measurements. too much of what we do is intended to create a result but we do not always spend enough time rigorously measuring those results. we put in a number of programs in place in afghanistan that tries to do that better and more

rigorously. on the broader question, politically coming from local a lot and governance background, at the end of the day it will be the afghans that know best. it is the local people who know who was doing what to understand the culture and was the opportunity for change is. which is why we have to empower afghans and afghan institutions to be the ones who are going to carry this out. i've always returned person with -- personally to the idea in the federalist papers that at the end of the day, it is competing factions to want power within the government's data going to be the ones who enforce checks and balances. until such time as we have a system within afghanistan where you have afghans who see their future as predicated on their ability to hold others to account, then it will not work at the end of the day.

at think we have seen some great signs of progress in that regard. but we have a long way to go. to my mind, this gets at the broader question that i think you and many others have proposed. what is it about the transition that will take -- is going to take afghanistan passed this dangerous time we recognized in the coming years with the changing international engagement do something that will look much more like stability? i think there are a couple of key ingredients in their about the afghan ability and desire to make their institutions more self sustaining. the ability of some afghans to hold others to account and the desire to do that that at the end of the day are going to make the difference between them

being able to carry ford and these institutions caring for -- carrying forward. there really is no more important factor here than the long-term commitment. all the challenges that we have identified in this discussion will remain. i think at the end of the day if we collectively, the united states, together with our british allies to do so much for afghanistan and our other allies, aren't bono longer in the driver's seat as we have largely -- are no longer in the driver's seat as be largely have been in the last decade, no way that we will continue to be there -- knowing that we will

continue to be there is essential. >> one more word on the question about commitment. there is no once in them -- nuance in them. i do believe that giving a sense that -- since to afghans that there are certain people we have a hard time working with, it is not just bluffing, it has the advantage of being true. whether or not the message would get through is another matter. i accept the challenge there but i do think it is more than a bluff. i do not know how to rate afghan politicians in a way to say which possible presidential candidates would be unacceptable. i have a couple of names that probably would be in that category. i think it is worth trying to get that message through. the other way to address your question is that while afghanistan is very important to

us a while i agree with alex and ron that we should not deserted the way we did 20 years ago, we may scale back a lot. it the wrong person is elected and the wrong political process ensues. there are no guarantees about the outcome in afghanistan and the afghans should not feel any guarantee of our commitment. they have to do to continue -- they have to continue to do with the reformists have been trying do. if they are trumped by a presidential politics process that becomes fundamentally more corrupt, i think all bets are off. that is where retry to -- we make this i argument with some reluctance. the fact that al qaeda is a lot weaker gives us a least maybe 20% less absolute requirements

to make afghanistan succeed. it is a hard argument to make. i still think al qaeda could come back in afghanistan. the teledyne could come back. it does matter to us a lot -- the taliban could come back. it does matter to us a lot. if they do not do their part in this, we cannot be successful with our part. it is worth a try to get that message through. >> to a half minutes for the hardest question of the day. on the first issue about the british, there was a time when they did seem -- the task force seemed to be operating on its own but i think those days are past. i talked to some of the brits and i am pretty impressed now. i do not think it will be in control. -- they will be in control.]

mr. mitchell spoke of the policy as having a lot of elements of a conundrum. you're absolutely right. i think this administration's policy toward afghanistan has been a conundrum. it has been the policy that went in two directions simultaneously of reenforcing money and troops and commitment while signaling an end where the date got too much emphasis and therefore set in motion all kinds of pressures in afghanistan against succeeding. you can tell i am out of government. i do not think it will get away from that but i regret it. i do think it has undercut our own ability to achieve some of what we could have achieved by leading people to believe we

were heading out the door as we were heading in and therefore sending them -- sending afghans towards hedging behavior. protect your money, your family and political inclination because he cannot rely on the things the foreigners are doing. the behavior is counterproductive for the better state we need in order to succeed in the policy. that is one reason i hope for clarity. probably excess of hope -- excessive hope. you ask a question about the argument -- you asked the toughest question at the end of the day. i think we do still face the possibility of years, decades of instability in all of central asia, stretching from pakistan

