flynn -- and johnson runs to his rescue at the last minute, and he pores a lot of bullets into he japanese plane. the bullets would come in and you see the plane go like this -- it was pretty crude stuff. i remember as if i was watching "star wars xviii." it started going down. that would be the noise. before it hit the water, a trickle of blood would come out of the corner of the nip's mouth, and we would go cheering ike mad. there was a book written about

the censorship of world war ii, and i knew marines, whose fathers were at iwo jima and tara tara. the marines would just pile in, never saw it. we never got a sense of how bad it was and how stupid some of the operations were in terms of everything going wrong. that is another story. that is always war. digression. 1969, and i am checking, and i covered the building and there was a guy, and one of the guys had gone to vietnam, a colonel, and in vietnam he caught a bullet. bump into him in the hall. this is a week or so after i got the tip. i do not want to start asking too many questions, because if it is a real i do not want --

and nobody should know what i am looking at. there was nobody to tell. my wife, what did she care? she probably did, but she had her own problems. [laughter] it is pretty tough being married to a guy who did my lai. ladies put up with a lot. it is probably true, but i just said it. this guy had been one of the guys i clowned around with, and e all have fun in america. people like us and we are likable. i was having a good time with this guy, and i see him in the hall, and he is limping and i know he had been defrocked. that is what they call it in the army. i jumped on him and i grabbed him and say, look at you, shot in the knee.

i give him a real hard time did i say, so what are you doing now? he came back early because he was wounded badly. he lost part of his leg, he said i'm working for the chief of staff for westy. westmoreland. i said, no kidding? what about this guy who shot up everybody? you mean, calley? he said -- he said not worth worrying about. ok, here we get to journalism thics. man, you just deliver the package. i now have a name, an idea that it was the chief of staff's office, and that everybody is saying when you say that that is that way of dismissing it in a way, but he is working with the

chief. that gives you a point of view that they are aware, they are not anxious for this to get out. did i say to him, general, you just made a mistake, because you put me in the story -- hell, no. ournalistically, no. and i go to the library and i do different spellings. i find -- goddamn, late 1968, there's a first lieutenant named william calley jr. who was held on killing an unspecified number of civilians. that is all. he was at fort jackson in south arolina.

and so i have got something. there's something there, so i call up best the public affairs office at fort jackson and i say, i said, major, what do you got on this guy calley? he said, we know about that. he shot up a bar. he was not lying. that was what he was told. i know i have something. at that point, i go back to my original source, who clearly knew more, and i say, ok, it is william calley jr. who is his lawyer? i cannot find any records. there was also a story in "the ew york times," paragraph. he had been a kid that was -- that went to junior college,

went to work in one of the southern railroads and was fired after three weeks because he forgot to throw a switch and two freight trains collided. he was one of the 90-day wonders they were running out to run roops. anybody has read the novel about -- many of the soldiers had about their junior officers. tim -- his name? who of my talking about? he is amazing. he is described killing officers in a novel form -- i mean, as a fictional short story in a collection he did. anyway, one of the things i learned things my lai after i

did the story, doctors in japan, american doctors, i mentioned this earlier, they began writing me in care of wherever, i do not know how i got these letters i was doing this for a anti-war ispatch. young doctors, surgeons in japan were treating nothing more than first and second the lieutenants with bullet holes in the ack. you're not going to smoke it up or toke it up, and they wanted to work harder and going on patrol, they would get it. there was a lot more that went n. so he comes back with a name, latimer, george latimer, who turned out to be lawyer. i went back and found him.

i found latimer had been a judge on the court of military appeals. he lived in salt lake city, and i spent the day in the library reading a bunch of his cases, and the courts of appeals, it is complicated because you did not ever have bodies, an allegation that somebody kills somebody and he is guilty of murder, and when it comes to the appeals section, judges like latimer would say we did not know what happened because we did not have witnesses or bodies and just anecdotal stuff. he was reversing an lot of decisions. he felt he had the choice. there were a lot of disheartening decisions. i called him up and i say -- hersh, want to talk to you about the calley matter. i am coming to the west coast next week and i am going to salt lake. you mind if i come to see

you? e said, no, come see me. i wanted to go see him, but i did not want him to think i was making a big deal. that was a reality. you do not always have to be wonderfully upfront with everybody. t is called lying or misrepresenting, which may not always be part of the investigative reporting game, ut there is always -- let me say this, something i said at dinner -- i speak too much -- in 50 years of being an report, i have not only done political crimes, war crimes, organized crime, the most serious threats i ever had came from noriega, as a murderer, and i did all these stories in 50 years of writing about nasty things and i have

never met anybody who ever thought he did anything wrong. you've got to remember this. that is not where we are usually act. that always makes it more complicated. i am sure this poor guy in new jersey that "the new york times" is riddling -- any way, not that feel sorry for him. a lot of this that goes on in congress and probably verywhere. so at this point, i like to see him the next day care is a partner in a law firm, a mormon, and elder or deacon. maybe deacon is the right word, is it? a big boss. i go see him, and he is a very nice guy and i say, let's talk about your decision in such and

such and we go over some of his cases. i took my -- at the chicago law school, and he thinks i am the nicest guy in the world. why he decided what he decided. he is making the case and telling me about the difficulty. he was on the court for about 15 years after being a jag, and then retires and goes into a ractice. finally, he thinks i am the nicest man that he has ever run into. so then i say, let's talk about calley, and he says this is a real mess. i cannot believe what the army is doing to this guy. he goes into his desk and he is prepared and pulls out one of those manila folders, cardboard folders, and he opens it up and there's a series of documents,

and we talk for a minute and then he says, excuse me, he gets a phone call -- one of those partner calls, when they're discussing fees -- and i remember him the same tone of voice, and why am i talking about money? he is having this conversation and then he hangs up and says, look, i have to go to one of my associates and he leaves. k -- [laughter] what do you do? come on. what do you do? what do you do, students? no grown ups because you're wiser or dumber. what do you do,you go what? students? you do what? why?

>> [unintelligible]>> what? yeah, but how do i rationalize that? why do i think it is ok? does anybody have an idea? what made you think it is ok? he did not put it in his desk, did he? what do you think? somebody has to talk. loud. hat? >> [unintelligible]>> you know what is interesting about that, she says he obviously left it there because he wanted you to see it. there was a great oriental rug there, and suppose i roll up that run and throw out the window, and would that work? [laughter] there was a couple of artifacts from the various wars he did,

from ashtrays and stuff like that pit, on. keep going. that is easy, he wanted me to do it, right? anybody think i should not do it? no grownups, no lawyers. [laughter] about students? anybody think i would be crazy enough to do it? if i was working for the "chicago sun-times," and say i did not do it, he would say, ome back, you're done. it is ok if it is on his desk, right? anybody bothered by that? who? >> me. >> you are too old. [laughter] you got to be young. here is no right or wrong.

there is only wrong. [laughter] ok, let's go back to it. the phone call rings. he is pain to people cuts down the phone, puts down the folder, into his desk, and leaves. hat, students? let me give you what was going through my mind if you think this is going to really hurt the war issue, i am thinking the three f's, fame, fortune, and -- i think this is about me, a great story. he puts it into his desk drawer. what would you, guys? >> who says that? >> [unintelligible]how old are you?

[laughter] no non-students? oh, come on, your calendar suppose he had taken that folder, and instead of putting it in the desk, he had walked to a file cabinet, opened it, put it in, but left the drawer open. suppose he closed the door, but eft it unlocked? where do you draw the line? is there a difference? what? >> [unintelligible]>> in plain sight. is that a movie that somebody saw? [laughter] if we only dealt with what was in plain sight, we would not get very much in our business. what do you do? the big jump, and i'm 30, 31, into the major leagues right there. k, so --

>> no, you're too old to say that. that was 1969. we're talking 40-some odd years later. the morality i had then was not what i have now. i thought there was a war to stop, we had to stop the war. come on, where do you draw the line? if he thought it is ok to get to the top of the desk, like you think it is ok to get inside the desk? what is the difference? >> >> what? [unintelligible]. hmm -- if you were rolling the rug up. f you could do it quick. > what? unintelligible].

>> not because i wanted it? are you going to make this virtuous? a virtue? [laughter] no, i wanted it, man. look, it turns out you cannot do any of those. it turns out calley has first mendment rights. not just the first amendment, ut all the amendments. i can tell you what happened. if this was a smaller classroom, i have done this and i like to do it in journalism school, sometimes even in graduate schools, because it seems the older -- more lessons you learned in journalism the more committed you are to let's go for it, man. you would be amazed in graduate schools, 90% say do it quick. bring your camera.

we did not have tape recorders. could have read the file. once that he did have a phone call, and there was a few minutes where we were not chatting, and he had opened up the front page, and i read it upside down. you cannot remember if you are a young kid, parents remember when kids are young and it did not matter which way it was up. if you were babysitters you know that. it is harder when you are older, but i sat there and read it and the first sentence read, it was classified, an army charge sheet, "william calley jr. is found to be charged of the murder of 109 human beings." "10 whites equal one oriental."

"how you figure out what an oriental is worth? not as much as a white or african- or hispanic-american." i copied enough of it and then i had this insane conversation. i never asked him for it. he would not give it to me. i was a man of the law. the only thing i asked when i left was, and i was very nice, and he was very nice, he did not realize i was not taking notes, but i was copying it. how would you describe that in terms of honorable behavior? probably necessary, but this is a treacly little business you are getting into as reporters. i talk to the young lady who presaged by introduction, whenever her name is -- [laughter]

if the campus newspapers start doing investigations, they are headed for the obvious place to investigate, athletics, money, who gets in, and before long they are all going to be kicked out of school. every professor will lose enure. anyway, because if you start doing stuff at a major university in sports, which is the only real story to do -- the point is he said this proceeding took place at fort jackson. i said, is he at fort jackson? he said, i cannot say anything. i said, your honor, if i say i m going to fort jackson, you have to say i am wasting my time. he said nothing. that was something. i went off to fort jackson and i found calley, a long story about to begin. i will take a minute and tell

you. being in the army, i thought that calley is not in the phone book. he is not there, and the phone books change, and first i went to every prison. their five prisons in every cell. i went -- i do not know what they call them -- they had a different word for that. i went to the regional little jails and i put on my little crappy suit and a tie and i walked in and looked like a lawyer and i carried a briefcase, and i said, i want bill calley out here now. hey said, who? after a little while that did not work out. and i went all the clubs, every sports club, the hockey -- in the sports club, every place that was swimming. i went to the garages. i asked, have you ever serviced a car owned by calley?

i ran out of luck. rented a car in south carolina, went on base, and the fort is ontiguous with the city, i was starving and i went to a p.x., got a hamburger, and then i remembered something. this is september, and what i remember in the lawyer's office, he had been charged in august, the previous august or july. they have a version of a grand jury called an article 32 roceeding. we're looking at a big story and i have seen the document, marked secret." so i realized from nine days of the pentagon that the military

in its efficiency changes phone books every three months. calley arrived in may and was not charged until late july. when he arrived in may and registered, coming back from vietnam, he came back as a first ieutenant. he might be -- he was not in the book published in june, but maybe he would be listed in the new listings for the earlier book published in april. i call up the operator and these are the days of non-homogenized of voices. you can still get some southern accents in savannah. now we are one big anglo-saxon combine. so i get this operator and i say, i want you to do me a favor, get the old phone book, the april phone book and i want the last new listings.

she checked with her boss and came back, she said, ok, i have got it. i'm looking for calley. she said, i got him. she said he came in the last week before we published the new directory. then she hung up and was in this deep southern accent, and i remember the frustration. i found her, he was assigned to a unit that -- construction unit. engineer battalion, infantryman. i had been looking at him all over, but i could not find him. i went to the unit, and i called back, another operator read it to me, it was in another camp, and i went 20 miles away and now it is about 3:00 in the afternoon, one of these modern army buildings, three-story building on -- separated by a one-story passageway, where the

commander had his office. there were three rows of barracks. i go into a side door, and i figure, i got him, he is ere. i go up and down one side, and all the beds are made pitifully like we used to make them. we were good at making beds. we all had to be. then i had to go down and in order to get to the other side, had to go down to a passageway, and it was one of those stores where there was a bottom and a front top that was open, so i crawled underneath. sure enough, on the second floor, on the other side, we're talking about is making your luck. that is what it is about. it was irrational what i was doing. i was just doing it, chasing everything. on the third floor, it was empty. the second floor -- 3:15 in the

day. i got him, it is calley. give a big whack on the unk. he has a 16-letter last name, and i think i said, it is not alley. i said, will you explain to me why you're sleeping here at 3:30? he was from iowa, and this is now october of 1969, a year and half after the incident. most of the soldiers were backed by then. he said to me, i'm supposed to get out for the harvest. we got everything going at the farm in iowa. big farming area.

he tells me this sad story about how they lost his records and he is being held, although he did the his year in nam. i said, what is your job? i said, i am a mail clerk. i said, are you the mail clerk for the battalion? [laughter] i said, did you ever hear about a guy named calley? he said, that guy who shot up everybody? he said, he never was there, but i got his mail, and i would say that for a week and then i would drive over to see smitty over the battalion. this is the battalion headquarters. smitty was the headquarters. the next higher level.

so you deliver to smitty? my job was giving the mail to smitty. i said, where his headquarters? he said, far away. i said, when time is it? 3:42. in 8 minutes, i said, i will pull up in a ford, on the other side, in a car. you come out exactly in eight minutes and take me over there. yeah, sure. e wanted action. don't go out the side door. he is right there, we jumped in, he drives me to the headquarters about 15 minutes away. a modern american kid. at least i knew the route. i drove back and it is one of these beautiful days in georgia, and a battalion headquarters is a wooden building, and there is a sergeant leaning against the

door, the open door, and osquito season was over, and the other thing he told me driving over, smitty been busted the week before. he was madder than hell. he was drinking. figure i've got to play, and i say, sergeant, i want smitty out here now. he said, what has he done now? i said, get in the car. i am looking for calley. i don't -- he lives off base somewhere. i said, what do you have on him? he said, i have his personnel file. i said, get it. [laughter]

and he said, ok. those in, takes it, puts it in his wallet, the page the first page i saw in the judge's office the day before, the charge sheet. it is all about making your luck. i found calley, got a strange story from him. he led me to the captain in charge, and i wrote the first of five stories as a freelancer. once i found calley, it took me a week or two to find somebody to buy it. the week before, i had a story i was doing another piece for "life" magazine, so i had been making it. i was getting traction. the press secretary which i met, became friendly with, walter cronkite, man of tennis. my son used to think he was a watchmaker because of his white hair.

i met all these guys, nobody would touch the story. i had to sell it as an independent journalist, which is amazing, but it happened. that is the virtue of the press. one day, 40 newspapers got the story. the editors took it and about 35 of them made it the lead story. chicago, philadelphia, the "new york post," and then the week after, "the new york times" had the story. i found this poor kid that killed everybody in indiana. that is the famous line. once i found kids and the company, there was a lot of repressed memory. once you find one, you can find others, mostly in the west coast. some talked. some of their fathers said, get away. they were worried about being and they told me about a

kid doing on the shooting. , into a0 bullet clip ditch of woman and children. a horrific moment -- somebody told me about and went went to others. he had been killing -- to put the 500 or so people into ditches. , itou hold the trigger down is to be a semi automatic. i remember that from the army days. he shot six or seven clips -- mostly african-american guys, no way. we're not doing this this. , his.

out theanted to call farm boys who did it. nobody wanted to call them out because they were afraid they would get hit later. that was the way it was. and people did bad things they did not want anybody to talk about it. some people wore black armbands. they will had to take them off. then i talked my friend a a year later, chief of staff as he was so successful at killing innocent people, it gets you promoted. anyway, the point is that the college did all that shooting another certain moments, they were eating their lunch ration next dish. there are famous photograph to area -- photographs of it. an army photographer saw what was happening. he shot for the army, black and white areas then he shot a

bunch of pictures with his own personal camera. you seldom life magazine after the stories. he had amazing photographs. he did not tell the army about those photographs. once he shot in black-and-white had nothing to do with what really happened. anyway. after a while shooting, they heard a noise. it turned out one of the under herlked a baby stomach and she survived the slaughter. he was crawling up and screaming more and more as he got up. he was full of lead. -- blood. he began to run. , whoieutenant calley still lives in columbia, south carolina, he said to paul hewitt in the most acquiescent of all the soldiers, some turned away after a little bit.

but paul kept on firing. .alley said to paul, plug him paul could not do it. why you could drop bombs from on high but can't go download. -- down low. the issue of what is acceptable. he would not do it. calley had a smaller rifle. everybody remembered she ran up behind the kid and shot him in the back of the head. paul the next day stepped on a landmine and lou office leg above the knee. while we ready the medevac, he punishingng, god is me lieutenant calley, and god will punish you. everybody remembered this chilling oath. this curse. they were saying get him out of here. 1.5 years later i am looking for

him. . find him in salt lake city i knew he was somewhere in southern indiana. am calling every phone company. he didn't have google. , and ithe spelling finally find a spelling of that game -- name. , a white southern voice answers. his mother. howy,, i am just wondering paul is. is he back at the i'm a reporter and want to talk to them. she said i don't know if he wants to talk to you. this is about the war? . i said yes. she said, come on down i don't know what he is going to do. it is a plane that night. took a plane that night.

i go to indiana. i have a hard time finding the this because it is ramshackle wooden collection of dilapidated holdings -- buildings. like you'd see in the pictures of plantation life in louisiana in the middle 1900's. external memory of what they look like. there is a chicken farm in the cages were all disarray. in the there was no man around. there was no man around. 55-year- out, about old lady who looks about 75. rural life. she says, he is in there.

i said is that all right? she said, i don't know. this old lady that didn't know much about anything, so i thought, she good boy andthem a they sent me back a murderer. you can go a long career and not have a line like that. ergo, the rest is sort of gravy. it probably hurt nixon in a way. he couldn't rally middle america after that. calley was found guilty of 21 deaths. nixon commuted his sentence. ,e just could time -- did time he did not get the level he should've gotten. six officers killing people. gettingthe story about a story. most of his pretty good. you can see along the way,

there were a lot of times i was not particularly straight. something amazing -- a friend ,rom law school a great lawyer a fancy practice in washington, and my wife and i knew him way back. amn i wrote the first story i was nervous about it. i went to see him. . said you have to read this i have to be able to write. i am sending this to newspapers. they don't know who i am. i want to say that this has been reviewed i this law firm and verified, for its accuracy and it is libel free. ise hundred dollars each what we charge. you have paid the wire feed. wire fee. he he said, you should talk to the

judge. i called calley and to talk to me. he pretended to be sort of -- at some point i was in his his address.ot i found him. he was talked away -- tucked away in quarters for generals. at one point during our conversation, she went to the bathroom and said he had to go urinate. i saw him throw up blood. he had an ulcer. he was suffering. he just threw up blood. clearly he was suffering. i quoted him about what he said, which turned out to be different from the proceedings in the army. you are quoting but how do you know you won't put him in jail.

