be implemented, there are so many delays and changes and postponements in the law now, we haven't -- >> because now they're talking about the individual mandate being extended past 2016. so they just keep changing the law. >> but i hear your question that you are thinking that repealing it, republicans would therefore be responsible for the law failing. the law is failing on its own the we have a paper on our web site of all the changes already made to the law, 17 of them by the white house. that's an acknowledgement that ts -- it's not working and almost every day we hear some new rumor about more changes being played. it's not working. it doesn't work. the -- we have got to start over and the american people now know what they want but they know that obama care is not delivering it. that's why we have to start over.

>> a question. actually two questions. one, the portability aspect of new slegs -- legislation, how much does it conflict with state level health insurance and state level mandates that differ, of course, widely? how do you reconcile -- > the provision that we have health coverage, all of it has a 10th amendment contest really. we stipulate that anybody that has a nexus for their health coverage with the federal government, then that's where it applies. so for example if our individual membership associations which would have a nexus with the federal government because it allows paur cross state lines, they would be able to own that. individuals who are in any erisa plan, they would be able to own that. so it gets to that by making certain that everybody has a

nexus with the federal overnment. >> one more quick question. i think we've seen how much patients and prospective patients are resistant to the law. looking at the damages, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, clinics, how much pushback is congress hearing from these organizations from -- in terms of the damages or are some of them still supporting obama care as they did at the outset? >> i can speak to that. a private conversation i had with somebody -- someone friday who is extremely knowledgeable in the hospital realm, he believes that several hundred hospitals across the country are going to go out of business. i think certainly when they change critical abscess where only one hospital is funded differently within a 10-mile radius or whatever it ends up being, those other hospitals will go away.

we've already lost one in lee county that's closed. when you look at partnering getting bigger and bigger, there is going to be massive consolidation and bankruptcy -- bankruptcies in the hospital business. no doubt about it. >> and look at the insurance company contributions to the exchanges. many of them have sat on the sidelines. i think we may not know everything today but as these years moving forward we're going to get a good sense of where the marketplace falls at that point >> i want you -- to applaud you on your long gain strategy. you actually have to seed the grass in order for it to grow and you have to change people's minds about things. but that say longer game because you have three or more years before you get to the

finish line. what do you do between now and then? there is something called a regulatory accountability act that allows congress to review laws adopted to see whether they are beyond the authority congress has delegated and then you can basically point out whether they are working or not or how they are not the you haven't won the battle yet of set -- selling your ideas going forward. by further going into the regulations and making them account to congress because they have to, have they met your delegation? i would tell you that you would probably find they have not and you could have all types of investigations and reviews of how badly these ideas in regulatory form are being implemented. >> well, first of all there are a lot of court challenges to the kay that the regs have been written and contradicts -- contradictions to the actual

stull statutory language. but i think you may tell -- actually see, the problem now is it has to get through the senate. >> that's not a regulatory solution though -- >> and congress is holding countless hearings on regulatory overtight -- oversight. they are passing slegs in the house most often with significant democratic support to try to move forward and try to put into statutory language what the president is trying to write and rewrite the status -- statute to stay such as the delay of the mandates, but i think that the regulatory review act, is that what it's called? >> yes >> actually is an important tool but it still requires getting that legislation through the senate. >> yeah, but you have sound bites with that. >> you could have sound bites for the news about regulations

that have been either well or poorly implemented. >> i think you are spot on. a lot of what we do doesn't get covered. folks don't know that we're doing it. this is so onerous and 0 pressive to the american public and harming real people that there ought not to be any limit to what we are doing in the regulatory overnight -- oversight standpoint. and secondly, we do have a piece of legislation and phil has the venn diagram of where everybody has a common theme, purchase across state lines, medicine mal reform, those kinds of things so the american people can see that we're not just fighting to make them see owe awful the current law is, we have positive solutions they can point to and say that's the

kind of thing we need. >> this issue of regulation is not in isolation to health care and i think it can create a great message to the american people. i think pete are skeptical. how is it that all these rules are being changed? very few are getting to the final, final stage, so all that ambiguity is creating greater and greater insecurity. i think it's not just health care but all the regular layings that this administration is using the could be a good opportunity to use -- move it outside the silo of health care. >> are you familiar with the rains act? i think as jeff davis in the previous congressional, you talk about a game changer. because i didn't know it was four branches of government but that's the regulatory branch. all these bureaucrats i didn't know what they did up in all

these buildings, now i find out they manage every phase of your life and everybody has a story about how these regulations add to costs and create incredible costs to business not just in health care, i could tell you stories of builders. i have friends in the construction business and 9 raines act says if you have a rule-making that affects the u.s. economy by more than $100 million, which many of them would, it has to come back to congress for reapproval. that would stop that stuff in its track. could you speak into the microphone? >> you also have the problem if you rely too heavily on courts, called the chevron dock trin, where they defer to the courts. that's gone way overboard where nobody even questions things. deference is too great to make any time of change. that's why congress has a role in addition to the courts the