into the stans if afghanistan turns into a cold from of fighting internal forces as the foreigners pullout. lebanon had fewer foreign players and was a smaller and in some ways less important country and it went for 15 years in the civil war. i do not to the taliban bollenbach. what i see is the disintegrated process if we leave too quickly. makes it impossible to stabilize anything yet but pakistan at greater risk than it is today. i cannot say exactly where that goes but 10 or 15 years of having that area unstable and an area that now includes nuclear- weapons i think is pretty catastrophic. and what we should seek to prevent if we can. if we leave too early and things

fall apart -- first of all, there is a push to radicalization that has occurred over the last decade that al qaeda is the longer only an hour of phenomenon -- an arab phenomenon. i do not know exactly but if people believe they are god-- inspired now see the vindication that the second superpower has been destroyed in afghanistan, i think they have an enormous psychological boost which will invigorate that movement of attack on us for a long time to come. i cannot prove it. there is a lot to worry about. wary does not justify and less expensive nor any level of expense. expense has to come down, to

talk to come down. there is a difference between going down to a sustained level and doing it in a rational way and just saying i am tired, i have to get out of here. i think too little of the debate that focuses on getting out asks the critical questions, do you disagree with the risk to national security that i think exists? if you agree those risks are there, the second question is am i prepared to tolerate those risks? do i believe that because of the budget deficit and because this is hard that i am willing to accept a heightened probability of more tax on american interests, of instability in afghanistan? am i willing to say all of those are entirely tolerable costs as a price for withdrawal? if you're not prepared to make

that argument, then you are into a different argument about how much cost and how long. that is where i am in the argument. thank you for raising the question which i would love to go on a little longer but i am already over time. >> please join me in thanking alex and ron. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> coming up tonight on c-span, vice president biden speak before the national education association, the nation's largest labor union. then reporters review the supreme court's term which ended

last week. that is followed by former ambassador to afghanistan and a representative of u.s. aid discussed in development in afghanistan. wednesday on washington journal, an update on afghanistan, including the role of marines, u.s. withdrawal and dealing with the taliban. our guest is major general david berger. then edwin feulner on his book making a case for american exceptional is them. later, and look at the freedom of income -- of an formation act. after that, voice of america executive editor steve reddish talks about his organization's goals. july 4 tom washington journal at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this weekend, had to the state

capital in honor thomas jefferson with "book tv" in jefferson city, missouri. literary life with a book to be on c-span to. jean carnahan on family life inside the governor's mansion from her book "if walls could talk." a special collection. the story behind eight miniature babylonian tablets. and sunday at 5:00 eastern, on american history tv. >> at one time in 1967, this was called the bloodiest 47 acres in america. >> if formal board and taxi to the historic missouri state penitentiary. c-span is local content vehicle exports history in the the kirk -- literary life of cities across america. this weekend, from jefferson

city. saturday at noon. vice president joe biden and his wife spoke tuesday to the annual meeting of the national education association. the nation's largest labor union. on monday, the association's president called on members to reelect president obama. this is 40 minutes. [cheers and applause] >> welcome! are you ready for a great day? i endorsed and the lines were better, yes? i was just thinking -- if a vice president biden wants to return as the reelected vice president of the united states, we know how to do it right.

[applause] now it is my great honor to introduce a very special guest. actually, she doesn't really seem like a guest at all. she seems more like family because she is a lifelong indicator and a former member of the national education association. [applause] most americans know jill biden as the second lady. but we also know her as dr. biden. she received her ph.d. from the university of delaware and she wrote her dissertation on maximizing student retention in community colleges. when we talk about access and equity in education, we understand the critical role that community colleges play in

meeting those needs, especially for those students who are trying to balance education, work, and raising a family. dr.biden understands those students very well because she raised her children and received two master's degrees at the same time. [applause] we could ask for more committed advocate for community colleges and public education in general. it is a great honor and pleasure to introduce to you our friend dr. jill biden. [applause]

>> thank you. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. good morning, everyone. you guys are rocking early. thank you for that kind introduction. it is so great to be here. i love being in a room of fellow educators. i just feel right at home. [applause] for those of you who don't know me, have been a teacher really for longer than i care to read it. -- care to admit. i taught as a reading specialist in public schools and i tutored at risk teens at a psychiatric hospital in delaware. for the past 18 years, i have been a community college instructor and i teach english at a community college right here in northern virginia. [applause]

i remember when the president and my husband were elected almost four years ago. as i was thinking about how i would approach my role as second lady, you one thing was for sure. i knew that i would find a way to continue to teach. [applause] thank you. i know that you all understand being a teacher is not what i do. it's why am. -- it's who i am. there is no greater feeling when a student grasps the concept i'm trying to teach. i know i am giving them the confidence that will make a real difference in their lives.