.o i called latimer the last time i talked to george latimer. i read what i said. he said, if you read the story that way he will not get a trial. i think he ought to have a trial. i said, so do i. he said, i will make it a with you. read me your story. i will check it for accuracy. and i will go through it very carefully. just say, in -- according to what kelly is known to believe. mask the fact that you saw him directly. i said, ok. i don't have to quote him. i have seen the charge sheet. he went and corrected the story down to things like the dates. what the official charge was. thehe point that later,

army concluded from that first story that i had access to the inter-workings of the pentagon. it was so completely accurate. they could not understand creat. are there some the news april going to publish a called him and said, i can say to you right now that story is ok. not always being tough. i walked away from an interview with him and never wrote about the interview because i said i wouldn't. it was all right. it would turn out to be ok. we have talked now for three hours. [laughter] i think some of the students ought to mall about -- mull about in some places i was less than candid. that is the business. i would like to thank -- think i did it the way it should. the big question for me is, did this game if what would happen if it was on the desk.

if you locked-- the safe, they would say get a blow torch and it. -- iirst couple times think more if you would have done it initially until you figure out that was not the way to go. the older and wiser are no better. but that is one of the perils of what we do. we do get close to the edge. it is not always wonderful. some of the things we do are less than marvelous but that is what we do. i don't think you should misrepresent yourself. and you are not compelled to tell everything. truth was, the question that i always have is what i open that if he had left it sealed gecko i guess i would have. now, i wouldn't. but i got my metals. just like general petraeus.

he had about 64 metals. i don't know how he could walk. he must feel liberated now. he does not have to wear all those medals. a thousand questions about anything but the story. i will get myself in real trouble on the stuff. i think right now what you have jihadhat i have seen is just sunnis, al qaeda or not. ics sunni fundamentals from going after shiite i see more violence in the last year than we had seen in many years. i am not rain it is due to , but something is going on and it is getting very ugly. my own guess is that we are going to see a big explosion in iraq this year.

a lot of very good american intelligence -- fundamentalists sunnis. hardline sunnis who have no use -- this is a serious split in the middle east right now. they are certainly funding some of the old pro-saddam guys. there are going to be a set piece were there. a lot more blood. iraq is not done with the torture we have put it through. there is a cheerful little statement. yes? you are free not to go to your party. it is past time.

[laughter] so minutes. or there is no plane out of here tonight, is there? [laughter] i'm here. express mylike to tremendous admiration for the work you continue to do. >> you notice its people when they do that to me? i remember the great joke in the , a cockroach talking to a mouse. the cockroach says, i love your work. it is all relative. what is your question? extensively written about war plans against iran. in trouble for using certain words. the president says all options are on the table. whatcan you tell us about those options are and what the

consequences of a u.s. bank or israeli strike on iran would be yucc? writingnt a lot of time about iran and serious conversation in the white house about it. very serious. i have been doing it openly cheney white house which is fascinating because it has led me back into ronald reagan's white house -- in a minute i what did the president know and when did he know it. now we have the president saying, i go to meetings on tuesday and we picked the guys. -- here is what i know. there is a deal on the table. my guess is, obama is going to israel, among other reasons, he is going to make a deal.

the problem with sanctions is -- theyy always afflict start from the bottom up. the elite do not get in trouble. , fidel castroow has been sanctioned by us for 62 years but i don't see him going anywhere. i am a skeptic about sanctions. people survive and there are a lot of ways to sell oil. we are making it harder for the iranians to sell oil to china. they have had some currency deals were they playing games with the turks. we are cutting back on some consultative banking ways. complicated banking ways. there is no evidence in these intelligence agencies that the

iranians have done anything to weapon eyes. there is none. we can't find it. we would like to thank that maybe they are hiding it well, but you can't believe how good we are looking. we have amazing stuff. i have written about some of it. once bush was out of office, i felt freer to read about stuff i know. we sanction them to stop them from making a weapon for which we have no intelligence a are making. the deal is on the table. by june there will be very serious talking. she is going to see bb in israel. i would guess one of the issues will be helping them climb down off the latter. i also think the most serious

issue have going now is serial. syria. who is going to end up bailing out bashar? israelis. i will tell you why. the last thing they want our crazies on their their border. if you remember 1982, some of you don't remember. some terrible stuff happened. prisonaelis went into camps. there was bombing like crazy. they went not. with the prospect of having radicals on their borders. they may have misread. there was chance for serious agreement. the last thing the israelis on , seven seniorntly wounded officers of the syrian army were admitted to israel treatment.

and the israelis on the border -- there is reason to think that the last thing the israelis want is a muslim mother had radical and. running stuff. to his credit, everything i think i know about obama, he has been very skeptical of intong in serious arms syria. that is because our cia which has a lot of smart people -- don't underestimate us. i am critical of my government, but we can do a lot of very smart things are it along with an awful lot of dumb things. we know this trouble in syria is not just -- there are legitimate grievances against them. he was putting people in jail for saying bad things about him.

better than his father, but had not moved nearly enough. i think we're going to see israel be much more passive. on the syria is putin. we have are a problem with russia, too. more anti-americanism as ever. that, we should stop. that is very dangerous for everybody. if obama is free enough to click on tiger he can do anything he wants now. [laughter] -- late golf with tiger and you can anything he wants now. i'm sorry you missed our class, we have of questions to ask you.

>> your 4:00 class? i was never told about it. >> i'm sorry about that. do you think we follow david or isus a coincidence that the declining culture of the u.s. army? >> it is a once in a way. one off in at is a way. he was getting his doctorate. they called him king david in the army. he was not popular in the army. pretty much done. my understanding is he was told he would not be chairman of the joint chiefs or chief of staff of the army.

so the cia was a bad fit for him. he was not popular there with the personnel. if every senior officer and america were to be fired because he had an affair, he would be fighting the army with the sergeants. [laughter] clearly there's more to it than that. same for general allen. the whole story. let me assure you -- he wanted to go on his terms. he is smart. i always thought, he was tremendous of the one thing you have to be that if you want to be a successful person in washington. he moved the press. he always is going to lunch his people. all the time to go to lunch with him. i don't do that. don't socialize with people i report on. >> who do you think, if you

believe it is true, who do you think was the target of assassination by, what came out and theedly by cheney illegal operation that was paid for by iraq? about?t you are talking >> supposedly cheney ran an assassination team you -- there was aened is, general named mcchrystal who was running the joint special operations command. one of the things about america that is sort of interesting, the way we've evolved -- we dev olved, the way you do it is you have your own army, raise your own money, don't bother with congress. congress.th don't tell anybody what you are doing. what a cool deal.

see this pattern. cheney was not first to do it. he was sort of a copycat. what cheney was doing was, they they would find the considered to be bad guys and they would authorize executive action. mcchrystaly days, would want to be sure it was ok. in, it became, he did not need a pet -- okay.s. these operations still exist more than you believe. it is some ugly stuff that we know a lot about, but not everything about it. the targets we were talking about where people we've believed to be al qaeda organize against us. also, we paid for that information, which is really strange. the early guys that went to prison thatthis

still exist. that and the drums and predator killings will make it impossible for us to ever come out of this war in a reasonable way until we figure out some other way going with the problems we have other than trying to off everybody or put them in jail. the longer they keep gitmo there, -- anyway. i haves nothing specific about that. i just don't know. cheney certainly believed the the president of the united states has executive power. he does not have to deal with the justice department. we identify, he has the power to deal with them. that is what who is doing. that has been his mantra since the congress, even. --on't know anything about

it is not like you said, i own the sky a lot of money from the poker game -- this guy a lot of money from the poker game last night. [laughter] we would get names from somebody who did lose in cards concerned,as he was it was all for the good of america. >> we allow that when the weapons and billions of dollars in cash there, money for illegal acts. -- ops. oil money? >> no, our government sent over. we said it was to drive the sunnis, the sender breakable billion in cash. >> what happened was there was a the 1991 war,ey, there was a peace treaty. saddam hussein center section. he still had oil to sell. -- saddam hussain was under

sanction. a lot of it dwindled down. it was not dripping down the way we -- it should have. . lot of money we held it was some of the oil money. we have billions of dollars of their money. that is the money you are probably talking about. you have got to remember one thing. , and in november, about two months later, congress $11.8 billion for the war on terror. .11.8 billion it is there in the books. to me about four years to get an accounting at of the foreign aid program. i finally got a listing.

you didn't have to worry about going to congress for money. you have it all over the place. you can do anything you want. it was a dream. oversight has disappeared in america. here is cheney, here is brennan testifying about cia and having fun with them. what i tell you? toughof questions -- no actions. president andhe picking who is going to live and die. you think they ask a few more questions about that. we should do a few more. these four. i will let everybody go to their parties. >> just one more question here. >> we get to. -- we've got two. given them freedom to

move. they can go home. [laughter] [applause] >> hi. my question is a little bit private. i was i supposed to be at your class to? [laughter] x yes. i am sure you have heard bad things. i am just wondering, have you ever changed your religious belief before and after you became a journalist? i am not big on psychoanalyzing myself. i am just not. i have a family. i don't ever write or talk about them. i don't think my personal views are particularly i am what i am. i'm not offended. that is a reasonable question. if you asked me if i changed my belief in philosophy, i might

have a go at it, but not on a personal level. only because -- actually, for some very practical reasons. >> would you comment on america's increasing use of drones? >> i did. every strategic study done on the use of air power shows it is counter productive. we did a study of the bombing of the germans. all of the bombing of civilian targets increased the capacity to produce weapons and an intensity and support of the government increase. counterproductive. most of the cia are run by the special joint operations command. they are getting combat medals for dropping bombs by remote control.

we can fight a war against these people. when bill clinton bombed yugoslavia in 1999, i will give you a fact -- he was the first american president since world war ii to bomb white people. figure that out. last question. >> in investigative journalism, you run into a lot of situations. >> speak. >> can you hear me better?

>> go ahead. >> in investigative journalism, you can choose to work with anonymous sources. where do you draw the line on that? >> i criticize myself for anonymous sources. it is terrible. i love to name everyone, but they would all be put in jail. [laughter] >> do you use the anonymous sources and where do draw the line? >> take the new yorker, which is an amazing place to work. the final person general is a grammarian. one was a last time someone talked about parallelism? you have to deal with that eventually. anyone who deals with me knows that they have to talk

independently and separately to a new yorker fact checker. the people i deal with are known to my editor and the new york fact checkers. google new york fact checkers. john mcphee wrote a piece that was an homage to them. they are really good. they checked the mundane things you always miss. they talk to people directly. it is often complicated. they have fact checkers. there has never been a leak or abuse. yes, the anonymous, but they are known to be -- that mitigates the issue. i'm doing a book now that lawyers will get a chance to talk to and when they want to. i have hired independent fact checkers so i do not make stupid mistakes.

i am always amazed. for example, the new york times. every day they lead a story with the chinese are behind all the cyber spying according to a highly informed government official. every day they do it. the problem they had is at cozy up to people. you cannot be antagonistic. the new york times did a story about how the president picks targets with the good judgment of john brennan.

i'm sure he rationalized that one, i do not know how, but he did. some hard-line method somewhere. what a society we are. here is an election for the presidency and the target area, 5% of the independents who do not know if they are democrats or republicans in most cases, many do not know which side they are. they do not know what the issues are. that is who they play to. we fact check it. i have sources. it is also a system of enormous use. you can say that it is a high- level source. if they name the person they talk to, it would rather say anonymous high official. i have written a piece as head of the major of the defense policy board under bush and cheney. this man spent much of his career being -- he uses negotiations as an insider and on this board, this defense policy board.

they have access to everything to try to strike a deal for a huge billion dollar project to build a fence between yemen and saudi arabia. that is when he called me a terrorist. i take that as a compliment. [laughter]

he is actually very smart and quite engaging. that is the way it goes. the answer to your question is, yeah. it is a big issue. not for me since i have never done anything wrong in my life, like all the people i write about. [laughter] goodbye. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] , president obama talks about jobs and the economy, followed by the bipartisan policy center's national campaign to end what they call hyper partisanship. then, another look at seymour hersh. on the next "washington journal " reuters reporter pedro da

costa looks at the consumer reaction to the payroll tax. ronald kessler talks about the and job of the agency. the, discussion about political debate in washington over guns. that is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> earlier today, president obama spoke to a crowd in miami, florida about the economy and his vision for a program of bonds and other measures to attract private investors to public instructor project. this is about 15 minutes. ["hail to the chief" plays]♪ >> hello, miami.

it is good to be back. i have been waiting for spring. i just realized i had to come down to miami. it is wonderful to be here. we have some outstanding representatives in congress from this area. joe garcia is in the house. federico wilson is in the house. and we have debbie wasserman schultz. i want to thank the mayor, carlos jimenez, and it is good to see you. i want to thank the gentleman who gave me an amazing tour of the port miami tunnel. >> [indiscernible] >> what are you yelling about? hey, sweetie! ok, well, hello. [laughter]

she is going to be a politician because i can hear her without a .ike.-- mic now, before we get started, i have got to get into a sticky subject. i know you guys are not happy with my chicago bulls. [boos] but i want you to note that the heat are going to be just fine, they are going to be ok. they are playing basketball the right way. the hurricanes had a great season. they deserve a big round of applause. [applause] tonight you have florida and florida gulf coast going at it. one of them will go to the elite 8, so florida is the center of basketball right now.

but i am not here to talk about hoops. i am here to talk about one of the plans i put forward in my state of the union address, to put people back to work, rebuilding america. i have come to port miami today because there are few more important things we can do to create jobs right now and strengthen our economy over a than rebuilding the enfrastruce that powers our conomy. roads, bridges, schools and ports like this one.

that has got to be our true north, to guide our efforts every day, and we should be asking ourselves three questions every single day -- number one, how do we make america a magnet for good jobs? number two, how do we equip our workers with the skills they need to do the jobs? and number three, how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living? when it comes to good jobs, no workers were hammered harder by the recession than the construction workers. the construction unemployment rate has been cut nearly in half over the past years because the housing market is starting to bounce back. but construction still has the highest unemployment rate of any industry. breaking ground on more projects like this tunnel that i just saw means more good construction

jobs that cannot be outsourced, they have to be done right here in america, and end up giving people could pay and opportunities to raise their families. [applause] projects like this create a lot of good jobs, too. you ask any ceo where they would like to hire their workers. are you going to set up shop in a country that has raggedy roads, or are you going to seek out high-speed rail, internet and high-techs schools, new state-of-the-art power grids, new bridges, new tunnels, new ports that help you ship products to the rest of the world as fast as possible? that is what people are looking for, that is what ceo's are looking for. they will say if we upgrade our own infrastructure, we will bring even more. what are we waiting for? there is work to be done, there are workers who are ready to do it. let's prove to the world there is no better place to do business than right here in the

united states of america, and let's get started rebuilding america. [applause] over the last four years we have done some good work. construction crews have built or improved more than 350,000 miles of roads. that is enough to circle the globe 14 times. we have upgraded more than 6,000 miles of rail, enough to go coast to coast and back. we have repaired or replaced more than 20,000 bridges. we have helped to get tens of thousands of construction workers back on the job. because of these efforts, when the american society of engineers put out their 2013 report card on our national infrastructure, they gave it the best overall grade in 12 years. that is the good news.