>> right here? >> i'm a believer in repeal and replace but also realistic that the only time obama care gets repealed and replaced is by replacing harry ride and then obama himself. so over the next three years -- first we've got to do something in 2014 but over the next three years people will continue to feel the greater pain. when the president says i can keep my two sons who are under 26 on my health insurance and then i get my health insurance and it's literally $10,200 for the year for both of them, others are facing the same thing, 300% increases in premiums and so forth. that pain is going to keep going up. is there a conscientious effort in the house about joining with six enate to get any net

first -- so we can control the senate? 2014? and then is there a longer plan, a three-year plan? do your plans work in three years? will your plans work now or three years -- >> the free market's been working for centuries and yes, it will absolutely work. people talk about i went to a -- tom and i went to this thimping tank in fort lauderdale and the guy was talking about the free market. are you kidding me? everything is waced -- based on what medicare pays and the insurance companies are keeg off that. so it's totally regulated. let me tell you what i think is going to happen in the real world and you're beginning to see it now. look, some of the most fun and

best patients i ever took care of never paid me a nickel. i live in rural appalachia and i took care of anybody that walked in the door. that's what i thought doctors are supposed to do. but they're starting now to have a concierge type practice, move their practice out, you are going to pay them cash or a certain amount of money. i do that right here in washington, d.c., right now so i can see a doctor here if i need to and you file your insurance. whatever you have, that's a contract between you and the government not between you and me. i will see you, take care of you, not -- be glad to. unfortunately, people without means are going to be left standing, have to go to the get care like to they always have. now, the six, i would suggest them a role of

course tape to put over their mouths so they don't say stupid things. we can win six. i don't think there is any question about it. we have great candidates out there. some ma -- that i know, tom cotton. three in georgia, great candidates running for senate. we've got really good candidates. it starts with that and then we've got to go out and get behind our candidates and not pick every little thing, they didn't vote for the farm bill or this or this -- let's get them on our team. get behind our guys. >> your question of strategy, jack kemp had four or five votes and they were losing votes until this passed. what we and others in the congress are doing is putting our ideas out this so we can

actually pass them in the house. john boehner should put these bills on the floor the mib it gets killed this year but we're trying to gain the trust of the american people here. it's a campaign to regain that and we do it over and over again same way jack kemp did. >> the president keeps saying the republicans have tried to repeal obama care 40 times. well, many of those bills have not only become law, and because they're targeted at specific things like the repeal of the 1099 rule, a lot of those bills have had huge democratic support. 30 to 40 democrats have signed on. i think the closer you git to -- get to the 2014 election and the more scared the democrats get i think there is going to be more and more of a call to make fundamental changes. i don't think the president is ever, for the next three years he's not going to sign a repeal

law for obama care but there are strategic things that can be done that really would significantly delay this law. like a delay of the individual mandate, like a delay of the employer mandate. like not requiring people to have health insurance that has so many mandates and benefit requirements that nobody can afford it. i think you are going to start to see democrats having, making some demands for legislation and trying to get that through harry reid. maybe that's again my optimism but i think it's also some political reality. >> yes, back here? >> i wanted to ask you about the medicare s.g.r. reform. that came out last week and it gets to the provider issue but really doesn't do the hard part, dealing with the offsets, making those necessary reforms that have actual permanent solutions and savings. rather than go through price controls or manipulating parts of the program, do you think

conservative lawmakers are ready to embrace some structural reforms in medicare? you have a history of -- -- bipartisan support? >> i do. whether it's increasing age of eligibility, increaseb -- increasing premiums, things that make it so the system can actually work. many of these reforms are necessary because the program is going broke. that's not tom price or phil rowe saying it, that's the medicare actuaries. in the next decade medicare is broke. it doesn't mean they go broke, it means they could no longer provide the services they have promised to seniors. again, harming people. saving, reforming the system, that's what republicans are trying to do but we haven't had a willing partner on the other size -- side.