like you, i see every day how important education is in the lives of all americans. i see how good education can put kids on a path to success. i also know from experience that, while teaching is rewarding, it is also challenging. and i can assure you that this administration is working hard to support education, to support teachers, and to provide real leadership in our schools. [applause] i can also assure you that a lot is at stake for students and teachers and for the entire middle class. the president and the vice- president have both been teachers and they know that a great school starts with great

teachers. [applause] so i want to thank you all for being here today and thank you all for the work that you're doing in your classrooms each and every day. and now, it is my great honor to introduce a man who has been an advocate for education and for teachers his whole life, my husband, our vice president, joe biden. [cheers and applause] >> how are you all? [cheers and applause]

it's nice to be with people you understand. ladies and gentlemen, my name is joe biden and i am in love with a teacher. [laughter] [applause] 0, and my love with her -- oh, am i in love with her. you know, i was told by a news commentator when we did an interview on valentine's day, this commentator from one of the networks says -- people say you and your wife have a love affair. i said, yes, but kelleher more than she loves me -- but all i love her more than she loves me. and he looks at me and says, yes, that is what everybody says. i did a three-part series on what makes marriages last the longest unhappiest. what was the conclusion?

she said when the husband loves the wife more. so i will be married a long time as long as i am alive. ladies and emtman, look, dennis, i read your speech today for real. [laughter] and as usual, it was first rate. and it forced me to change my speech because much of what you say expressed the sentiment i was trying to express, except you expressed it better. there have always been debates. i need not tell this very prestigious audience that there has always been a debate on how to improve public education. we have always debated, democrats and republicans, usually with the same objective, how to improve public education, universal education in the most heterogeneous democracy in the world. and we talk about and debated over the years that i have been engaged about early education,

its value. what can you do? does it matter? what is more important, early years or later years? how we allocate our resources, about classroom size, whether it matters or it doesn't. about subject competence of individuals in the classroom, about the need for quality facilities, from laboratories to test, moving from dilapidated buildings. we have argued and atreus has been written about how much these things matter, about standards. in nearly part of my career, with but we shouldn't demand particularly high standards of kids from populi difficult circumstances.

and decided, no, we should demand high standards from everybody because everybody has the capacity. today, it has changed as the social mores changed and the nature of the family changed. always, it was about how do we make public education better. i have always been guided by my mom's assertion, literally, when she would say children tend to become that which you expect of them. children tend to become that which you expect of them. [applause] and those debates didn't usually break down in terms of democrat and republican. they broke down in terms of the communities you live in and the region in the country that you live in, what was more appropriate and what wasn't more appropriate.

but, ladies and gentlemen, today, we're not dealing with your father's republican party. this is a different party. [applause] this is a different party. neither that nor good, just different. a different party. look, folks, let me get straight to the point. you guys, educators, teachers -- you are under full-blown assault. [applause] romney, governor romney and his allies in the congress, their plan for public indication in america is to let the state choose title $1 to boost enrollment in private schools. i think we should have a straight honest to god talked about the difference between -- [applause]

the difference between how president obama and i view education and how our republican colleagues today view it. again, i want to make it clear. a lot of you know me very well. by the way, where is delaware. [cheers and applause] hello, delaware! i am not prejudiced, but they're probably the best indicators in the room. [laughter] [applause] ladies and gentlemen, very seriously, governor romney is a good decent man pinned he is a good family man. i think his intentions are all positive. i don't make any moral judgments. i don't judge motive. i assume, with good reason, he cares much about america and the education system, as much as i do.