the bad news is we went from a d to a d-plus. we still have all kinds of deferred maintenance. we still have too many ports that are not equipped. we have too many rail lines that are too slow and clogged up, too many roads that are in disrepair, too many bridges in disrepair. we do not have to accept that for america. we can build better. in a time of tight budgets, we got to do it in a way to make sure that dollars are spent wisely. what these outstanding folks have been doing in miami is an example of how my plan would work. the port of miami is a busy place. hundreds of cargo containers pass through every day. nearly one in five cruise ship passengers in north america sets sail from the port. all that commerce helps support

a lot of jobs, not just in miami-dade, but throughout the region. it creates some congestion. right now 16,000 cars and trucks travel to and from the port of miami every day, and they are stopped going through downtown, and it is bad for business, whether a manufacturer in atlanta trying to get your goods overseas. that congestion wastes time and money. some smart folks decided we could solve this problem by digging under the bay, linking the port directly to the highway, and state and local governments got together to fund the port of miami tunnel. everybody had a skin in the game. they did something, partnered with a group of private-sector companies to finance and design the project.

they made it clear that the payments to these companies would be linked to their performance, so if there were overruns, the private companies would have to eat those costs. because of those efforts, workers are on the job building this tunnel, doing great jobs, getting good pay, boosting the economy, strengthening it for the long run. the port is in better shape which means they are going to be able to get all the containers coming in from all round the world, matched up with improvements that are being done with the panama canal, which to it means we will not be losing jobs to other countries. we can do this all across the country. so today i am expanding on a proposal i made in the state of the union.

i'm calling it a partnership to rebuild america. the partnership with the private sector to create jobs, upgrading what our businesses need most -- better ports, better pipelines, modern schools for our children. my plan does three things. first, we will set up an independent fund that will attract private investment to build a project like this to make sure that companies share in the risks and returns. we will pick projects based on how they will do for the economy, and we will better finance projects that involve more than one mode of transportation or town or state. all this will make the process more efficient. it will help us make break ground on projects that cities and states need most and they can do it faster and better. second, we will fund more projects at less cost by establishing new structures. it will give officials more power to attract private investment for public projects.

number three, we will strengthen a program that has helped governors and mayors leverage money washington has put into it, and that means we will help workers get on the job quicker, repaying taxpayers their money faster, and that is the bridge we will using with the port of miami tunnel to get it under the ground. that is the partnership to rebuild america. that is how we will create jobs and doing the work that america needs done. that is how we will encourage businesses to grow businesses and hire workers. this should not be partisan idea. i know washington people like to argue. it gets them on tv. the fact is you have got the chamber of commerce and the afl- cio agreeing to better infrastructure knowing it will help businesses and workers, so if you have the chamber and the unions agreeing, then the

politicians should agree, too. building better roads and bridges and schools -- that is not a partisan idea, and that is where you can get mayors and governors from both parties to find common ground. i know the members of congress are happy to welcome these projects because i have seen them at the ribbon-cuttings. they will say how we do not want to do it, and then they are writing me letters saying we need this port. cut somebody else's port out. that is what they will say to cut somebody else's roads -- no, we are in this together, so if you think it is good in it for your district, it is good for other districts, too. we cannot afford washington politics to stand in the way america's progress. i have put forward ideas to get the private sector involved to protect taxpayer dollars, but congress has to fund these projects.

the three members of congress who are here believe in this, they support it. put people back to work and it will grow our economy. my main message is let's get this done. let's rebuild this country we love. let's make sure we're staying on the cutting edge, that we always have the best ports the best airports, the best rail lines, let's make sure we have the best roads, the best schools. we will push on this issue each day and make sure we get a middle class going again. we will fix our economy, we are going to fix our immigration system. we are going to make sure our

young people get a good education. we will prevent them from being victims of gun violence. we will make sure everybody has a fair shot at is doing their fair share so that when we pass on this country to the next generation and the generation after that, we will be able to say that here in the united states of america, it does not matter what you look like or where you come from, if you work hard, you can make it. thank you. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. [applause] ["stars and stripes forever" plays] ♪

>> this week, our guest is richard trumka. he will talk about visa programs for workers from other countries about minimum wage proposals from democrats in congress and the union federations talks with the chamber of commerce over guest and what they should be paid. that is sunday at 10:00 and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the bipartisan policy center and new commission on political reform has today kickoff event of their national campaign to end what they called hyper partisanship in halted and government. susan page from "usa today" moderates the panel, featuring a bipartisan group of politicians and commentators. viewers watched a video webcast and responded via tweets and

phone calls. this is about 20 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. it is a deep right to be here today. not only because it is not snowing outside, as it is back in d.c.. usa today is so proud to be able to work with the bipartisan policy center on these big issues facing our country. but i interview someone who served in the military, especially in iraq and afghanistan, i like to say thank you for your service. ,e have a veteran with us chris marvin, who served in afghanistan, think you for your service. [applause] fact is, we could say thank you for your service to every single person, all 14 people who are up on stage for their service in the senate and the house. in presidential cabinets and statehouses, in the private sector and voluntary organizations. a mistake to all of you, thank you for your service. [applause]

isinvite everyone who watching us to join our conversation. in theare with us here audience, you can fill out a card with your question or comment. streamedis being live on the bipartisan policy center website, you can send us an e- mail, you can find us on facebook or twitter, use the # engageusa. i will read some of your comments and ask questions to this forum. first we start with a very brief video that two column -- colleagues of mine prepared. highlights the greatest hits of the hyper partisanship, in case you had forgotten any of them. let's watch. bipartisan solutions. >> bipartisan support. >> rod bipartisan support. >> bipartisan. >> bipartisan. theyarly everyone says want bipartisanship.

not everybody asked like it. >> george bush doesn't care about black people. dothe reforms i am proposing not apply to those who are here illegally. cripes i've got news for you. you and your cronies in the government do this kind of stuff all the time. >> i am convinced the president is asked -- absolutely sincere in his beliefs. wait a minute. were usedter tactics against his nominees for secretary of defense. we are still stumbling from one fiscal cliff to the next with no long-term fix in sight. and last year, congress had the least productive legislative record since world war ii. to be sure, politics has always been a contact sport in america. on the house floor in 1798, a

federalist congressman from connecticut used his cane to attack a democrat republican from vermont during a debate over the alien and sedition acts. he had to grab fire tongs to defend himself. this partisanship has gotten out of control. it has polarized our nation and hindered our ability to address our serious problems. >> it is becoming harder and harder as a result of the -- extraordinary political process in this country. >> analysts point to a series of reasons why this has happened. >> there was an ideological slant. all of that has had an impact. >> john boehner and nancy

talk all the and i time. >> in the first term, we were surprised that we would abdicate -- advocate for pieces of legislation that republicans offered. , it's politics. >> find a way to have more communication. it would make a huge difference. could anything be done about this? let's hope so. , let's startschle with you. you had a lot to say. there was a phone on your desk and his desk. it seems like nowadays the only

look at phones to look at caller id. what happened? the phones were taken out unfortunately. i think what the senator said is right. we have lost the ability to communicate. have no longer become the ones that are being employed by the leadership or the membership. it has become hyperbolic. members no longer spend that much time in washington. now it is him as a badge of to sleep on your sofa in your office cannot move your family to town. not one member of congress move their families to washington. everyone wants to be -- you start with this mindset. we do not want to know how washington works. that is not why we are here. therein lies the challenge.

we have got to make washington part of the process again. make it a valid venue for accomplishing the work that needs to be done. , you said thate the gridlock situation is the primary reason you decided not to run for another term in senate. it seems like there is almost no one left in the middle. there was not a single republican senator in 2012 who had a more liberal voting record than the most conservative democrat and not a single democratic senator who had a more conservative voting record than the most liberal republican. seewondering if we senators like yourself and members of congress choosing not to continue in public service. it is miserable? what is it like? results oriented it is miserable.

for the constituents it is miserable. that is the bottom line. i am a fighter by nature. the process has changed. it is no longer reconciling difference. if either side has a position, if neither side has the vote, they do not move to try to resolve those differences. they become irreconcilable. when you get past those differences? that is the fundamental problem that has occurred. you have more in more new lawmakers. 43 new senators since 2008. you could be over 50%. are not familiar about how to make a law.

, reminduse rock everyone how works. has broken down. i came to the conclusion that the site needs to be taken on the outside. that is why this is appropriate. engage the public. demand change and reward those who are willing to engage in content this building and compromise. pli's those who do not. a -- and penalize those who do not. >> you are a youtube sensation for singing schoolhouse rock. [laughter] >> i'm not a policy maker. it is clearly a complex world to live in. i would approach this more philosophically. we are in the middle of a wherewithevolution

advance of technology, there are is a lot personal act to the the. all of us have to deal -- personal activity. all of us have to deal with being in many places at one time. function ofiting life has made it complicated for decision-making. if we watch our children, we are amazed at how many devices they master and having at two goodies they have during the day. i would extrapolate that into the world of adults as well. that brings me to a similar conclusion to senator snowe. ownership has to return to immunity. -- to the community. for those of us who are involved in business and philanthropy and nonprofit, for us to now start

take possession of these problems that occur first locally and set up mechanisms where we can have an impact and have collective decision making, it demonstrates aware where we can change at the grassroots level that only in cities and towns, but our state. we clearly acknowledge that a lot of good work is being done by the governors of the state and mayors of our cities. that is a place that has some value moving forward. >> thank you. here is the first question for the audience. it a yes or no question. this extreme partisanship in washington before the true makeup of the country g? and we have the results, we will show you. here's a comment we got. . tweet on twitter

he says, any impending crisis warrants meaningful action. , wonder if you can tell us when you look at something like sequestration which is all the rage in washington, this is affect their lives? theou know, you bring up military community. it is a group of people that have chosen voluntarily to serve our country. i think that both parties are able to look at the military portion of the population that is sort of the above the partisan politics. when you see something like

sequestration you see the toempt lawmakers have taken try to believe the military and veterans of the heard and that sequestration will have. there is definitely going to be a fair share carried by the military. you look at the idea of everyone talking about the deployments that will stop. you reducing naval presence. .ermanent changes as station to this is from the defensive perspective and everyday life for the millions americans part tary families.arrat of the department of defense civilians are veterans. they will be furloughed. that is 10% of adults.

even though the va is being fair with the benefits and services are still being employeeswhen the dod are furloughed, we will longer lines of commissaries. reduced childcare hours. maybe school weeks are caught for military -- are cut for military schools. these things are going to affect the military families, if not the readiness of the country. and of course you look at maintenance in the military as well. by now they are not able to choose. they will have to choose whether to defer maintenance on their airplane or the hangar. make sure you do the maintenance on the airplane or helicopter. that is a readiness issue.

hopefully as you move forward with budgeting processes, we will see lawmakers that can make those types of decisions that can save that the specific readiness decisions, the family and quality-of-life decisions are a priority. >> what with the business world aboutbout this -- think this kind of thing? lots of businesses have furloughed employees. how does the business world look at this sequestration debate and assessment question mar? ani think they see it as inability to have thoughtful discussions and debates and reach conclusions that result in progress. , one expression i have is that you appreciate the effort and i timothy that people put in, but you recognize and reward the results

that get produced all stop in this case, you're not producing the right results of the american people. aree are 1.3 million that uninjured. from a business point of view, a business would say, first, get the facts. i get the sense in this process that everyone has their own set of facts. it makes it hard to take decisions and come together all- star i also have a sense there is not a respectful level -- and makes it hard to make decisions and come together. i also have a sense there is not a respectful level. you want to hear all perspectives will stop as soo. assume that people have positive intent. but there is a hardening of positions. >> we want to read tweets.

here's a comment posted on our website. hassays, artisanship impacted conversations with family and friends to wear discussion with certain people -- where i actually refrain from discussion with certain people who i know will be difficult to talk to. another says, is there still a silent majority in the middle? let's look at the results on the first poll question that we posted. it is extreme partisanship in washington reflect the true makeup of the country? 60% said no. 30% said yes. many believe that politics are driven by partisanship in the country. we did a poll with a trick question to test the assumption that itamerican voters

does not their fault, but the fault of the politicians. is not their fault, but the fall of the politicians. we flipped the label. but thatdid the same, democratic when "in one and the republican one beacon the democrat won. policies stay the same, but the democratic one became the republican one and the republican one became the democratic one. most of them said they held that view strongly. they're committed to this policy. but they were just reacting because of the label. what does that tell you about american voters? toi think they're listening too many new shows that reflect their own perspective.

they do not have a variety of sources of information which allows them to think. i think it also reflects to the education system, especially in middle school and high school where we no longer at that size civics education and learning understanding. some of you may have seen jay leno does this thing called jaywalking once in a while. you these questions that you have to have have been born on mars if you do not know the answer to it. in many cases, the people look like they were born on mars. answer questions on who their president is and who their congressman is. -- alternately, the media -- i do not want to blame the media. our education system doesn't

adyurage a serious star civics. i think that is the partial reason why there is a natural affinity to one camp or the other. i think the institutions and media do anything to stop it. do not do media anything to stop it. >> should voters be looking at themselves? >> someone once said we have met the enemy and it is us. our political system does not necessarily respect that. like it officials often do not give the public the benefit of the doubt. the public also has to ask right question. they cannot accept what some

media star tells them as true. , schools,y families the faith-based community, all the institutions in our society need to be engaged will stop one of the speakers gave several opinions, but tax artifacts. it is up -- need to be engaged. one of the speakers gave several opinions, but facts are facts. >> you are both a governor and a media star. a piece of thes responsibility. there is no doubt that it strives to achieve the most aggressive complex they can. conflicts thatey can.

.ompromise is not rewarding they want more eyeballs. or was a poll that was done that said the congress approval rating was less than that of a number of unpleasant things like cockroaches and lice. [laughter] band.ickelback the but it is better than gonorrhea or meth labs. who knew? my student said that government has become irrelevant. the structure does not reward people participating. the funderseward and not the people. the funders have a disproportionate megaphone and the people do not. when they see themselves carved out of having an expression,

whether it is limiting the amount of time they can vote or requiring exercising that right, that further exacerbates the cynicism of the public. there is a responsibility in the media, but there is a responsibility for us to provide structures that enable that voice to be heard in relative proportion to the population. >> money in politics is an important one. how did you respond when you did your show? did you find yourself wanting to see people with the most ?ervent view us for tv >> the above are good for tv are talkers. if you have boring speakers -- the people who are good for tv

are talkers. if you have boring speakers, that will not get you eyeballs. >> we want to read your tweets. here is a comment from facebook. he says, we must not underestimate the influence of media. there are propaganda that reinforces their worldview. nsi that has a artisan point of view, what role do you think the media lays in -- >> i don't think on the right person to ask about that. >> you do not think the media is

the heart of the problem. >> i think the media has affluent and stable society. there are many that are excluded from this prosperity. ,hen you have a stable prosperous society, there's a lot of that version of stock we have sluggish economic growth, robusty decades, we had growth. relatively low taxes and generous social services. now you have a moment where there are hard choices to be made. who will have to bear these losses? who will have to sustain the burdens? that is the fundamental question. there'll be disagreements. it is a real phenomenon.

byse bases are exacerbated people trying to solve the problems. -- this hasund of weakened the political party. and some who believes that they can play and it struck the role in channeling the political passion. there is an everyman for himself dynamic. it underlines the bill to the party to discipline their members. to solvehe government the problems. the more they saw problems, the more it expands regulatory authority, the more valuable it is to control the government. the more money that will be , whetherto politics

directly or indirectly. structures, but i do not inc. soma show about -- think so much about -- and wehat is the case head into a round of deficit talks, does that mean that things will get worse and worse? will the situation spiral down? >> i think the natural tendency of any open society is to basically only do something when you feel that you must, when our hard constraints. when you look at the larger economic environment, it is still cheaper to borrow. it is funny when you look at --n we have a bipartisan you say, ok. we will extend everything.

we will ease in somehow i continue a resolution or what have you. if you do not have hard constraints -- which is why comes back to the artiness. back to stronger parties that are capable of disciplining their members. >> we have a second question that we will ask people to vote on online. another yes or no question. do you only watching news from sources that agree with your views? you can go onto the website and vote for how you feel about that. you have been involved in politics for a long time as a governor and senator. do you feel that it is the

politicians are reflecting the voters? or have they gotten out of touch? >> first, i feel bad for not being invited to the program. [laughter] >> you would have been good tv. >> that is what i was looking for. there is nobody left in the middle? you do not have to be in the middle to get along. the last time i was in this magnificent facility, ronald reagan's library, ironically i had received a personal invitation from a democrat senator, senator ted kennedy, who had been asked to come to this room and to address a room full of conservatives. he was honored and delighted he had been asked.