so in order for the kind of things that have had bipse -- bipartisan support, some brought up in the president's budget, but then when we bring them up as possible opportunities to move slegs -- legislation across, the administration says oh did, oh, no, it was, we only meant it in context. or hairy doctor -- harry reid says no, we have to do it in targeted fashion the that's where the whole issue of the politics of it, we're not going to change this from washington, d.c. this has to be changed from across the country, from the american people standing up staying we want our representatives to represent us, not the party. us, not the administration. and as long as the american people do their, fulfill their citizenship responsibility and elect to washington folks who are interested in solving problems, not gft -- just getting to the way, that's the

solution the >> here's where dr. price is right, as long as my mother who is 91 can still go to her doctor and get everything done she needs it's not a problem for her. we see these numbers and realize that for every dollar you pay in as a premium you get three out in benefits. you can't continue to do that. along the line we're going to have to do one of those things that dr. price mentioned. i don't know but, but i would put off studying calculus to the very end. i hated it and i wasn't very good at it so he put that off to last. reforming medicare is going to be hard and painful. the reason we didn't put it in our health care bill, we left medicare and medicaid specifically out of that bill because that's a whole other area and we don't wnt it -- didn't want to get bogged down

in that. but you're right. the real tough part is who pays for it. i'm on medicare. i turned 65 one day. nothing happened to me, i just got to be 65. i had a kealt -- health policy the day before. now i got alphabet soup, a, b, c, d, trying to figure out how these worked together. with the ryan plan, even before boles th the simpson plan, you can just have people buy a plan. i would have kept the one i had the day before -- day and been perfectly happy with that but you can't do that with the way the rules are set up. and we have to do this in a bipartisan way. >> we have time for a few more questions. our next speaker is running a little bit late. down here in

>> congressman price, well, ate your bill as but you mentioned you don't want to be bogged down in questions of medicare and medicare. prior to obama care we were already very close to where 50% of the people rely on the government for health care. i think that's very important to discuss, this elephant in the room, and perhaps even sooner, getting to the point where we can reform obama care. you are giving the medicaid and s-chip beneficiaries a voucher for a private plan, which i think is an excellent idea, and many ys -- others agree with me, the question is why are you putting it in the middle of another -- is there a strategy behind it being here and not out of the organism so we can

having something to go to media with and to have eye national discussion during these three's years of waiting to get to obama care. is there anyone else of your colleagues because someone mentioned that there are 150 bills out there. any of them specific willing -- specifically looking at this area? >> great question and we've peeled off a number of different pieces in, 2,300 separate bills. the ones you talked about provided for individuals to utilize and, or to have the flexibility to buy something that they would want as opposed to to being stuck in the medicaid system they currently are now. right now it's against the law. exactly right. exactly right. it's a good point. i don't know that anybody has that specific piece of legislation that we included in ours as regards to medicaid but

we'll revisit that question of whether it is something to peel off the >> let me give you a real-world example. just left the emergency room at the local medical center. we had six urologists in johnson city and a quarter of them said i'm out of here, i'm retiring. they all took medicaid in town. every single one. they shared the load among audible them. what happened was when those elingses -- urologies -- urologists quit, the other ones had so many patients lined up, they stopped taking medicaid. now what happened is you have to go to the emergency room and be admitted to the hospital. we have to see anybody that comes in. so stuff that wouldn't be now

gets much more expensive because they have to be admitted -- knitted to the hospital or they have to go 100 miles to knoxville to be seen have a have -- should health incidence plan like i have. i absolutely agree with what he's doing, we just didn't include it in our bill. >> but it's a great wedge issue because we know that medicaid is draining state budgets. it's a great wage issues -- issue to make the case to the people that government didn't just show up in obamacare, it's been moving toward a one-payer system for a long time. >> in my state they're estimating we will take $192 million new dollars in. our governor elected not to expand medicaid. this next fiscal year we expect just miss kal -- med --

medicate to take up $100 million more. $17 million in a $30 billion budget. the medicaid is currently taking up all the new dollars. so we have to reform it. >> i would just underscore too that it's really a quality issue. this administration is a wonderful opportunity to contrast -- contrast the different issues. this administration just says well, we'll give everyone coverage and you can just enroll on medicaid. well, dr. rowe said it beautifully. we want low income people to have the same access everybody has. why should they be cast aside to a lower quality program? you have -- you can have medicaid but as many of the beneficiaries say on their own, it's a card with no access behind it. >> that's really one of the reasons so many states are resisting expanding medicaid because they know that without increasing the supply of

physicians and hospitals you are going to wind up simply putting more people on it and waiting longer. the government wants to reform medicaid so that people on this program have the dignity of being able to see private physicians and not being forced to wait in long lines, five or six hours at an emergency room just to see a physician. >> a blind man put it really well. he said i just want to be treated like everybody else 78 my question addressed -- addresses enforcement for the bills. are there provisions for them to routinely read their files to make sure they're correct? are you going to go after the drug companies like sanofi or the drrs -- doctors that participate in take the drugs for free? and a target i.d. stolen is worth 59 cents but medical i.d.