but the truth of the matter is that we have a fundamentally different view. and when i said that he would like to take title 1 money and give it to the states and let them use it to increase the voice of private schools, strip you of your voice because he doesn't think that you all know much about how to educate, and he characterizes you and his allies characterize you as not caring about -- not caring about the students, but about yourself. my jill is little when she says that teaching is not what she does. it's who she is. [applause] these guys don't get that. i don't think they don't understand why you chose to teach in the first place. [applause]

i honest to god don't think they understand. and by the way, like in politics, in business, religious hierarchy, there is really good teachers and there is really lousy teachers. there is a really lousy teachers and some plain good teachers. we are no different than any other profession in the world. but we are a profession. [applause] we are a profession! this is a calling. you chose to be teachers because you care. you choose to be teachers because you want to make this country better. you chose to be teachers because you know every child -- every child is entitled -- entitled to go as far as they can! [applause]

that is why you did it! but i'm afraid -- i'm afraid the governor and his allies, they don't get it. they don't get why you chose this profession. i'm not even sure -- i won't say that -- they don't get it. [laughter] and look, folks, your critics either call you or imply that you are selfish. that all of this is about is an easy ride. that all this is about is you. as if you're not part of the community, as if you decided to teach for fame and fortune that you get from teaching. [laughter] ladies and gentlemen, when a

parent isn't there to pick up his or her child after school because their car broke down or some other reason and you have a doctor's appointment, what do you do? you call the doctor and say i cannot be there. i am staying with this child. [applause] it's you who getss your neighbor to watch your own child at home so you can stay with each other in class who is having trouble passing that english class and you know they won't make it it'll pass. [applause] watched -- and i have this -- if you leave the dinner table early to go to a home visit to emphasize to a mother who was under great stress raising her kids by herself that there are ways she can get help. it's you!

it's you! it's you who does that. [applause] and there are so many stores i could tell. i was up in york, pa. -- where is pennsylvania? [cheers and applause] their school district was flat stripped of money. the reason is the god awful recession they inherited and the nature of the change of the city of york. more power than it ever had before -- more poor than it ever had before. they have a contract that let them get a pay increase. but the teachers and all the school personnel got together and gave up that next year's raise in order to teach kindergarten in york, pennsylvania. [cheers and applause]

and by the way -- and by the way, i am confident and i apologize for not mentioning the hundred other yorks out there, for not mentioning what you guys have given up in the midst of this recession. ladies and gentlemen, your the same people who coach your team all week at school and then go volunteer at a little league field on the weekend. you're the same people who organize the fundraisers for the family whose house burned down and lost everything in the house because they didn't have homeowners insurance. you're the people in the community that people turn to.

you're the people who organize the bake sale at your church to raise money for summer camp. you were the same ones who go out and buy school supplies in some of your district out of your own pocket because your kids can afford it. -- cannot afford it. [applause] governor romney and his new republican party, instead of focusing on the things the connection help you do your job better, like making sure you have modern labs for chemistry and science, using equipment that these kids will have to use when they get to college or go out in the workplace, making sure that the kids have access to computers because it is the new tablets of the generation -- you cannot engage unless you're proficient in that technology. instead of going out and doing that were giving you the flexibility you need to teach

with creativity and passion so you're not just teaching to a test, giving you a seat at the table when we talk about how to improve education in this country -- instead of those things, what are they doing? critics will say i am being harsh. i will acknowledge there are notable exceptions. but there is a pretty uniform view held by mr. romney and the republicans in the united states congress today. they criticize you and the blame you. they make you the fall guy. they should be thinking of ways to help you make your job easier, not more difficult. instead, they hector, the lecture, and they blame you. and they call you selfish. let me just say this. they have a different value set

then we do. medad used to say don't tell what you value. show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. show me where you spend the money and i will tell you what it says. [applause] let's take a look at governor romney and the republican congress. show was their budget. they have voted on the budget they believe should be the budget of the united states. just with education, they cut $4.9 billion out of elementary and secondary education, which may result in as many as 30,000 -- 38,000 more teachers and aides losing their jobs. yes, they continue to exist on a 4 billion -- continue to insist on a $4 billion tax credit for oil companies so they can drill.

tell me which is the greater interest of america? they cut head start by as many as 200,000 kids losing access to quality education because we have increased the standards for headstart. all those studies have shown that early education is absolutely critical in dealing with this gap. they cut programs, as many as 9 million students will lose money. they deny work steady jobs to more than 125,000 students who need the help to stay in college. they refuse to help the state's put back to work over 300,000 educators as we did the first two years so you don't end up short-handed, short shifted, and kids not getting what they need.