the reason he called me, after the presentation, nancy reagan said she would have a small, intimate dinner party upstairs in the apartment and i can invite a couple of friends. would you be there? i said, there is no other place i would rather be than with you. he wanted a friend in the front row among the conservatives. it was a tremendous evening. when you talk about the middle americans for democratic action ted kennedy got a 90 and i got a zero. for americans for conservative action -- ted kennedy got zero and i got five. nancy reagan said, teddy, america does not know how much you ronny like each other.

that is what we need. i do not know that mr. reagan would say yes, sequestration would happen on his watch. i think there have been efforts for bipartisanship. i think american politics today has migrated from an nfl atmosphere to the hunger games. [laughter] nfl, you do everything possible to be victorious. you outthink, out play, and outhit your opponent. even in the nfl, an athlete will reach down and lift their opponent back up. in the hunger games, you make sure your opponent never is capable of getting up again.

we need to remember that we are still americans and working together for this country and not just a party. >> sequestration came out of talks. well you're the senate working with ted kennedy, did you feel it was risky are you in idaho to be in an alliance with that liberal alliance? as someone with a different voting record? >> yes. but when you believe in the people you work for and explain it to them and you can show them and demonstrate this is where we are on the records, but i can show you where those members of the party on the other side are able to help -- our founding

fathers said we would never again have power in one ruling entity. you have to find consensus. that is what we are moving away from. we need to get back to that. >> congressman, does it look different to you now than when you were serving in the house? >> it has change drastically. members, and it is almost as if people are afraid of their own shadows and worried about saying something or a phrase that might end up on twitter or youtube. it did not used to be like that. some of the stories i heard

earlier today are hitting the head right on the nail. dirk talked about working with ted kennedy. some of the strongest allies i have today by democrats. we build strong relationships during those days when we still worked on bills together. sometimes we were up until 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. at night. you would wind up thinking, you do not like being there that late or arguing and having votes on amendments, that you emerge from those times thinking, we got something done here. there were some colleagues in the room that might have complete opposite voting records on occasionally, but there was still, roderick. we would get up -- we would still have comraderie. we would get up and do it again the next day.

when you empower people to do their job and get it done, you emerge from that stronger. for some reason there seems to be a lack of that in this day and age. dirk made another good point. you do not need a middle ground, just a willingness to sit down and make tough decisions about major pieces of legislation. though lacking in this day and age is that every vote, every speech made is recorded and given out to all the different groups. you may not even say something the way you meant to say it. people portray it as if you're trying to cut benefits or medicare and your supporting something that will be on a tv commercial or some kind of at back home. it is unfortunate all of that is used against everyone almost on an hourly basis.

many years ago we do not have this instantaneous reporting and debating. unfortunately, a lot of people are working the internet all the time. who does not get a million e- mails every day from people on one side or the other? did you see this report? did you see the president said this? did you see the majority leader said this? and then they pass it on to their friends. you know it is out there. day in and day out. we have got to this point where they afraid of their own shadows. it is like, we're not going to work on anything this week again. >> a senator made an important point. he said one of the problems with the loss of earmarks. it did get members of congress to be invested in getting legislation through.

there's something there. >> 99% of those earmarks that were done usually members and senators would go back home. there were a couple of bad apples that came along and that embarrassed congress. everyone ran from them as quickly as they could. there was a sense back then of having some sense of accomplishment and ownership. you wanted those bills to get done so you could have that cancer research improved or that veterans benefits back home. >> should we go back to earmarks? >> beware of unintended consequences. earmarks is one example. i asked howard baker once how he was so successful in getting things done.

he said, earmarks. people feel st if they feel invested in legislation because it brings some things their constituencies, they are more willing. i want that piece to be included. two other quick examples. one of the reforms that occurred in that 1960's and 1970's was caucuses. lyndon johnson only had one cock is a year. lyndon johnson had one caucus a year. he had in january. people say, we want to have more caucuses. now we have several of week. now it is a pep rally. do you know what they just did? now we will do this. and it is a back and forth. everyone is charged and energized and ready to take on each other hunger games style. that is one.

i love transparency, but it has a downside. all of the media scrutiny, even today, it makes people climb out. they do not want to say anything in front of the camera that they can possibly get in trouble with. everyone is very reserved. you cannot really be honest with your colleagues in you have all of this -- i remember we had to go through a terrible chapter of impeachment. we have the cameras on during the day. workshop the cameras off late in the afternoon around 6 p.m. or so -- we shut the cameras off late in the afternoon around 6 p.m. or so. it was more candid and honest if there were no cameras. we still have no record of what was said that night, but there were memorable speeches and comments.

we have to figure out how to deal with these unintended consequences when we consider reforms, he earmarks, caucuses earmarks, caucuses. >> if howard baker said year marks was away i got things done, if there was a new leader and they said, give me one piece of advice, what would you say? >> i would say communicate. we do not do that anymore. >> i would say communicate. we do not do that anymore. if i could go back and be leader again, i would insist that we have one joint caucus at least every other week. i would prefer them every week. we'll then have them disasters. right after 9/11. we bonded. there was a chemistry.

people would go to the floor and say i'm not a republican or democrat. i'm an american. there was a sense of unity. after the anthrax attack at my office, we had joint caucuses. then they dissipated. i do not know when the last one was. we do not have these joint caucuses anymore. it is a small thing. there has got to be a vehicle, a venue of communication. we do not have that. >> senator snowe? >> it happened so long ago. [laughter] every two years there'd be departing members of the senate. traditionally there would be a bipartisan dinner in the rotunda. even dinners in honor of departing senators have now become partisan. two separate dinners.

>> did the women act that way? they have dinners that are bipartisan. is there a gender difference in how they behave? >> with all respect, we do have a dinner that is off the record. that is the way it has been for more than a decade. we even wrote a book together. i know that made our male colleagues a little nervous. we met all the time. even women in the supreme court as well.

there is that comraderie that builds trust. you know you can go to the person and say, can you help me? you work it through. no one has the patience or perseverance to work it through on any issues now. everything is separate. every day there are separate caucuses and separate lunches and discussion groups. everything is done separately to build up that divide. there is no need to build cross party efforts at all. >> let me let you into this. >> i was driving down a busy interstate and there's a billboard that said, like the traffic? -- don't like the traffic? you are the traffic. [laughter] i do not live in washington.

i think about how i relate to my friends and other people in my life and how we have gotten to where this topic can be toxic to our friendship. it seems so big and unfixable. how willing are my to ask someone -- am i of a different viewpoint to talk to me and tell me to understand? if we get enough people willing to do that, we are the traffic. we elect our officials. the way we keep talking about congress as them and the other people, we are all the same. i think it takes a small shift for us to recognize that we are all really at the root wanting the same thing. >> i come at this from a

business perspective. you're trying to make it very difficult decision. you have cited a that says you [-- side a that says you should be one thing and side b that says you can do something different. have them switch sides and argue other persons perspective and develop some appreciation for how the other person sees the world. what happens as a result of that, it you get much better decisions. i do not know how that applies to the political process. businesses are hierarchies. you do this and you do this and people cooperate. the other point i would make is that with all due respect, i think we are giving the hunger games a bad name. [laughter] people at least to get fed based on who wins. our model is more like "jerry springer" where there is a lot of noise, but nothing is getting done. >> both ron and molly talked

about -- at the root of this is that we do not reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. some of these are basic concepts of life in terms of treating people well and being respect full. the public has gotten disengagement this. they see the stuff that is going on and it think all of us in this world behave badly. they also have a responsibility and to behave civilly. that is the faith-based community, the validator's in american society, the news media as well. congress is no different than any other institution. people do not behave well, they are dysfunctional.

they do not develop relationships in that kind of thing. the civil behavior concept is important. >> let's look at the results for a second poll question. obviously, a very broad minded audience watching. republicans were much more likely to watch fox news and democrats were more likely to watch msnbc. i would like to ask molly really quickly -- your organization works with the girls, third grade to eighth-grade. do they say, wow. i'm looking at politics. that is the path i want? >> i think -- the girls determine what the gifts are. if that means serving in

congress are being president of the united states, go for it, girl. but i really think that maybe part of the conversation i would love to have the people who choose to run. why does this matter to you? why are you doing this? what is your endgame here? i would be honored at one of our girl says she wants to run because her reason for running would be for the greatness of this nation. >> let me ask you -- i wondered if you found the people you wanted to give appointment to come up for people he wanted to appoint, was there any reluctance because of the tone of washington? >> it was less the tone and more

the burden of the process. we recently completed a mission where we focused on the appointment process our work with the senate in the house. be achieved in number success. i think there is an appetite among congressional leaders to work together to try to find viable solutions. i do want to make a comment. a very important word is relationship. the investment of people in washington, d.c. we talked at one another. i ended up living in the basement apartment of senator claiborne's house. one evening i decided to organize a dinner and to invite a lot of my senior white house colleagues.

someone said to me, you live in that house. can he do that? i asked if it was ok to invite colleagues to dinner. she said, eric, you now, we have always had bipartisan dinners are. we do not think of them that way. we thought of it as inviting friends to the house. how can we not work with people in our community? our kids went to school together. they play soccer together. girl scouts and boy scouts together. investment in american families and enterprise. i haven't tried to get my congressman to have dinner with me and my apartment with some friends on the weekends -- i have tried to get my congressman to have dinner with me in my apartment with some friends on the weekends. he is never around. he has no investment in a relationship with colleagues on the hill. that is a real concern. >> here is our third and final

restaurant for our online audience. do you feel that your views are in the political process? we hope you will vote and we will get the results. harris a comment on -- here is a comment on twitter. plurality voting is gerrymandering equals -- in a similar comment on sean on twitter, partisan primaries push candidates to the extreme. adopt jungle time areas. incentive is to moderate. there's this idea of open primary where the two finalists from the primaries dance for the final office, is that something you think would help?

>> our goal is always to make sure that we provided our voters with all the information that they needed so that they could go out and vote. we're always looking for ways to simplify things and encourage voters to participate in this democratic process. my frustration has been that we have discourage voters. voters have been discouraged because of negative campaigning. they do not understand what is going on. their lives are so busy that they do not have time to do the proper research. to make sure everything is readily available for them. when they go, they could make an educated vote. a message to everyone has always been, this is one of the most important privileges as americans. but dissipated in this incredible democratic process.

participate in this incredible democratic process. we must not give up. in my position, my answer to any question was, i follow the will of the legislature. those are the people that you elected. i think that we opc to look at ways that we can encourage voter participation. -- i think we always need to look at ways that we can encourage voter participation. your vote counts. every single vote counts. but that is the perception. people are tired and angry. i often have people come up to me and say, i'm not going to vote. i'm tired of hearing about this election. i say, do not give up on voting because you're not happy. just don't vote on that particular thing. >> what you think people say my

vote doesn't count? >> they just feel -- texas, where not a swing state -- but it is not whether you are responsible for electing the president or not. it is the matter that as americans, this is a privilege that we have. we should exercise it. people like chris, fight for this. we should not take it for granted. in texas we always say that we are texans, but we are americans. i get so disappointed when other countries are fighting for this and we have it and we don't use it. for our young people -- i was always excited when i see our young people at our polling places. it was always the regular seniors that helped out of the polling places.

we need to get young people involved in this. you are the future. we cannot give up. yes, our country is going to uncertainty and we are divided. but you know what? we will get back. >> sorry. i do not mean to interrupt. >> we cannot give up. >> you are an expert on election law. is it becoming harder to vote with some of these new security laws? or is it appropriate measures that many states are considering? >> it is becoming harder to vote because of security laws and various efforts to make it more difficult for people to get to the polls. it is too bad. the voter id fight from academic perspective might be one of the silliest things around for the simple reason that there is no evidence of people committing fraud. imagine you want to steal an election.

you are not going to bust 100 people the polling places and have them pretend they're some else and hoping the poll worker doesn't think that the remember that someone so died. >> of advice for people are question mark -- thereby spared people -- so the advice for people is? >> they're not looking for the right solutions. >> what is the right solution? >> early voting should be the grand compromise. a lot of republicans are rightly concerned about fraud. a lot of democrats are rightly concerned about access. every american is concerned

about both. early voting is highly secure. on the other hand, it makes voting easier for working people who cannot take it on a tuesday because they had kids to pick up and buses to catch and so on. it is a beautiful solution. the american people love it. >> we saw in our most important electoral states limiting early voting. why has that happened? >> it is for political advantage. the thing about election reform that you learn very quickly is that people who know the most about this reform are people who want to manipulate reform. and are able to use these things to their advantage, they will.

>> you are a republican. there has been a real republican initiative. is it just politics? >> politics will play a role, sure. can i give you a poll? >> absolutely. super bowl ads. the number one ad was by buddweiser. that is where americans are. they have hope. simi valley, how many of you might consider some day going into public office? look at that. that is tremendous. there is hope. politics is part of this, but it needs to be pragmatic. it needs to reach out. we talk about relationships.

tom, you remember when you and linda and john and pat, i was the only republican with you, but we went on a trip. we were in vietnam. we went to a village where many of them had lost their legs because of the landmines. there was an elderly gentleman. between us he put his arms around your neck and my neck because he wanted to get across the village. he had no idea what party we were. he just knew that two americans were helping him. that is a relationship. when we come back from that sort of trip, you probably will see a little bit more i die. we may not agree -- will probably see a little bit more eye to eye. it was ted kennedy, the liberal lion that went to his senate colleague and said, this guy should be confirmed.

we will look at this and look at gerrymandering and the election laws. but we must not lose sight of the young americans in the spirit that exists there. >> poll question -- do you feel your views are reflected in the local process? 70% said no. a wide margin, americans do not feel that their views are being reflected. chris, you're not a politician. do you feel this way? >> i don't know if i can answer that for myself but the moment. i'm listening carefully. listen carefully to what many of the panelists are saying.

the secretary said something regarding military service. i served in afghanistan. during the first election post taliban in afghanistan, i am fortunately went home early because i was wounded -- i unfortunately went home early because i was wounded. , theyy unit came home made the plaques. there was a framed ballot. they are really pretty actually. that was a significant thing that we had done. we brought the right to vote to the people in afghanistan. while we have heard over and over, molly talked about

responsibility, and our hash today is #engage usa. it is our opportunity to make a decision. it is important we do not take that for granted. >> i work with young people. everyone wants to change the world. what better way then to run for office? that is one great way. i'm 52 and terrified of the notion of running for office. i would rather serve the world in other ways. there's an image of what people

who do that are like. sometimes i think young people do not see themselves doing that. i wonder as far as his dialogue as far as this dialogue, these are not and that we currently see. wethese are not things thtat currently see. we are bringing to light. >> congressman? >> people would be more excited about voting if they saw a result. in the past we had a lot of eye he is with the space program and they interstate highway. -- in the past we had a lot of rogue rams like the space program and the interstate highway. our federalch legislature in action, you kind of get the feeling that nothing is happening. therefore it is great to see

that voting is this great privilege that we should have, which it is. but if it you don't see that it has that much impact, in terms of how of what is coming out of work that is coming out, then it gets you down. maybe it is not so effective. one of the things that we have to marry in addition to the issues we're talking about today is that the work product of government, it is very important when a person considers how he or she should get engaged with the political system. in recent years, a law folks feel that it hasn't probably probably matter, because they don't see any impact in their lives. we have to address that. >> congressman? >> molly said something humorous but it hit the nail on the head. a lot of times, we as americans do want to take responsibility for our -- what is happening to us. dan touched on a similar thing.

no one teaches civics anymore. the school system somehow is lagging in teaching us about responsibility of government and so forth. more people pay attention in this day and age to what cell phone plan they have, good parking spaces, they know more about the cardassians -- kardashians. elections are often times more important than a federal election in any given year. the turnout for those elections is in single digits. even my home state of texas, where we think we are always always so responsible, two percent or three percent turn out for a school board election that will determine a salary, school supplies, and the future of whatever district you live in. we really need to reflect as a nation what are we -- we have created this problem for ourselves. americans want america to have

more bipartisan elected officials in washington, a could vote for them. unfortunately, they like people who say we don't want you to compromise. there is a huge voting block out there that is not show up that wants bipartisanship, but they don't educate themselves enough to even show up and have responsible votes. let us not forget that the root of the problem might be, it may not be in washington, it may not be in the state houses it may be in our own homes and neighborhoods where the root of this problem is. >> thank you. >> i think that it is true that people are discouraged and don't show up. there is some rash -- rationality.