[cheers and applause] governor romney eliminated the $2,500 tax cut that helps middle class families struggle to keep their kids in school. why do they do this? they do this -- do they think it improves education? do they think it improves our ability to compete in the world? do they think this will better position us to lead the world economy in the 21st century? i don't think so. i think they do this because they want to make sure they have enough room for a two dollars trillion tax-cut for millionaires -- for a $2 trillion tax cut for millionaires. he proposes a new tax of two trillion dollars for those making a minimum of $1 million.

as i said, this ain't your father's republican party. these people have a different view of how to move america forward. they have a fundamentally different value system than we do. just listen to governor romney and some of his republican friends. listen to some of the things they said. one said, "the government needs to get its nose out of the education system." and he compared stallone's to "stage three cancer -- he compared student loans to "stage three cancer." governor romney said, "i'm not pleased with what i read about in a plan to save 240,000

teachers jobs." he is not pleased? give me a break. [laughter] he's not pleased. with putting 240,000 teachers back in the classroom. in philadelphia, on his magical mystical tour, he told a group of teachers that class size doesn't matter. prompting one of the people, i teach a cassette, "you know, i cannot think of any teacher in the whole time i have been teaching come over 10 years, who would say more students would benefit them." [laughter] i cannot think of a parent that would say "i would like my teacher to be in a room with lots of kids and only one teacher." [laughter] when he was out at the midwest

speaking at a college, he said not long ago that these students had to be willing to take a chance. how? go home and borrow money if you have it from your parents -- if you have to from your parents. how many of you know who can go home to borrow money to start a business from your parents? [laughter] [applause] and he says the president is out of touch? [laughter] how many of you have a swiss bank account? [laughter] by the way, did you ever think

you'd be choosing -- did you ever think you'd be choosing for president one guy who has a swiss bank account and one who doesn't? if you really want to know what he thinks about the profession, if you want to know how fundamentally out of touch he is with what made you choose your profession in the first place, go to his website. here's what he says about you -- "when your cause in life -- referring to law -- is preventing parents from having a meaningful choice or children from having a real chance, then you are on the wrong side." that is what he thinks of you. pretty astounding. your calls and life is preventing parents from seeing their kids have an opportunity for choice? your cause in life is preventing children from having

a real chance? is he serious? he is though. he is. i believe he believes what he says. that is why i believe they mean what they say about their budget. i have been doing this for a while. i cannot think of a candidate for president who has ever made such a direct assault on such an honorable profession. [applause] how many of your colleagues -- like i said, look, guys, you know me. there are some lousy teachers and you know it as well as i do just like there are some lousy businessman or some lousy bankers. but ladies and gentlemen, how many of your colleagues do you know who entered the profession of teaching for any other reason

than expanding choice, meaningful choice for kids? how many of you would trade a 5% bump when your salary for those kids to come up and look at you and say, mrs. jones, you change my life? [applause] how many of you know anything that pleases the teacher more than knowing that they help a kid with either an academic or deep personal problem and knowing that you saved them? [applause] because, ladies and gentlemen, the next generation that is well-educated will have the freedom to choose. they will have a fighting

chance to avoid some of the incredible difficult choices people have to make. 6 allen of 10 students, six out of 10 jobs in the next decade will require some sort of certificate degree after high school just to be able to compete. it is all about choices. it is all about opportunity. it is all about community. it's about america. it's about making america once again the strongest economy in the world. i know and you know that jill is right that any country that out-educate us will out-compete us. that is just the naked fact of life. we are the only country that has had universal education for 100 years.

every other country realize it is good for them, good for competition. what it comes down to creating an economy where everyone has a chance, where the middle class can live in the security that their children can do more, and reap even greater rewards. that is what i thought the system is about. and we have a fundamentally different view as to how to accomplish that then governor romney and his friends do. make sure that those at the very top have the greatest opportunities and somehow those so-called "job creators" will make everything ok for the rest of us, that everyone else will do just fine.

it's from the top down. he believes it. he truly believes it. but we believe that the way to build this country is the way we always have, from the middle out that is the way it has always been done. and when to do that is to invest in the things that have always made our economy grow, innovation, research, development, infrastructure, and education -- and education. [applause] and ladies and gentlemen, have a tax system where everybody pays their fair share. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, my conservative friends said that as well off and be -- that is wealth envy. think about this. in a jobs bill that we had, there was a part that would put 400,000 teachers, a teacher date, cops and firefighters back to work.