they thought if there he show up, then their vote doesn't really count. they are making a decision that michael is not going to count because it does not reflect the -- thatty that i and man. i'm in. i do think that the tweet that talked about gerrymandering was a right on the money. california is doing an experiment that is worth watching. can you elevate the redistricting process to something outside of the purely political arena in every 2010, 2020 question mark can you move it somewhere else so that you can make rational decisions on gerrymandering, or not junior man during -- or not gerrymandering. we are rewarded for good behavior, we are rewarded for bad behavior in congress because of gerrymandering. i saw a comment by one of the president advisers who said should he call marco rubio by immigration, and he said, does marco rubio want to be seen out into the president?

we are rewarded for being a part apart. early voting is a great idea to allow more people to express themselves. a different system on form and congressional districts is critical. money is absolutely corrosive. the issue has to be fixed to read -- has to be fixed. >> people don't have those choices anymore. because of the gerrymandering, but you don't have centerleft and center-right candidates in primaries. even in the general election, you'll have a choice. in the final analysis, because on the -- because of times the

far left is the only choice that emerges from a primary. that spells over into the legislative process. -- that spills over into the legislative process. you mentioned earlier that they there are no people in the middle. the point is, i agree with the director, you do not have to be in the middle to work things out. there was a time in my district where we could work things out from the right and the left. the disagreements, that is why we were there. we are republicans, democrats, independents. it is how you work it through. as what is not happening now. -- that is why it is not happening now. that isn't the case anymore. opening up these primaries is going to be crucial to -- so there are more choices. >> quickly, i think she is so right.

there is one other element to this. elections have become so sophisticated that it takes jennifer's point about money and the sophistication that comes with voter turnout, and groups can now hijack the primary process. when the hijacked -- when they hijacked it, it no longer reflects the views of the people who live there, because they do not turn out because there is utility to it. that whole environment allows for groups to capture that elective process and exacerbate this process significantly. >> gerrymandering is also pointed to as the one source of the problem.

we see high levels of polarization in places that cannot be gerrymandered. senators are highly polarized. it does not take much work or money or effort to get a small group of people out there so the interest groups earn a huge amount of power during the primary process. i will say, the effect -- i have been puzzled by this conversation about the conversation of washington now and 10 years ago. people haven't changed. the incentives have changed. even the people that we understood to be moderate in the past, the fear of the primary challenge has yielded such control over the imagination of folks in washington that the reason they are so nervous of

taking any position is because of the primary challenge, which is where they get punished any way that the middle voter would never punish them. it the primary voters will because of the power money yields. >> that is a trend that has developed in recent years. >> that is what i think is the incentive. >> one indication of that is there are only 21 senators and the united states senate that are one party affiliation and their states voted for the presidential candidate of the opposing party. 79% of the senate isn't going to be willing to take a risk by incurring a primary challenge by crossing over. there is no benefit. in the public, it is true, the public feels differently. when you have $.5 billion outside advertising in these campaigns, the difference between this election and 1990

is 75 times the amount. candidates can't even fight that in primaries, or in general elections. that is where it is emerging in these primaries. that is the recent. we always had differences. we could work it out. >> we have spoken a lot about this corrosive cynicism that seems to be perpetuating itself. lest you feel that all is lost, i want to assure you that some of the was rewarding years i have had in federal government was being on the side of the desk and meeting people every day who wanted to serve their country. but not given up on the american enterprise. i was so happy to see the number of you who raise your hand in the audience.

our mission is to engage everyone in a conversation about how we ensure that people who want to serve can serve effectively and get good results. there are people every day sign up to serve, who really believe that service is the best commitment, and the greatest gift they can give back to their country. i do not want that to be lost the challenges we have here today. >> you beat me to it. that is what i wanted to reassure. there is a sense of pride. when i was growing up, someone would say, he is your senator. i look up with such pride. he was our senator, or she was our congresswoman. don't lose that. some years ago, air force one flew right over me as i was headed on a highway. tears started rolling, because

it was air force one. it it matter who the president was at that time. it was air force one. it was the president's plane. it will come back. everyone is watching us. we have to come back. i wanted to add something that heather had said. that is the great thing about these forums. we may respectfully disagree, but we are out -- all trying to work together to make this a better nation. i will tell you that for me, it wasn't about who was right and who was wrong, it was about protecting the process. making sure that voters have the confidence that this process was one that everyone could be proud of and respect. there was a report in 2005 that was done at -- a bipartisan report. it recommended a voter id to protect that process. just keep that in mind.

we look at these things, it is not whether it is a republican issue or democratic issue. are we doing the right thing to protect the process? and, early voting really is the trend. i saw that more than half of our voters did early voting rate you could stop as you're going to the grocery store, on your way to work, anywhere. i see that as a trend. we should continue to do that. >> we now 5000 people watching us on the webcast. a big audience across the country great we are still taking their tweets and reading their questions. the governor raise the issue -- the first is, from jones and orlando flowed our -- from jones in orlando, florida.

it seems like all interesting legislation these days is written by corporations or some special interest group. how do we stop this? another comment from twitter, how can we get our elected officials to vote against the interest of campaign contributors? what would you say to these two questions? >> this is such an enormous issue. members of congress represent -- spend their time raising money. members of congress spend between 30% and 70% of their time raising money. whenever there is a bill to be considered, they chair people of those committees have a huge opportunity to raise money from those who were effected area death whenever there is a sunset provision on a tax extender,

there is an opportunity. those who are benefiting want to preserve their benefits. the amount of money being raised is so out of proportion from those special interests to that being raised by individuals, and fax, -- in fact the top 32 donors match the donations of 3.7 million people giving under $200. 37 people versus $3.7 million. he you are going to go where you can get the biggest bang for your buck. these races are too expensive. getting money or reducing the influence of money over elections is the most important job that this group can consider.

>> how would you do that? >> you need a constitutional amendment, honestly. that would reduce or limit the amount of donations of that -- you have the whole issue of spending being speech. the supreme court has decided. if the issue corporations being people him and therefore being free to spend. there is a cluster of issues that have gone to the supreme court that could be addressed by constitutional amendment. that would require a huge lift. it would mean that they people across the country would have to be involved. two thirds of the state would have to have congress to convene a constitutional convention, and three quarters of the states would have to ratify the amendment. that is a huge lift. if ever there was an issue that needs to purify our elections, it is removing the overwhelming influence of money in politics. >> just to add, some indication of the trend here, when i ran my

last time in 2004, i race was the most expensive in the country. all the money spent on both sides was $50 million. i thought i was a lot. in the last cycle, the two most excites of races or virginia and massachusetts. those two races, all the money spent in each of the two races was over $80 million. just a short number of years, we've gone from $50 million to $80 million. i have no doubt in the next cycle we will see -- we will exceed $100 million. there has to be an end to this incredible escalation. >> how would you end it? >> i do not think there is much support for public financing.

i support it. i do not think you will ever get it done. jennifer has the only real answer. draw this tension between speech and money to read this a prank or has ruled that money is speech. you can't limit speech by limiting -- you are limiting speech by limiting money. i don't view that interpretation to be the correct one. that is how the court ruled. the only way you can get around it is to offer constitutional amendments. i am sure people our audience participants, i suspect that today there would be this support for it. i cannot think of another way to deal with the alternative. >> we should pull that question. >> when gene mccarthy ran for president, he was going up against an incumbent president. the only reason while he was asked why he was able to run was because it is centric antiwar

millionaires. when you look at a system that is very tightly regulated, it is going to tend to benefit people who don't have to worry about spending as much money because they already have name identification. we tend to be talking about them, politicians. there is a legitimate amount of problems. there is interesting issue here. your political party, these are the broad relations that represent people of different views in our country. these political parties are not allowed to engage in corrugated spending with their candidates. if the democratic party were able to engage in unlimited spending with candidates, they could say, we're going to turn this this into a competitive race. we are allegedly that by a young iraq war veteran who does not

have a big fundraising network, isn't a multimillionaire. let's had all the expenditure limits are placed right now, but say say the democratic party can run a candidate with a promising candidate, and we're going to engage in coordinated spending. with the sealer packs, uncoordinated spending does not work very well. it is highly inefficient. this is how you will see the article consultants -- political consultants owning up to this. these are public and super packs were buying ads in windsor ontario -- windsor, ontario because it would make it into the markets. folks who cannot finance themselves can run campaigns. if you are an incumbent politician, you don't necessarily want situation in which both our teas are able to run far more competitive races. it is absolutely right. think about how much individual candidates have to spin. read about the quality of

candidates you're missing out on when you only allow candidates that can raise a certain amount of money on their own. -- to give them more power would be a mistake. there is a room for finance reform. >> i have a secret to tell. i have never told anybody else. >> you can trust us. >> when summit came into see me to ask for for my boat or my position, in the back of my mind, i would think, that would be a good person to invite my next fundraiser. here is the point.

it it defies the point -- force of laser -- it defies nature that people give the money with the expected something in return. that is the way it has always been. the question is what has become everything else. what can we do about it? without getting so overregulated. i would love to pass a constitutional amendment. i opened the public is going to be inspired to do that. there are some things, for example, ali congress is in session, why should they be able to go out and raise money? well you're in session, you can't raise money during session. at least the time you're voting on bills, you're not out seeking money and resources.

everything has consequences, so they can find other times to do it and work around it. we're going to be more creative in finding ways to reduce the impact that it has on the time and the occupation box ability flexibility. --love a constitutional and , endement but i do not think it is likely to be in the cards. >> we spent a better part of a decade trying to pass a bill. ultimately we did. one of their provisions was mine struck down in citizens united. we drew a very bright line, saying if a group ran an ad 30 days before a primary, 60 days before an election, and said tell senator snowe to vote no on this legislation, then, it would have to be able to be a political action committee. regrettably, that was struck down in citizens united. what was worse was what the court did.

they would 100 years back and unraveled case president on corporations and unions being able to provide unlimited funding. the biggest change that has occurred is outside money. candidates no longer have control of their races. you have outside groups coming in to your state, and spending thousands if not millions of dollars. the lady of toward but the person you're running, you have to have to worry about how much money has the -- you spent a lot of time raising money. as i have mentioned, with every election. it is going to be a question of

both sides working against -- again together. there was a mention in the last congress, the disclose act. it was not something that was put together by both republicans and democrats. we would work on that to make sure there was a balance. this outside money is a crucial question. one is going to have to be addressed by both sides if we're ever going to tackle it. i don't think an amendment would work. >> i think the way to think about a money problem is that you cannot get a constitutional amendment. think about where the money is coming from and where it is going. it would be very useful if we started matching small donors so they have an incentive to come out to small donors. the obama campaign figured this out.

there were moments where money was just rolling in. if that money were match, it would create a lot more incentive to patent into the small donors. you do care about where the money comes from. the other point is where the money is going. the parties can sullivan accountable for what they are doing and stay on message. you can also hold the money accountable when they cross the line. those components, where the money is from, and where the money goes has to be on the table. >> we've gotten a whole series of questions from twitter, and from facebook, and from our audience about filibusters. let me ask one of the questions about the filibuster.

what is the worst example of the filibuster in the senate? who is a candidate for the worst use of the filibuster? >> we have two former senators. >> that is interesting. however you wish to answer is fine. >> while others are thinking, the worst is the number. the sheer number. from 1970 in -- from 1917 to 1967, is going through difficult times, including the vietnam war and the civil rights movement. there were 50 filibusters. and the 112th congress, there were 129. the sheer number is in my view the worst aspects. there is plenty of blame to go around with regard to why that

is. i think that would be my candidate. >> anybody else? >> i think the question is really the number. the sheer number. it gets down to breda in the senate and the lack of communication and 20 liters in trying to -- it gets down to the lack of communication. as you know, the leadership reached an agreement at the beginning of this year, albeit temporary, where there will be a motion to proceed, there will not be a filibuster him and the majority has agreed to allow amendments, but i hope that is not the ceiling. it is designed to be a deliberative body.

it is what it is all about. to slow down the process and do to work it through. it is not the rules of the senate. it is the human behavior behind it. the fact is, we are not having a deliberative process. you get the threat to the fella but ash -- filibuster on our side. or, there is a concerted effort. that is going to change. there is a reason for the culture to end the filibuster. it is to protect the rights of a minority. that 60 build -- vote threshold is important. it is majority rule, but it is predicated on accommodating the rights of the minority. hopefully they can return to some traditional means by which to consider legislation in the senate.

or all article purposes, that is not happening. -- four all practical purposes, that is not happening. compared to the previous majority leaders, where it was 40 times over 22 years, we have a problem on both sides. it gets to trust and commu nication. >> to pick up on that. the house of representatives, the people's house, 435 members, often they are limited to one minute to two minutes of comment. that's it. there are so many. the body of the senate, if at any point one party gets over 60 votes, where high per theftically they can change the rules and eliminate, they would never do it.

some day with low politics they will be in the minority so they want the 60 vote. along with the filibuster and it is the tool of butting a hold on this is what drives a lot of good people away. you put a person's life on hold. someone is going to say, nope. we will not vote on this nominee until this issue is dealt with. it may have nothing to do with the person. that in role-oint playing sometimes you should play the other side. congress does it all the time. i will tell you when we flipped sides, it will go from minority to majority. they believe that their president should have his nominations taken up or down. ,s it is a lose the white house

it's different. if you my suggestion -- all agree and you have them on ,ecord that they support that put in effect today. infect the incumbent. he won never get that, but put it far enough out there. that does note affect incumbent right now. it is tough to reject that. >> we are just about at a time. someone said that we have not been able to get to them. >> one re-think -- we must not not forget that absolute affect this a social media. it was pointed out to the among

80% of the voters, they do not get their information from tv. when you look at all this money being spent on television, it may not be effective. it is facebook and twitter and all of those things. ands facebook and twitter all of those things that are growing. at some point maybe you understand social media more. >> we have got to start with a premise. the founding fathers created a system that institutionalized conflict and gridlock. they created a separation of powers. they do not want a strong executive versus a strong congress. they wanted an eagle congress and in equal president. the divided divided congress into two equal bodies. -- they wanted and equal

congress and an equal resident. then they divided congress into two equal bodies. that is what they wanted. to problem is that in order get anything done, you have got to work through exquisite and important relationship building and develop trust in order to get through that barrier. what has happened in recent years is that those barriers have been more difficult to jump over because of all the factors that we talked about today. even if we make changes and get through this barrier, this country still operates pretty well. there is a fundamental distrust of giving too much power to government. i do want people to think that a few -- i don't want people to think if you make all of these changes we will solve our problem overnight. the process was meant to be slow

and deliberative. >> governor, final comments? senator daschle? >> you started with a video. there have been a number of incidents. i read an account. there is a fantastic man who worked in the senate for 67 years. his name is isaac. he writes with great clarity about the many things that he saw on the floor. senators used to pull guns on each other. .hey passed a resolution i can testify at least in the last 30 or 40 years, there has never been one one cane or gun pulled on anyone. [laughter] guess i would make a final comment. what a pleasure we have launched this event at the

reagan library. nancy reagan, a lady of great class, issued a letter welcoming us. our collective love and affection for nancy reagan -- when you think about her and the role that she played as ronald reagan's support, soulmate, someday when you have a panel i think youuses, would get that perspective but the role -- about the role that families play. it is not just political science. you people trying to live. -- it is people trying to live. god bless you. [applause] great note to

close on. for the people sending us comments, here is a comment on twitter. have become at red sox and yankee fans. neither will cheer on or support the others. allison in new york says, i'm a diehard soccer fan and i am friends. so maybe -- i'm a diehard sox fan and am friends with many yankees fans, so maybe there is hope. misty to everyone who made this town hall possible. -- thank you to everyone who made this town hall possible, especially our audience in simi valley and online. it was a great start. thank you. [applause] >> next pulitzer prize winning journalist, seymour hersh. a local activist talked

about the media role in revolution in africa and the middle east. >> next, investigative journalist, seymour hersh, talks to journalist students. has won numerous reports for his reporting, including the pulitzer prize for international reporting for his coverage of the massacre and its cover-up during the vietnam war. the indiana university, this is an hour and a half. [applause] >> thank you. investigative journalists are described as custodians of conscience. investigating reporting, the craft of revealing hidden truth is thought to be the highest form of journalism. in the practice there are few more prominent figures seymour hersh.

he started in 1959. his subsequent career of checking things out like exposing the melai massacre. .n illegal cia spying program and many other things. these revelations won him a pulitzer prize, and there have been numerous national awards recognitions since. those journalists who have dabbled in investigative reporting that challenge and official emeritus and make mincemeat out of sacred cows know the work invites criticism, and he has received some.

one comment came from a former defense official who called him the closest thing america has to a terrorist. [laughter] the nixon administration snooped through his tax forms. some news organizations questioned his work. mr. hersh has kept reporting. one thing that makes that notable is some of his best work has been done as an independent journalist, not backed by resources. he was called a scoop artist. a recent history describe him as a new reporter known for his brains. and badgering sources and till they can't him -- until they gave him the information he wanted. tonight the indiana university school of journalism is delighted to welcome mr. seymour hersh.