and the way we pay for that is we said we will pay five tenths of 1% on the first dollar you make after your first million. according to the polling data, even the millionaire's thought that was fair. millionaires are just as patriotic as poor people. the very wealthy are just as patriotic as the middle class. but nothing has been asked of them in this her run this recession. [applause] it is time we just ask. let me conclude by saying that, when i talk about a middle- class, a lot of the economists -- not a lot, some of the economists and some of my friends on the other side talk about it like is a number. the debate whether it is 49,500 or 62,900, whatever.

for me, the middle-class is more than just a number. it is a way of life, a value set. it is about being able to own your own home and not just rented. it is about being able to live in a safe neighborhood where your kid can walk to a park and know they will be ok. it is about being able to attend a modern school that is well equipped and fully staffed where, if they do their part, the parents and the child, they can qualify to go on to school after high-school if they choose to do it. [applause] and it is about being able to have the certainty that commit your child is eligible, they will be able to go to college. that the answer to college should not be your income level. it should be your intellectual capacity. [applause] do you know anyone, rich or poor, middle-class, that doesn't aspire for their child to have a college education?

one of the parts of being the class is being able to help your elderly parents and to save enough money on your own so you won't have to look to your children for help. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, one more thing. to be able to dream about the possibility that your child will do even better than you did -- the neighborhood i was raised then, we were not poor. it was typically middle-class. i lived in a suburb in a 3- bedroom house like a lot of you with four kids. and all the time we had a relative living with us.

when my grandmother died, my grandfather lived with us when he had a stroke. that is normal. you know what? the way some of these guys talk about us, they think that somehow, when you come from that circumstance, our parents and we don't dream their kids could be millionaires, that our kids can be -- can have a fortune 500 company, that our son or daughter can be president or vice president of the united states. my mother never had a doubt that i could be viper -- that i could be vice-president or president of the united states. [applause] my mother and father never had a doubt that my brother could be a successful businessman. they never had a doubt that my sister valerie to do whatever she wanted. that is what being middle-class is.

[applause] and no group of people make it more probable or possible for someone to achieve and attain that did to kate -- to achieve and attain than educators in the united states of america! you are the ones! [applause] you are the ones who give them hope! you are the ones who give them wings! you are the ones! who inspire them, like somebody inspired you when you're in high school, when you were in college! none of us would be here in the position we are were it not for the teachers and the help to get to school and somebody caring about us. ladies and gentlemen, you know, one of my favorite poets is

william butler yeats. here's what he said about education. he said education is not filling a pale. it's lighting a fire. it's not filling a pail. its lighting a fire. and you can see it when the flame goes off in that students size. you can see it and feel it. it's kind of like electricity. it is the thing that makes you do what you do. it's the thing that makes everything you do worthwhile. it doesn't always happen. but when it happens, there is no feeling like it. that is why you are educators. that is why you do what you do. that is why you're so important. so it is time to live fire! blighted fire and tell these guys we will not settle indication! we will not trade off education

for their priorities! we will be the best educated nation in the world! god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you! [applause] [chanting] >> four more years! [applause] [cheers and applause]

>> i am the legal director of the aclu and an amateur court watcher. next to me is adam liptak.

in 1992, he joined the new york times' corporate legal department, advising and lit skating on defamation, privacy, news gathering and similar issues. a decade later, he became a reporter covering legal issues, including the confirmation hearings for justice roberts and alito. and an in-depth series on the contributions or political campaigns on the chicago hire supreme court. his work has also appeared in "the new yorker," "vanity fair," "rolling stone," and many others.

next to him is david savage who is there longest tenured supreme court reporter. he has been with the "the los angeles times" since 1981. he has covered the courts since 1986. in recent years, he has been "the chicago tribune" supreme court reporter. he writes a monthly supreme court called for the american bar association draw and offers jarrett -- offers little commentary in recently authored -- offers legal commentary. next to dave it is of barnes -- is bob barnes for "the washington post," originally covering maryland politics.

it was the national political editor for the first term of the clinton administration. he returned to reporting in 2005 and began covering the court in 2006. next to him is jesse holland with "the associated press." he began covering the court for the peak in april 2007. he has been with them since 1995, previously covering legal affairs and judicial nominations at the white house and on capitol hill. before that, he covered state capitals in new york, south carolina and other states. his book is "black man built the capital, discovering african-american history in and around washington, d.c." of weston 1997. today is his wedding anniversary. congratulations. at the far end, having arrived just in the nick of time is

joan biskupic. she has covered the courts since 1989. previously at "usa today" and before that covering the supreme court for " the washington post." and before that, as a legal affairs writer for " congressional quarterly." a long way, she earned her law degree at george the town -- georgetown law school. she is the author of two biographies, sandra day o'connor, the first woman on the supreme court became its first influential justice and the life and constitution of supreme court justice anthony scalia. i will make sure she tells us where she is, if anywhere, on her recent object.

altogether, as i counted, we have 64 years of cumulative supreme court reporting on our panel. and we should deal to get some interesting observations. before we begin, there are a couple of other preliminary reports. this panel has been sponsored by the d.c. bar section of the courts and the administration of justice which concentrates on matters pertaining to court, court rules, the relationship between the bench and the bar, and the relationship to the profession, including ethics and standards. it also focuses on including access to others.

we're pleased to be co- sponsored by 11 other sections of the d.c. bar. those of you who are members of the d.c. bar or will be in a year or two, i encourage you. you have to join the bar. i encourage you to join at least one section or more. there very interesting and have useful work. it is interesting to get involved in legal work in this community. my involvement in section for many years ago gained me access to moderate this panel. also, we will save some time, 15 minutes or so, for questions at the end. for those of you like to ask questions, you may be concentrating on what would like to ask the panel. we're being covered the second in by c-span. if you do what the back of your head or your voice on national tv, don't ask a question. [laughter] finally, there should be

evaluation forms sitting on your table. if there are, please fill them out and hand them out at the desk when you leave. if there nitre tables -- i don't see them -- then i guess there will be a stack. if you pick one up on your way out, maybe someone will come and ask to beat them burned program. the borrower is appreciating these evaluations. tony morrow who was listed on the advertisement to this panel, just in case anybody can just because they wanted to see tony, was without power and had something urgently to be done at this house and senate is regrets and apologies that he could not make it this year. but let's focus on what is on everybody's mind. who is talking to john crawford over at cbs and what is the inside story on the health care decision? papersn this morning's that they had articles.

would anybody like to start out talking about this rapidly developing inside story? >> a think we have established that i am the junior member on this panel. i am sure that some of my senior colleagues have much better sources than i do and i would like to hear their thoughts. >> let me second that motion. [laughter] >> whoever the sources for that story was quite unhappy with the outcome, right? it is very rare for there to be leaks about what happened inside the supreme court, particularly shortly after such a big decision.

but there were padilla people on the right -- but there were a lot of people on the right who were shocked and angry about what happened. there were quite upset with john roberts. dan crawford wrote a book about the court a couple of years ago and there are a lot of sources about the conservative members of the supreme court. and we know we're not talking about john roberts. [laughter] the phrase that she used was that resource had "specific knowledge of the court deliberation." does that extend as far as the spouse of a law clerk, for example? >> the spouse of a law clerk? >> yes. i am writing the majority opinion and you get to do this piece of the draft.

you get to do that piece of the draft. so law clerks get told. >> i don't think that is a good guess. joan? >> thank you, david. [laughter] let me define the word deliberations of the people understand the process behind the scene. some people may have been lucky enough to go through the documents that show that there is a conversation that is constantly ongoing among the justices. they usually do it by letter, by memo, this constant back- and-forth about not just the bottom line vote, but it is part one to the whole thing, the rationale. what i presume happened to get the conservatives so happy is that the chief justice john roberts probably left his options open as he presided over the conference about how he would go on the taxing power. we know exactly how he felt

about the congress clause. he was very vigorous on rejecting that power. and it is hard to imagine that an actual vote got switched because many of us felt that, even from oral arguments, that john roberts was laying some groundwork to uphold it and even laying some groundwork on the taxing power. he might have suggested to conservatives that he was open to that and was ready to reject it. i cannot even imagine how many drafts this might have gone through. it can even it -- it can easily go through two dozen drafts. probably by mid-may, the chief circulated a draft that showed where he was likely headed and it was not with the four conservatives on a rationale that would uphold it. we saw around that time a flurry of activity among conservatives in the press about how chief justice john roberts might be pressured in some way. was he being pressured by