[applause] >> you will not be laughing or smiling when i am done. i will talk about chasing a story and do a narrative. i will try to make get interactive. try to talk a little bit about that oxymoron, journalistic ethics. [laughter] then there is the world going to hell today as it was 10 years ago. we're not out of the woods yet in the sunni-shia muslim -- we can talk about that and i will answer your questions. i will tell you a little bit about journalism, the back to the melai story. i know you want to get your parties later tonight.

what we will do is i will put you back in 1969. a free-lance kid. i started at city news, and i failed law school. i did not like it. i went to chicago, i had gone to college there, and i bumped around and got a job as a reporter for the city news reporter, which covered crime because there was so much in chicago, but i worked with other guys so i got a taste of some of the good journalists around. they did the army stuff, which is boring, and it was before any war and you played a toy soldier.

it was ok, and i went back and got to upi and covering the legislature in south dakota -- that was ok. you learn something about cynicism because i spent a lot of time with the soiux tribes, because nobody was writing about them. george mcgovern, a decent guy, he wrote a lot of stories about them, and you never knew where stories will go. that got me to the associated press which got me to washington, covering the vietnam war. in 1965, on-the-job training for learning how to hate a war, because going there, working in washington, and as a correspondent, and the a.p. has juice because every story you write is on every editor's desk.

the other thing was you get to know military guys. i was saying earlier although i am critical of my government, one thing that you find in the cia, all these agencies in the military, what makes the world work is you find a one-star general or people that are not loyal to the two-star generals or the chief of staff or the army, but are loyal to the constitution, and that is drifting away more particularly as you see the erosion of congress in its oversight capacity, the growth of the executive. there are still people deep inside, so as a young reporter covering and having lunch with

officers who have been to vietnam, i would learn about what was going on that everybody killed was counted as an enemy. the body count, some of you know about it. if you are young and you do not know about it, that is the -- i remember growing up in chicago in the 1940's, and world war i and was flanders field and fields of poppies. it was not impossible for students not to worry about a war. the thing that ought to be worrying about that war that we fought a war in a country about which we knew very little. i am talking at the top, the civilian top, in the white house. we did not know the history, culture, society.

we saw them as potential commie adversaries. one of the things that was so horrifying to me as i got into the my lai story was our soldiers would go unprepared for the primitive society, but it had been a society for 2000 years. if you ever moved -- we were relocating people at some point. they were badlands, areas controlled by the communists, and we wanted to relocate badlands. we built little hamlets in safe places and try to relocate people who had been on the same place for 2000 years. one of the things that happen is mothers always crossed a threshold first before the children. that is a cultural thing. our boys would come in and gather the people up and we are

going to relocate a village. we had 10 choppers and fly them out. the mothers would insist, and american boys, we put the kids on the plane first. the mothers would fight like hell to be there first, and the kids with the how horrible these mothers were. it is amazing stuff. the only thing that is important about the war now is that we end up a couple decades later going into another culture in iraq about which we know very little, and then we go into afghanistan and now the french have gone into mali. that will not end well. it is always amazing to me, breathtaking how we can just stagger from one colossal destructive mechanism to another.

in some way, being america and a lot of good things -- anyway, so i worked for the a.p. i got edgy in my reporting. the a.p. was negative about my reporting. my attitude was toward the truth. i was pushed out, reassigned to an education beat, and i resigned and went to work for eugene mccarthy, who was running against johnson. mccarthy was a benedictine, brilliant philosopher type from minnesota. there were a lot of things he did not know much about. he played hockey in college, and baseball, and an amazing the bright guy who would talk about the vietnam war as immoral. what?

a politician making the notion that something is immoral that we do? is iraq immoral? it was breathtaking to see the hopeful period. i moved on from that. politics is awful. it is, just awful. i read today that axelrod is joining nbc and robert gibbs is joining nbc, and we know that george stephanopoulos is now at abc. it is amazing -- and you wonder what the press does not really get going. my attitude toward cable television and all these reporters going on cable television is simple. if you took away all these guys, this clause, "i think," none of them could say anything, because none of them know very much.

so i am there in 1968, freelancing. mccarthy, i do four or five months there. i am freelancing in 1969. nixon is in. nixon campaigned on that great campaign slogan, had a plan to end the war. it turned out that his plan was to win it, but we did not know that. so i'm minding my business. i had done a book, chemical and biological warfare, but i was married, had a kid, and if i made $8,000 in 1969 it was a lot. my wife was a social worker. four gallons of gasoline for a buck. also heating oil was 18 cents. you could live. in late 1969 i got a contract from random house to do something on pentagon waste.

i am doing it. it is money in the bank. i get a call one day. it was from somebody who ended up -- he became an educator who became head of the voice of america for bill clinton. he was chairman of the department of journalism at southern california. at that time he was an anti-war lawyer. somehow he has picked up -- he will not tell me -- he said, there is an amazing story going on. some guy, some g.i. has shot up by a lot of people, it is a huge scandal and the pentagon is trying to suppress it. i could not -- he would not tell me who told him. i only knew him through his brother, i did not know him, but

i had read all of these -- advice i give to journalists is simple -- read before you write. i had read the various books published by the american friends committee and the anti- war people who would come back from vietnam. there were worked hearings in 1968 to talk about atrocities they witnessed. i read that stuff and paid attention to it. i also knew from talking to the young generals i met at the pentagon, you meet young generals and we talk about the redskins and you get to learn that basically a lot of them thought they were in the business of mass murder. absolutely, the good ones. i knew there was something to this story, and i started working it.

probably because i was bored with my book. what do you do? you are confronted with the rumor. the first thing i did is -- because i spent time at the pentagon -- we keep very good records of any criminal activity. that it was he was being prosecuted. i went to the legal office of the pentagon and into the bowels of the bureaucracy, and i started reading the files, looking for a murder indictment or investigation. i found nothing that met that criteria. there were the usual rate at -- rape here and murder there. nothing that smacked of anything improper that was grotesque. this is instinct, and you do it, and i will tell this story a good way and a bad way. i want you journalists to be or maybe not to be -- if you think about it -- where are the jobs? you will find something. [laughter] there is always the 7/eleven.

a tough business right now. mind you, i do not have a lot of economic worries. you did not have that much money, you could -- we rented a little house for 200 bucks. you could do not -- you could not do that today in washington. i kept on poking, and i did not go anywhere, and for a couple weeks and 10 days later or so, i read newspapers, went back. most of the major things you learn about if you go back and read the papers they are there, but you just did not see it because you do not know the context. that is what is so fascinating

about being a journalist, that you can see what is there. after i did melai, if you read that the trust account, there were so many accounts, they had a war crimes tribunal that nobody paid attention to. if you read that you would see the my lai story 50 times. was a day in march of 1968, a group of american boys, in a subliminal -- a unit made up people largely who were accepted, the standards had been lowered by robert mcnamara because it essentially he wanted to get us he lowered the standards to bring more, if you will, hispanics, rural americans as a kid from indiana who told me played a big role, underclass, african-americans, they wanted to change the color of the corpses, get rid of a white corpses and get a little more color in the mix because that would help the public relations. you lowered the standards and

these kids are packed into a unit. most of them did not have a high school equivalence. they did not know much. march 16, they went into a village and they were told the night before that they were going to meet the enemy for the first time. they had been in the country for about 12 weeks and had lost about 15% to get an occasional bullets. they were falling into booby traps. you get somebody wounded that way. we called them viet cong. what i call them was vietnamese nationalists. in any case, they had lost enough, and they had gone brutalized in the 12 weeks. they do not have refrigerators and i do not know how to cross a threshold, which made them convinced that they were dealing

with some humans, which is the way you get people to kill people in a war. you have to dehumanize them. the big memory was kill, kill, kill, don't think, think, think. they were told they were going to meet the bad boys for the first time. they did what kids did in that more than. the officers and enlisted men drank, and the enlisted men and took to get up, and they got stoned. 5:00, 4:00 in the morning came, they took their weapons, and they got on choppers to go kill for america. they did do that. they found nothing but women and children and old men. for some reason, they pulled them together, put them in ditches, and executed them slowly, killing them randomly with bullet after bullet. they raped women before they would kill them. it was all seen by senior officers and covered up.

they exhumed 535 bodies later. they came back to the village a few weeks letter and buried the bodies properly. this is a pretty bad day. i am into the story, and i grew up world war ii. the movies i saw, john wayne, van johnson, who fly out around in their planes, and remember the movies about the nips would start with the night before, the american officers were in a bar, chasing some nurse, and there is a fight, and a guy's got into a terrible fight, van johnson and errol flynn got into a terrible fight. the next morning they were flying together, and the nips,

there was an air battle, and the nips would fly with the canopy closed. they would wear the leather caps that would tie under the chins. squinty glasses and buck teeth. flynn -- and johnson runs to his rescue at the last minute, and he pores a lot of bullets into the japanese plane. the bullets would come in and you see the plane go like this it was pretty crude stuff. i remember as if i was watching "star wars xviii." it started going down. that would be the noise. before it hit the water, a trickle of blood would come out of the corner of the nip's mouth, and we would go cheering like mad.

there was a book written about the censorship of world war ii, and i knew marines, whose were at tara tara. the marines would just pile in, never saw it. we never got a sense of how bad it was and how stupid some of the operations were in terms of everything going wrong. that is another story. that is always war. a digression. 1969, and i am checking, and i covered the building and there was a guy, and one of the guys had gone to vietnam, a colonel, and in vietnam he caught a bullet. bump into him in the hall.

this is a week or so after i got the tip. i do not want to start asking too many questions, because if it is a real i do not want -- and nobody should know what i am looking at. there was nobody to tell. i do not want to start asking too many questions, because if it is a real i do not want -- and nobody should know what i am looking at. there was nobody to tell. my wife, what did she care? she probably did, but she had her own problems. [laughter] it is pretty tough being married to a guy who did my lai. ladies put up with a lot. just probably true, but i said it. this guy had been one of the guys i clowned around with, and we all have fun in america. people like us and we are likable. i was having a good time with this guy, and i see him in the hall, and he is limping and i know he had been defrocked. that is what they call it in

the army. i jumped on him and i grabbed him and say, look at you, shot in the knee. i give him a real hard time did i say, so what are you doing now? he came back early because he was wounded badly. he lost part of his leg, he said i'm working for the chief of staff for westy. westmoreland. i said, no kidding? what about this guy who shot up everybody? you mean, calley? he said -- [sigh] he said not worth worrying about. ok, here we get to journalism ethics. man, you just deliver the package. i now have a name, an idea that

it was the chief of staff's office, and that everybody is saying when you say that that is that way of dismissing it in a way, but he is working with the chief. that gives you a point of view that they are aware, they are not anxious for this to get out. youi say to him, general, just made a mistake, because you put me in the story -- hell, no. journalistically, no. and i go to the library and i do different spellings. i find -- goddamn, late 1968, there's a first lieutenant named william calley jr. who was held on killing an unspecified of civilians.

that is all. he was at fort jackson in south carolina. and so i have got something. there's something there, so i call up best the public affairs office at fort jackson and i say, i said, major, what do you got on this guy calley? he said, we know about that. he shot up a bar. he was not lying. that was what he was told. i know i have something. mythat point, i go back to original source, who clearly knew more, and i say, ok, it is william calley jr. who is his lawyer? i cannot find any records. there was also a story in "the

new york times," paragraph. --had been a kid that was that went to junior college, went to work in one of the southern railroads and was fired after three weeks because he forgot to throw a switch and two freight trains collided. he was one of the 90-day wonders they were running out to run troops. anybody has read the novel about -- many of the soldiers had about their junior officers. tim -- his name? who of my talking about? he is amazing. he is described killing in a novel form -- i mean, as a fictional short story in a collection he did.

anyway, one of the things i learned things my lai after i did the story, doctors in japan, american doctors, i mentioned this earlier, they began writing me in care of wherever, i do not know how i got these letters i was doing this for a anti-war dispatch. young doctors, surgeons in japan were treating nothing more than first and second the lieutenants with bullet holes in the back. up're not going to smoke it or toke it up, and they wanted to work harder and going on patrol, they would get it. there was a lot more that went on. so he comes back with a name,

latimer, george latimer, who turned out to be lawyer. i went back and found him. i found latimer had been a judge on the court of military appeals. he lived in salt lake city, and i spent the day in the library reading a bunch of his cases, and the courts of appeals, it is complicated because you did not ever have bodies, an allegation that somebody kills somebody and he is guilty of murder, and when it comes to the appeals section, judges like latimer would say we did not know what happened because we did not have witnesses or bodies and just anecdotal stuff. he was reversing an lot of decisions. he felt he had the choice. there were a lot of disheartening decisions. i called him up and i say -- hersh, want to talk to you about the calley matter.

i am coming to the west coast next week and i am going to salt lake. you mind if i come to see you? he said, no, come see me. i wanted to go see him, but i did not want him to think i was making a big deal. that was a reality. you do not always have to be wonderfully upfront with everybody. it is called lying or misrepresenting, which may not always be part of the investigative reporting game, but there is always -- let me say this, something i said at dinner -- i speak too much -- in 50 years of being an report, i have not only done political crimes, war crimes, organized crime, the most serious threats i ever had came from noriega, as a murderer, and i did all

these stories in 50 years of writing about nasty things and i have never met anybody who ever thought he did anything wrong. you've got to remember this. that is not where we are usually act. that always makes it more complicated. i am sure this poor guy in new jersey that "the new york is riddling -- any way, not that i feel sorry for him. inot of this that goes on congress and probably everywhere. so at this point, i like to see him the next day care is a partner in a law firm, a mormon, and elder or deacon. maybe deacon is the right word, is it? a big boss.

i go see him, and he is a very nice guy and i say, let's talk about your decision in such and such and we go over some of his cases. i took my -- at the chicago law school, and he thinks i am the nicest guy in the world. why he decided what he decided. he is making the case and telling me about the difficulty. he was on the court for about 15 years after being a jag, and then retires and goes into a practice. finally, he thinks i am the nicest man that he has ever run into. so then i say, let's talk about calley, and he says this is a real mess. i cannot believe what the army is doing to this guy. he goes into his desk and he is prepared and pulls out one of

those manila folders, cardboard folders, and he opens it up and there's a series of documents, and we talk for a minute and then he says, excuse me, he gets a phone call -- one of partner calls, when they're discussing fees -- and i remember him the same tone of voice, and why am i talking about money? he is having this conversation and then he hangs up and says, look, i have to go to one of my associates and he leaves. ok -- [laughter] what do you do? come on. what do you do? what do you do, students? you go what?

you do what? why? >> [indiscernible] >> what? rationalizew do i that? why do i think it is ok? does anybody have an idea? what made you think it is ok? he did not put it in his desk, did he? what do you think? somebody has to talk. [laughter] loud. what? >> [indiscernible] >> you know what is interesting about that, she says he obviously left it there because he wanted you to see it. there was a great oriental rug there, and suppose i roll up that run and throw out the window, and would that work? [laughter]

there was a couple of artifacts from the various wars he did, from ashtrays and stuff like that pit, on. keep going. that is easy, he wanted me to do it, right? anybody think i should not do it? no grownups, no lawyers. about students? anybody think i would be crazy enough to do it? if i was working for the "chicago sun-times," and say i did not do it, he would say, come back, you're done. it is ok if it is on his desk, right? anybody bothered by that? who? >> me. >> you are too old.

you got to be young. there is no right or wrong. there is no right or wrong. [laughter] ok, let's go back to it. the phone call rings. he is pain to people cuts down the phone, puts down the folder, into his desk, and leaves. what, students? going give you what was through my mind if you think this is going to really hurt the war issue, i am thinking the three f's, fame, fortune, nd --

i think this is about me, a great story. he puts it into his desk drawer. what would you, guys? >> [indiscernible] >> who says that? how old are you? no non-students? oh, come on, your calendar suppose he had taken that folder, and instead of putting it in the desk, he had walked to a file cabinet, opened it, put it in, but left the drawer open. suppose he closed the door, but left it unlocked? is there a difference? what? >> [indiscernible] >> in plain sight. is that a movie that somebody saw? [laughter] if we only dealt with what was

in plain sight, we would not get very much in our business. what do you do? the big jump, and i'm 30, 31, into the major leagues right there. ok, so -- >> [indiscernible] >> no, you're too old to say that. that was 1969. we're talking 40-some odd years later. the morality i had then was not what i have now. i thought there was a war to stop, we had to stop the war. come on, where do you draw the line? if he thought it is ok to get to the top of the desk, like you think it is ok to get inside the desk? what is the difference? >> [indiscernible] >> what? hmm -- if you were rolling the rug up. if you could do it quick. >> [indiscernible] >> what?

>> [indiscernible] >> not because i wanted it? are you going to make this virtuous? [laughter] a virtue? look, it turns out you cannot do any of those. firstns out calley has amendment rights. not just the first amendment, but all the amendments. i can tell you what happened. if this was a smaller classroom, i have done this and i like to do it in journalism school, sometimes even in graduate schools, because it seems the older -- more lessons you learned in journalism the more committed you are to let's go for it, man.

you would be amazed in graduate schools, 90% say do it quick. bring your camera. we did not have tape recorders. i could have read the file. phonehat he did have a call, and there was a few minutes where we were not chatting, and he had opened up the front page, and i read it upside down. you cannot remember if you are a young kid, parents remember when kids are young and it did not matter which way it was up. if you were babysitters you know that. it is harder when you are older, but i sat there and read it and the first sentence read, it was classified, an army charge sheet, "william calley jr. is found to be charged of the murder of 109 human beings."

"10 whites equal one oriental." "how you figure out what an oriental is worth? not as much as a white or african- or hispanic-american." i copied enough of it and then i had this insane conversation. i never asked him for it. he would not give it to me. i was a man of the law. the only thing i asked when i left was, and i was very nice, and he was very nice, he did not realize i was not taking notes, but i was copying it. how would you describe that in terms of honorable behavior? probably necessary, but this is a treacly little business you are getting into as reporters. i talk to the young lady who presaged by introduction,

whenever her name is -- [laughter] if the campus newspapers start doing investigations, they are headed for the obvious place to investigate, athletics, money, who gets in, and before long they are all going to be kicked out of school. every professor will lose tenure. anyway, because if you start doing stuff at a major university in sports, which is the only real story to do -- point is he said this proceeding took place at fort jackson. i said, is he at fort jackson? he said, i cannot say anything. i said, your honor, if i say i am going to fort jackson, you have to say i am wasting my time. he said nothing. that was something. i went off to fort jackson and

i found calley, a long story about to begin. i will take a minute and tell you. being in the army, i thought that calley is not in the phone book. he is not there, and the phone books change, and first i went to every prison. their five prisons in every cell. i went -- i do not know what they call them -- they had a different word for that. i went to the regional little jails and i put on my little crappy suit and a tie and i walked in and looked like a lawyer and i carried a briefcase, and i said, i want bill calley out here now. they said, who? and i went all the clubs, every sports club, the hockey -- in

the sports club, every place that was swimming. i went to the garages. i asked, have you ever serviced a car owned by calley? rented a car in south carolina, went on base, and the fort is contiguous with the city, i was starving and i went to a p.x., got a hamburger, and then i remembered something. this is september, and what i remember in the lawyer's office, he had been charged in august, the previous august or july. grandave a version of a jury called an article 32 proceeding. we're looking at a big story and i have seen the document, marked

"secret." so i realized from nine days of the pentagon that the military in its efficiency changes phone books every three months. calley arrived in may and was not charged until late july. when he arrived in may and registered, coming back from vietnam, he came back as a first lieutenant. he might be -- he was not in the book published in june, but maybe he would be listed in the new listings for the earlier book published in april. i call up the operator and these are the days of non- homogenized of voices. you can still get some southern accents in savannah. now we are one big anglo-saxon combine. so i get this operator and i say, i want you to do me a

favor, get the old phone book, the april phone book and i want the last new listings. she checked with her boss and came back, she said, ok, i have got it. i'm looking for calley. she said, i got him. she said he came in the last week before we published the new directory. then she hung up and was in this deep southern accent, and i remember the frustration. i found her, he was assigned to a unit that -- construction unit. engineer battalion, infantryman. i had been looking at him all over, but i could not find him. i went to the unit, and i called back, another operator read it to me, it was in another camp, and i went 20 miles away and now it is about 3:00 in the afternoon, one of these modern

army buildings, three-story building on -- separated by a one-story passageway, where the commander had his office. there were three rows of barracks. i go into a side door, and i figure, i got him, he is here. i go up and down one side, and all the beds are made pitifully like we used to make them. we were good at making beds. we all had to be. then i had to go down and in order to get to the other side, had to go down to a passageway, and it was one of those stores where there was a bottom and a front top that was open, so i crawled underneath. sure enough, on the second floor, on the other side, we're talking about is making your luck. that is what it is about. it was irrational what i was

doing. i was just doing it, chasing everything. on the third floor, it was empty. the second floor -- 3:15 in the day. i got him, it is calley. give a big whack on the bunk. he has a 16-letter last name, and i think i said, it is not calley. i said, will you explain to me why you're sleeping here at 3:30? he was from iowa, and this is now october of 1969, a year and half after the incident. most of the soldiers were backed by then. he said to me, i'm supposed to get out for the harvest. we got everything going at the farm in iowa. a big farming area.

he tells me this sad story about how they lost his records and he is being held, although he did the his year in nam. i said, what is your job? i said, i am a mail clerk. i said, are you the mail clerk for the battalion? [laughter] about, did you ever hear a guy named calley? he said, that guy who shot up everybody? he said, he never was there, but i got his mail, and i would that for a week and then i would drive over to see smitty over the battalion. this is the battalion headquarters. smitty was the headquarters.

the next higher level. so you deliver to smitty? my job was giving the mail to smitty. i said, where his headquarters? he said, far away. i said, when time is it? 3:42. in 8 minutes, i said, i will pull up in a ford, on the other side, in a car. you come out exactly in eight minutes and take me over there. yeah, sure. he wanted action. don't go out the side door. he is right there, we jumped in, he drives me to the headquarters about 15 minutes away. a modern american kid. at least i knew the route. i drove back and it is one of these beautiful days in georgia, and a battalion

headquarters is a wooden building, and there is a sergeant leaning against the door, the open door, and mosquito season was over, and the other thing he told me driving over, smitty been busted the week before. he was madder than hell. he was drinking. igure i've got to play, and say, sergeant, i want smitty out here now. he said, what has he done now? i said, get in the car. i am looking for calley. base't -- he lives off somewhere. i said, what do you have on him? he said, i have his personnel file.

i said, get it. [laughter] and he said, ok. those in, takes it, puts it in his wallet, the page the first page i saw in the judge's office the day before, the charge sheet. it is all about making your luck. i found calley, got a strange story from him. he led me to the captain in charge, and i wrote the first of five stories as a freelancer. once i found calley, it took me a week or two to find somebody to buy it. storyek before, i had a -- i was doing another piece for "life" magazine, so i had been making it. i was getting traction. the press secretary which i

met, became friendly with, walter cronkite, man of tennis. a son used to think he was watchmaker because of his white hair. i met all these guys, nobody would touch the story. i had to sell it as an independent journalist, which is amazing, but it happened. that is the virtue of the press. one day, 40 newspapers got the story. the editors took it and about 35 of them made it the lead story. chicago, philadelphia, the "new york post," and then the week after, "the new york times" had the story. i found this poor kid that killed everybody in indiana. that is the famous line. once i found kids and the company, there was a lot of

repressed memory. once you find one, you can find others, mostly in the west coast. some talked. some of their fathers said, get away. they were worried about being charged. and they told me about a kid doing on the shooting. he had 30 bullet clip, into a ditch of woman and children. a horrific moment -- somebody told me about and went to others. he had been killing -- they put the 500 or so people into ditches. if you hold the trigger down, it is to be a semi automatic. i remember that from the army days. he shot six or seven clips -- mostly african-american guys, no way.

we're not doing this. nobody wanted to call out the farm boys who did it. nobody wanted to call them out because they were afraid they would get hit later. that was the way it was. and people did bad things they did not want anybody to talk about it. woreext day, some people black armbands. they will had to take them off. then i talked my friend a a year later, chief of staff as he was so successful at killing innocent people, it gets you promoted. anyway, the point is that the college did all that shooting another certain moments, they were eating their lunch ration next dish.

-- next to the ditch. there are famous photographs of it. an army photographer saw what was happening. he shot for the army, black and white areas then he shot a bunch of pictures with his own personal camera. you seldom life magazine after the stories. he had amazing photographs. he did not tell the army about those photographs. once he shot in black-and-white had nothing to do with what really happened. anyway. after a while shooting, they heard a noise. it turned out one of the mothers talked a baby under her stomach and she survived the slaughter. he was crawling up and screaming more and more as he got up. he was full of blood. he began to run. and lieutenant calley, who still lives in columbia, south

carolina, he said to paul hewitt in the most acquiescent of all the soldiers, some turned away after a little bit. but paul kept on firing. calley said to paul, plug him. paul could not do it. bombshy you could drop from on high but can't go down low. the issue of what is acceptable. he would not do it. calley had a smaller rifle. everybody remembered she ran up behind the kid and shot him in the back of the head. paul the next day stepped on a landmine and lou office leg above the knee. while we ready the medevac, he was chanting, god is punishing me lieutenant calley, and god will punish you. thisbody remembered

chilling oath. this curse. they were saying get him out of here. 1.5 years later i am looking for him. i find him in salt lake city. i knew he was somewhere in southern indiana. i am calling every phone company. he didn't have google. i knew the spelling, and i finally find a spelling of that name. southernl up, a white voice answers. his mother. i say,, i am just wondering how paul is. is he back at the i'm a reporter and want to talk to them. she said i don't know if he wants to talk to you. this is about the war? . i said yes. she said, come on down i don't

know what he is going to do. i took a plane that night. i go to indiana. i have a hard time finding the house because it is this ramshackle wooden collection of dilapidated buildings. like you'd see in the pictures of plantation life in louisiana in the middle 1900's. external memory of what they look like. there is a chicken farm in the cages were all disarray. you knew there was no man around. she comes out, about 55-year- old lady who looks about 75. rural life.

she says, he is in there. i said is that all right? she said, i don't know. then she says, this old lady that didn't know much about anything, so i thought, she says, i sent them a good boy and they sent me back a murderer. you can go a long career and not have a line like that. ergo, the rest is sort of gravy. it probably hurt nixon in a way. he couldn't rally middle america after that. calley was found guilty of 21 deaths. nixon commuted his sentence. he just did time, he did not get the level he should've gotten. six officers killing people.

that is the story about getting a story. most of his pretty good. you can see along the way, there were a lot of times i was not particularly straight. friendng amazing -- a from law school a great lawyer, a fancy practice in washington, and my wife and i knew him way back. when i wrote the first story am i was nervous about it. i went to see him. i said you have to read this. i have to be able to write. i am sending this to newspapers. they don't know who i am. i want to say that this has been reviewed i this law firm and verified, for its accuracy and it is libel free. more hundred dollars each is what we charge. to pay the wire fee.

he said, you should talk to the judge. i called calley and to talk to me. he pretended to be sort of -- at some point i was in his quarters, i got his address. i found him. he was tucked away in quarters for generals. at one point during our conversation, she went to the bathroom and said he had to go urinate. i saw him throw up blood. he had an ulcer. he was suffering. he just threw up blood. clearly he was suffering. i quoted him about what he said, which turned out to be different from the proceedings in the army.

quotingr said, you are but how do you know you won't put him in jail. so i called latimer. the last time i talked to george latimer. i read what i said. he said, if you read the story that way he will not get a trial. i think he ought to have a trial. i said, so do i. he said, i will make it a with you. read me your story. i will check it for accuracy. and i will go through it very carefully. just say, according to what calley is known to believe. him the fact that you saw directly. i said, ok. i don't have to quote him. i have seen the charge sheet. he went and corrected the story down to things like the dates. what the official charge was. to the point that later, the

army concluded from that first story that i had access to the inter-workings of the pentagon. it was so completely accurate. they could not understand . are there some the news april going to publish a called him and said, i can say to you right now that story is ok. not always being tough. i walked away from an interview with him and never wrote about the interview because i said i wouldn't. it was all right. it would turn out to be ok. we have talked now for three hours. [laughter] studentsome of the ought to mull about in some places i was less than candid. that is the business. i would like to think i did it the way it should.

the big question for me is, did this game if what would happen if it was on the desk. most students -- if you locked the safe, they would say get a blow torch and it. the first couple times -- i think more if you would have done it initially until you figure out that was not the way to go. the older and wiser are no better. but that is one of the perils of what we do. we do get close to the edge. it is not always wonderful. some of the things we do are less than marvelous but that is what we do. i don't think you should misrepresent yourself. and you are not compelled to tell everything. truth was, the question that i always have is what i open that if he had left it sealed gecko i guess i would have. now, i wouldn't.

but i got my metals. just like general petraeus. he had about 64 metals. i don't know how he could walk. he must feel liberated now. he does not have to wear all those medals. a thousand questions about anything but the story. i will get myself in real trouble on the stuff. havenk right now what you seen what i have seen is jihad just sunnis, al qaeda or not. ics sunni fundamentals from africa going after shiite i see more violence in the last year than we had seen in many years. i am not rain it is due to obama's policy, but something is going on and it is getting very

ugly. my own guess is that we are going to see a big explosion in iraq this year. a lot of very good american intelligence -- fundamentalists sunnis. useline sunnis who have no for the shia -- this is a serious split in the middle east right now. they are certainly funding some of the old pro-saddam guys. there are going to be a set piece were there. there will be a lot more blood. iraq is not done with the torture we have put it through. there is a cheerful little statement. yes? you are free not to go to your party. it is past time. [laughter]

i will do 20 or so minutes. there is no plane out of here tonight, is there? [laughter] i'm here. >> i would like to express my tremendous admiration for the work you continue to do. >> you notice its people when they do that to me? i remember the great joke in the new yorker, a cockroach talking to a mouse. the cockroach says, i love your work. it is all relative. what is your question? fax you have written extensively about war plans against iran. chuck hagel was in trouble for using certain words. the president says all options are on the table.

what can you tell us about what those options are and what the consequences of a u.s. bank or israeli strike on iran would be ? >> i spent a lot of time seriousabout iran and conversation in the white house about it. very serious. i have been doing it openly cheney white house which is fascinating because it has led me back into ronald reagan's white house -- in a minute i will say, what did the president know and when did he know it. presidente the saying, i go to meetings on tuesday and we picked the guys. whatually think -- here is i know. there is a deal on the table. my guess is, obama is going to

israel, among other reasons, he is going to make a deal. the problem with sanctions is that they always afflict -- they start from the bottom up. the elite do not get in trouble. as far as i know, fidel castro has been sanctioned by us for 62 years but i don't see him going anywhere. i am a skeptic about sanctions. people survive and there are a lot of ways to sell oil. we are making it harder for the iranians to sell oil to china. they have had some currency deals were they playing games with the turks. we are cutting back on some complicated banking ways. there is no evidence in these

intelligence agencies that the iranians have done anything to weapon eyes. there is none. we can't find it. we would like to thank that maybe they are hiding it well, but you can't believe how good we are looking. we have amazing stuff. i have written about some of it. once bush was out of office, i felt freer to read about stuff i know. themnction them to stop from making a weapon for which we have no intelligence a are making. the deal is on the table. by june there will be very serious talking. she is going to see bb in israel. i would guess one of the issues

will be helping them climb down off the latter. i also think the most serious issue have going now is syria. who is going to end up bailing out bashar? israelis. i will tell you why. the last thing they want our crazies on their their border. if you remember 1982, some of you don't remember. some terrible stuff happened. the israelis went into prison camps. there was bombing like crazy. they went nuts with the prospect of having radicals on their borders. they may have misread. there was chance for serious agreement. the last thing the israelis want, recently, seven senior

wounded officers of the syrian army were admitted to israel treatment. and the israelis on the border -- there is reason to think that the last thing the israelis want is a muslim mother had radical and. running stuff. to his credit, everything i think i know about obama, he has been very skeptical of putting in serious arms into syria. that is because our cia which has a lot of smart people -- don't underestimate us. i am critical of my government, but we can do a lot of very smart things are it along with an awful lot of dumb things. we know this trouble in syria is not just -- there are legitimate grievances against them.

he was putting people in jail for saying bad things about him. better than his father, but had not moved nearly enough. i think we're going to see israel be much more passive. the one guy on the syria is putin. we have are a problem with russia, too. more anti-americanism as ever. that, we should stop. that is very dangerous for everybody. if obama is free enough to play golf with tiger, he can anything he wants now. >> i'm sorry you missed our class, we have a questions to ask you.