president obama? was he being pressured in some way by pat leahy, which something i found completely implausible? the ideas that the chief justice of the united states was somehow pressured by outsiders, i think that just cannot hold up. but clearly, as david said, conservatives were unhappy with what he was doing it they saw it as a switch and vote. i think it is unlikely that he said from the start i would vote to strike this down and then, all of sudden mid stream, decided no. the opinion have all the makings of a june meeting. there were signs within it that there were some shifting in the rationale. but his opinion for the court was actually quite clear.

he knew want -- he knew what he wanted to say. >> you haven't read the opinion, you will be interested in the way that it is structured. most of what is the majority opinion is roberts pretty much speaking for himself. the descent from the conservatives reads very much like their own opinion that addresses justice ginsberg in little bit and does not address justice roberts as writing at all. it goes through all of the issues that were in front of the court, including several ability, which really shouldn't have come into play since the mandate was upheld under the taxing power. so it is a very unusual opinion, i think.

certainly from what justice ginsberg wrote, you would think that liberals on the court had lost rather than won until the very end. >> you can see the depth of the anchor going on upstairs in the supreme court. they are usually good about not letting any of us know what is going on up there. but now we healeaks about the liberation. that is very rare. this is usually the kind of information you don't find out until 20 years later. but we're finding out a week after the decision. so there's really some anger in that building. >> i am curious about what you

all think is meant by the carefully chosen phrase "specific knowledge of the deliberation." >> would you assume that? -- why do you assume that? >> if she meant to tell us it was a justice, the direct knowledge, she leaves ambiguity. >> lots and lots of people knew this, which is a way to protect your sources. >> one thing that is really dangerous is to try to parse the exact meaning of the reporters were without asking a reporter. all we know is the words she put on the page. you are doing what sources europe to be specific enough to show what you were doing. >> is their widespread suspicion on this panel that she

as fur from justices themselves? >> it would not be right to speculate. >> so no speculation here. it seems like almost every commentator but i have read or seen assume this was a political decision one way or another. the liberals are happy that reviews their liberal decision. is it possible but he called us to sort it? >> would receive the permission of a political decision? >> a decision made for reasons outside the law. presumably a lot professor ensconced in the cut -- academy.

>> i do not think it is a political decision the way you are -- i think roberts had the view and the court had a duty to uphold the law of congress if there was a constitutional basis for doing so. he did not think it could be upheld under the commerce clause which was the way it was argued mostly. he did not think medicaid could be held as a mandate for the state. i do think he thought it could be upheld as a tax. that it was a reasonable way to decide this case. they have not struck down such a regulatory law since 1936.

it does not strike me as political heat, but as what he thinks he should do which is give the laws the benefit of the doubt. there is a constitutional basis for upholding his them, he would vote to uphold them. >> this was the major plank of a democratic president. the signature of the achievement of his domestic agenda. it was already a high hurdle in times of -- in terms of, do you differ to congress? we are sitting here before a bunch of lawyers and law students who get that maximum of a judicial decision making. and i do think it has served several purposes for john roberts. >> i give him the benefit of

that doubt to. i wonder whether you guys as people who cover the supreme court think it is part of your job to stay and in what to print, maybe he actually did call it as he saw it? >> that is when you cover it the decision and give the reasons for why the court said it did what it did. i think the reactions that it was a political -- it was all from the left at first that this was going to be a political decision now it is all coming from the right. these are reactions that this is a very divisive piece of legislation.

the public is very split on it. we have a poll out today that it is almost exactly even for the people think the court did the right thing and the wrong thing. that does show that it is something that is pushed and should be pushed into the political realm. if people want to overturn it, they know who to vote for. >> one point about polls -- 41% of americans do not know there has been a health-care decision. [laughter] >> we were under enormous

pressure, and i think it worked out great. my first analysis walked through exactly the points you were making. if there is a plausible basis on which to uphold the statute that is susceptible to multiple interpretations, it is the duty to defer to congress if you can. >> if you look at this >> if you look at this decision, and when not following it closely, and you could look at the justices, based on what we thought, you might say eight of the nine voted as you woha