>> your 4:00 class? i was never told about it. >> i'm sorry about that. do you think we follow david petraeus a coincidence or is that the declining culture of the u.s. army? >> it is a one off in a way. hisaeus (he was getting doctorate. they called him king david in the army. he was not popular in the army. he was pretty much done. my understanding is he was told

he would not be chairman of the joint chiefs or chief of staff of the army. so the cia was a bad fit for him. he was not popular there with the personnel. if every senior officer and america were to be fired because he had an affair, he would be fighting the army with the sergeants. [laughter] clearly there's more to it than that. same for general allen. i don't know the whole story. let me assure you -- he wanted to go on his terms. he is smart. i always thought, he was tremendous of the one thing you have to be that if you want to be a successful person in washington. he moved the press. he always is going to lunch his people. i was asked all the time to go

to lunch with him. i don't do that. don't socialize with people i report on. >> who do you think, if you believe it is true, who do you think was the target of assassination by, what came out i supposedly by cheney and the illegal operation that was paid for by iraq? ask what you are talking about? >> supposedly cheney ran an assassination team you -- >> what happened is, there was a general named mcchrystal who was running the joint special operations command. one of the things about america that is sort of interesting, the way we've evolved -- we devolved, the way you do it is you have your own army, raise your own money, don't bother with congress. to hell with congress.

don't tell anybody what you are doing. what a cool deal. see this pattern. cheney was not first to do it. he was sort of a copycat. what cheney was doing was, they they would find the considered to be bad guys and they would authorize executive action. mcchrystaly days, would want to be sure it was ok. in, it became, he did not need a pet -- okays. these operations still exist more than you believe. weis some ugly stuff that know a lot about, but not everything about it. it was not like the targets we were talking about where people we've believed to be al qaeda organize against us. also, we paid for that

information, which is really strange. the early guys that went to guantánamo, this prison that still exist. that and the drums and predator killings will make it impossible for us to ever come out of this war in a reasonable way until we figure out some other way going with the problems we have other than trying to off everybody or put them in jail. the longer they keep gitmo there, -- anyway. there is nothing specific i have about that. i just don't know. cheney certainly believed the authority the president of the united states has executive power. he does not have to deal with the justice department. the bad people we identify, he has the power to deal with them. that is what who is doing.

that has been his mantra since the congress, even. i don't know anything about -- it is not like you said, i own the sky a lot of money from the poker game -- this guy a lot of money from the poker game last night. [laughter] we would get names from somebody who did lose in cards -- as far as he was concerned, it was all for the good of america. >> we allow that when the weapons and billions of dollars in cash there, money for illegal acts. -- ops. >> oil money? >> no, our government sent over. we said it was to drive the sunnis, the sender breakable billion in cash. >> what happened was there was a lot of oil money, the 1991 war, there was a peace treaty.

saddam hussein center section. he still had oil to sell. -- saddam hussain was under sanction. a lot of it dwindled down. it was not dripping down the way we -- it should have. i lot of money we held. it was some of the oil money. we have billions of dollars of their money. that is the money you are probably talking about. you have got to remember one thing. 9/11 happened, and in november, about two months later, congress authorized $11.8 billion for the war on terror. $11.8 billion. it is there in the books. to me about four years to get an accounting at of the foreign aid program.

i finally got a listing. you didn't have to worry about going to congress for money. you have it all over the place. you can do anything you want. it was a dream. oversight has disappeared in america. here is cheney, here is brennan testifying about cia and having fun with them. what i tell you? notes of questions -- no tough actions. sitting with the president and picking who is going to live and die. you think they ask a few more questions about that. we should do a few more. these four. i will let everybody go to their parties. >> just one more question here. >> we get to. -- we've got two.

toi've given them freedom move. they can go home. [laughter] [applause]



.

oo

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> it is gossips and word of mouth is how people get to the truth. we used to say there are three different very fast ways to spread information. television, telecommunication and telewoman. the last one is particularly efficient when it comes to the closed societies because people believe people they know rather than the state-controlled tv. if you have ever lived for a month in a country where media is controlled by the government, you will be a taxi driver more than a state-controlled

newspaper. this word of mouth is also very, very interesting. so whatever -- which ever thing you look, you need to know why are you using it? whatever kind of media has its own, you know, advantages, and its own fails. some of them are cheap. some of them are more expensive. some of them are more efficient when you talk to the people directly, and this brings us to the new media. you know, when you look at this little basket to go with this little social networking tools, you want to understand how the new media changed the scope. first of all, i'm a biologist. i'm as far from i.t. as you can imagine. i don't know how to put things in this machine. i'm in constant fear that i will bring something of this machinery down. but when you look at the history of the media, you can really see

that we're on the brink of the third media revolution. as a great scholar used to say, we need to follow two streams on the media revolution, and when you look at how it influences eople, you can see that it makes tremendous impact. so look at the first media revolution stream. it starts with guttenberg, the printing machine. what was the printing machine given to us? come on. you read books? newspapers? so it made information accessible to a lot of the people. before guttenberg, the books, basically the religious books were rewritten by the physical people and this were really, really expensive because there was no access to them. once you get a printing machine, you could reach a lot of people and sometime with relatively cheap product, the book, or newspaper. that brings us to the second

step in the media revolution line number one. which is radio. what has radio enabled us to do? very unlike printing machine? hear people's voices, which is important, but even more important, oh, yes. music. but when it comes to the spreading of information, immediate. yes, that is the difference. because it takes some time to print and to distribute. with radio, you can listen as it happens. if there is a traffic accident in brooklyn, you immediately can hear about it on the radio and then it brings us to the step number three, what adds a little picture to the radio and this is television. so what has television enabled

us is to connect mass interaction with the speed and with the picture. and the picture, of course, worth more than 1,000 words. so this streamline of the media revolution is something we are living. there is a young scottish guy whose name is heinrich bell, and he invented the second thing and the second line of the media revolution, which is, of course, telephone. what is the difference between these two lines? what telephone enables you of course, first of all, to interact. so very unlike television, radio and newspapers, it is one-sided communication. telephone is interactive. so what is happening in the 21st century is that we are living in the third media revolution because the first line of the media revolution enabled you to

hit a lot of people in no time and become even more lively with the pictures. the second one is here. but what new media are bringing to this scope is that they solved this communication dilemma. it is massive, fast and interactive in the same way. when you look at the tv, how many people can you bring to the studio? five, six? on the telephone? three, four? the new media can reach millions in seconds. but in the same time, people can interact. they can leave comments. they can discuss. you can reply to them. the reason why we changed our media space is that really changed the campaigns from the

and from the ty point of the interaction. now i will walk you through the very short, unlikely history of the new media and their use in popular movements. when you think about the popular movements, you think about the masses on the march. the countries which are technologically advanced. you can think about the young egyptians and tune etions. -- tune i guesses. in fact, the first step of use of new media campaigns was done by the new york hipster. you know what the flash mobs are. flash mobs? let's get it together on a funny place and do something steeped? snowball wars. tomato wars? they were used for bringing people to one place for basically having fun. doing something edgy but basically having fun.

well, that goes all the way to may 15, 2006, when the group of ung bell regions organized a flash mob. they will meet in the main square in minsk and eat ice cream. there is the guys. this is not about eating ice cream or doing wars. the gathering of the people. a lot of the autocrats limit the number of people on the street. now need to apply for a perm from the government. so this brings us to the second very strange case of the news of -- views of the new media.

2006 led by a buddhist monk who was inspired by the movie about the serbia, the thing we call the revolution started in burma. it was big. it was led by the buddhist monk. hundreds of thousands marched in the streets. there is a fantastic movie which shows how they built this movement and shows how the movement collapsed because they lost the momentum. one of the rules is you need to know when and how to claim the victory. like in tiananmen square, they stayed there for a little bit too long and the military came down and smashed them. but what is real interesting is in this movie, the images you have seen all over the world, were made on primitive cameras by a common people who tend to become the first people power citizens journalists. they were done little cell phones. little cameras. you know nowadays when you look

anywhere in the world, you see demonstrations, what is happening? somebody is taping. in the rural - low-tech no-internet-penetration place called burma. this, of course, couldn't come without getting into the traditional campaign. so 2008 obama campaign used the new media in a new and very, very creative way. this becomes a blueprint for use of the new media for the political campaign so we can say that churchhill and hitler won their election on radio. kennedy on tv. it was obama who won it via the alternative digital media. this campaign was done by this funny little guy with this lovely smile.

recruiting the voter. over 2 million grassroots voters were recruited through this campaign. t was led by a great harvard professor, who i have the pleasure to know. fundraising is a second big function of the new media in this campaign. socialsing -- use of the networks late 2008 right before the elections, obama was leading madonna 7 million to 3.1 million likes to compare it with a show biz thing. even more important, this campaign was interactive in a very interesting way. it hits two important aspects. first you include people in a virtual world and put them together in the real world. if you're a group of campaigners from brooklyn and somebody in

the cap matches your age and interest, you'll organize a little garden party. they will give you bumper stickers that they need your free labor. second you had this obama for america thing. it was a fantastic way for people to interact. i was playing with it. i started a blog on this campaign. this is the problem between america and serbia for which we were bombed in 1999. ok. i'm a serb from chicago. i lied. but basically i'm a serb from chicago. there is a huge serbian community in chicago. they elected obama as a senator. first, because he is coming from illinois. they mostly vote democrat. recognition is the big thing for us because it creates a problem between two of our countries. so if you become president, how will you treat this issue? and then more people start commenting and more people and

more people. somebody in the campaign see that they have started a very interesting topic. so what happened next is that there was an freans obama himself on this site, of course written by an intern. basically somebody was watching this thing and saying ok. this is a topic we need to address. it was the tool to address the people and also the tool to see what the people want and to deal with the real topics. so this is very unique use and a lot of these campaigns now are based on this david platte model. 2009 broadcasted on youtube. the green revolution in iran started being organized by the social media. after elections, people gathered in the streets. they were using social networks to communicate. text messages. facebook. networking around. one of the protesters got hit by

a sniper by national revolutionary guard and we could watch the directing of her diing on the youtube. she became this huge world symbol. this is the very important use of the new media. needless to say, 2011, arab spring was very much into organizationing by the social media and new media. broadcasting with the social media. especially so when you look at these things, neeveb sudan, a very low-tech place, people are using social media. when you look at these things, you can say the non-violent struggle. things are very much changed. the revolutions are following this media revolution. you can look at how this changed the battlefield. you can look at the three aspects of it.

first, new media are making things faster and cheaper. you want to organize a rally in 98 5, you needed to print posters, ring doors, make radio commercial and get arrested by the way. it was a complicated process that cost money and time and there was a risk. you want to organize a protest now in washington park, you make a facebook group and people know. it makes things a little bit faster and cheaper. comparing 1980's to 1990's. second, it putses a huge price tag on the violence against nonviolent protesters. come in ked they could and kill 20,000 in one day. now we're ever in the last corner of the world, you have a

demonstration. people are taping. everybody is a reporter. really changed the globe and face. the it is very easy to upload these images on the youtube and people will immediately know. it helps knowledge transfer. my organization, canvas, which 46 different countries around the globe. we are online. 2004 we came out with this little book, which was called "nonviolent revolution for dummies." something you can read and understand from here to brooklyn if you are on the subway. the 2009 farsi version of this

book was downloaded 17,000 times from iran only. can you imagine the level of risk of district 17,000 copies of a forbidden book in a country like iran? it is huge. as we speak, hundreds of manuals are traveling across the internet. revolution, yes. please don't fall in love with new media too fast. and please don't be too analyst labeling the revolutions like facebook revolution and twitter revolution, because we have other common phenomenons. you heard of coney, 2011. what was it? a children's campaign, very efficient in how do you call it, public awareness rising. very efficient in fundraising.

ut what happened to coney? unfortunately he is still where he used to be in 2011. he sits there in the jungle with the little children. what is sclectism? you go on the facebook page and click like to save polar bears from climate change. unfortunately you need to do something in the real world. turn this huge energy consumer, turn the lights off when you coming from your home. to buy yourself different car. you need to change your life if you want to change the real worl. very unlike the virtual world, the nonviolent struggle, it has been waged and is won or lost in the real world. you can have 3 million facebook

likes and still have this bad government running the q.e. country, because this is where the struggle is happening. in iran, when you're arrested, they will pull all of your passports. so they can use your facebook profile to alert others to the place where they will be arrested. very unlike physical contact, where you know if you're talking to the real person, you're not sure who is behind the facebook problem. maybe your friend is arrested and there is a police person there bring you go all together for a collective pick-up. and sent to jail. before we get into this, we need to know that the real principles of success in non-violent struggle are unity, planning and discipline. that yes, you need a successful communication machinery, whether this is offline machinery like leaflets and stuff or an online

machinery. yes, you need to understand your target audience. you don't speak to the rural people by addressing them on the website in english. yes, you need to use branding and all the lovely tricks of the successful communication. yes, real media changed the shape of the nonviolent struggles, specifically making them faster, cheaper, more efficient. yes, it puts a huge price tag on it. it is activists on the ground who ultimately win the war. not the clicks. that was my little lecture for today. i'm open for your questions. [applause] >> we'd actually like people to come up to the microphone for people to ask questions. >> so they can be on the tv.

>> so i will take the first step. first of all, thank you so much. second of all, you talked a lot about we have learned particularly in the field of media and new media in the last couple of years. what have the bad guys learned? what do they make of this? >> this is also very interesting. there is this fantastic book by will dobson called dictator's learning curve. so you look at the two different sides. we all know how the activists learn. we dedicated our lives to teaching the activists. from the point of media, it is also a huge revolution. when you look at how the bad guys were treating media 30 years ago, it was very easy for them. with one tv station, you can coal the whole country, and still they try to control the state-run television. second, they of course learned how to avoid being caught in this. so if you're using scype, they are trying to find a way to break an surveil into scype.

so they tried to find an answer to this. so they are using new media. when you look at the egyptian scene now, you can see progovernmental and anti-governmental facebook pages. they try to use it in the real world. secondly, there is an organization in russia. it is putin's response to the orange revolution in the ukraine. these guys are trained and basically paid to go over the internet, to find the content which relates to whoever is a dissident in russia and post nasty comments under it. there are a variety of ways those guys are learning how the deal with it. one specifically is using this to lure demonstrators and the protesters and pull more data from them. because what is really cool when it comes to the facebook communication, it is also very dangerous because you don't know

who is running this profile. .hat is the problem if it is overtaken by another person, you continue pulling this information. i had a lovely discussion today with people -- we were working on a book "making oppression backfire." to help you inform all of your friends that you were arrested and inform all of the international human rights organizations, delete. who you have informed. this is the first thing police will look into your telephone. >> i really enjoyed your talk. inside, i have a deep pessimism and so i wanted to get your thoughts about that.

i think it was orwell that said about the gandhi revolution that it works because in those cases in which the adversary has a line they're unwilling to cross and pressing and in situations like china and syria, where there apparently is no line, that the authorities won't cross, it seems less obvious to me that a nonviolent revolution will succeed. the second point was one of the consequences i think of the second world war was a big contribution to the destruction of the colonial system. it wasn't just the nonviolent action after the war, but it was the war itself.

anyway, i would like to hear your -- with the second because it's easier. the same study looks, mara - -- resistance work is the name f the study. like the reason why -- it is clear. once you unleash -- once people learn they can take their politicians -- pick a their politicians accountsable, they can do it again and again and again. and once libyans learn they can take gaddafi and rape him and kill him in front of the cameras. the second thing is because these movements are winning when they become mainstream and majority. ry unlike elite-driven guerrilla wars, these movements

are winning. once people are enrolled in this type of struggle, they basically become the shareholders of the victory. meaning that it is very difficult to -- you know, serbs. we won in 2000 by capturing the -- with the election. serbian politicians have not become better in the last 13 years, but they know there is a price tag with messing with people's votes. so this is never going to appen. we hear a lot of -- we discuss this with a lot of people. first of all, i'm not neither ptimist nor pessimist. when you gravely ill, you will try a medicine which guarantees you 42% of being cured. so it is not bad. at the same time, you look at the consequences. people normally say ok, this

will never work in syria. the regime is too oppressive. this will never work in north korea because the regime is too oppressive. this will never work in a country where people are not ducated. abuse i'm a bilingse and have othing to do with the social work. i'm a phisher. you can always look at the very, very oppressive regime. killing a black man in africa was not a tough thing to do. it was a little more to do than killing a dog for white police. there are some very, very oppressive places where people won the struggle.

the reason for this is that they understood this oppression and then somehow they made this oppression backfire. for me, it is more like a skill. when you look at these skills, i think there are chances in very oppressive places to a nonviolent struggle. i remember talking to iranians in 2009. they keep making the same mistakes. they were coming to the one square being beaten by the national revolutionary guards and then they will get called by the cameras aened they will come to their homes and pull them out. what you need in this situation is to cake in process participatory. what does this little thing people can do and still get away with it? we're discussing this.

when she was killed. another thing is is it a common name in iran? yes, it is a pretty common name. there are songs about the love for her green eyes. they say can we cut the ringtone? what if you cut a little of the ringtone from the song. it relates to the woman killed in a protest and then i have it on my telephone and you have it on your telephone and she has it on her telephone. so she gets a message. we are sitting in a very little cafe and we can't talk about the revolution because we can get killed and then we hear your sound and her sound and somebody calls her and her phone rings the same way. so we know we are the many and they are the few. there are several things we call low risk tactics of this

version. media allows big rallies. this is mostly what you see on cnn. what you don't see are the people in bahrain coming to the -- with their little horns. so they come out on the roof and they blow a little horn. everybody knows that the -- is there. then the police comes into this building, but before they get there, they disappear. so the police look stupid. these things we call low risk tactics are particularly efficient in the high oppression levels. because the way the nonviolent movement operates is thaw you need to give people something to do but still get away with it. not so many people will go and get killed. it is a combination of two. first you need to stop -- to win the oppression. secondly, tactics to keep people