that's stolen is worth like $77. >> the transparency we have stipulates that individuals own their own health records and that they control them so they would have complete access to them. that's more a rule-making specific regulation that would need to be put in place. but we're decades away from when patients actually knew that they had the opportunity and privilege and right to control their own records. we've gone a long way down the wrong road and it's going to take time to get that back. but you're spot on. >> i actually write for myself now and say what i want to say. stop quoting "the new york times" from the committee hearing rooms and whatever you say gets the exact same place the new york times gets to. anything you put out travels the world at the exact same

speed. so talk about your own stuff. >> thank you. >> time for one more right ere. >> asking you to extrapolate into the future. i have a son who is currently in medical school. how do you see this additional government intrusion into medicine. how is that going to affect his life? >> know, two weeks ago, we have a medical school in johnson city and was privileged to be on the clinical faculty before i came to congress for almost 30 years. if i were a young man back deciding am i going to be a congressman or go back to the operating room, that's easy. i would go back to the operating room. taking care of patients is still a fun, fulfilling thing to do. i'm the son of a factory worker b.f. dad worked at a

goodrich plant in tennessee. i went to college and medical school in seven years with no debt. and i didn't live large. i ate a lot of chicken and stuff. >> you were eating good! >> didn't realize i was eating good then. that's all i could afford! young doctors are facing a different climate than i did. you're not going to be able to go like i did, hang your shingle out and build a practice and take care of some of the same patients for 20 years. insurance companies moving them around. you lose that loyalty the but some of the things i will to do, cancer surgery and such, it requires enduring trust to be able to do that. i would tell your son, let dr. tom price worry about that and

let him worry about being the best doctor he can be. >> and i encourage anybody who has any interest in going into medicine to go into medicine. there is nothing more noble than caring for one's fellow man. there is nothing more gratifying, more incredibly fulfilling as phil said than taking cache people. so your son i'm sure is going nto medicine for all the right reasons and i will be fulfilled because of that. remember, this is a dynamic process. it isn't a static process. he will practice 30, 40 years, god willing and the creek don't rise. suspect in three to five years, let alone 10, 20, the technological abilities for curing disease and helping people, we're on the edge of

incredible, incredible innovation in curing disease. he's going to have the opportunity to be involved in that process, so i would encourage him to stay the course and then another positive note, i talk to medical students all across this country. medical students, as you might imagine, cover the ideological spectrum. many of them at their age start over on the left. they'll get to the right place as soon as they get out and realize that it ought to be patients and doctors and families making medical decisions the regardless of you ask logy, when them who would be able to make the decision about how to care for your patient, you or the government, they all answer correctly, no matter where they are political lilt once they realize that, the ability to care for patients will be in the right spot. >> i think also the fact that

there are about 20 physicians in congress now that are making policy, they can't say this but their colleagues really do look to them for leadership and what should be done. it's very important. i could -- would tell your son to hang on because things are going to change. the american people now get it. they want to be in charge. they want their doctors to be making decisions. i think the future can potentially be hugely bright but thank you all for coming because your voices are really important in helping people understand the changes that can -- have to be made. >> one anecdote for your son. in the 30-some years i practiced i took care of some of the sickest people you can ever adge and never took a tums or maalox. six months

this is part of the series co-hosted by george washington university and harvard university. >> the kalb report is funded by

a grant from the ethics and excellence in journalism oundation. >> from the national press club in washington, d.c., this is the kalb report with marvin kalb. [applause] >> hello and welcome to the national press club and to another edition of the kalb report. i'm marvin kalb and tonight a conversation with "new york times" columnist thomas riedman about freedom. over the past 20 years i've had the pleasure, indeed the privilege, of speaking with

some of the best journalists in the country. some have even won a pulitzer prize, which is the highest compliment in the newspaper world. none except our guest tonight has ever won three pulitzer prizes, two for his reporting from the middle east and one for his commentary the tom friedman joined the "times" in 1981, was bureau chief in beirut and then jerusalem. diplomatic ef cronet and in 1983 he became the foreign affairs columnist for the paper. he does that twice a week and somehow still finds time to write six best-selling books, to host six television documentaries, numerous seminars and conferences and to be with us here tonight. so, tom, thank you. thank you very much. thank you. [applause]

our subject tonight is freedom. big word. and i'd like to start, tom, by asking what is your definition of freedom. >> well, first of all, marvin, it's great to be with you. you and your brother bernie were always great path breakers for me and people i admired as a young journalist. so it's a treat to be here with you today. tell bernie i said hi. i'm not a philosophier, i'm a journalist, so let me answer your question in the context of journalism. and if you started this evening by asking me who was -- what was the greatest story you ever covered? been doing this here, i just turned 60, been at the "times" now for 33 years, what was the the hat really you say was

most amazing? and i would tell you it was tahrir square. being in tahrir square for the original revolution that overthrew president mubarak. and when i came home and people asked me about it and i would say that this was the most amazing story i ever covered they'd say why? and i said, because it was the most apolitical political event i ever covered. >> meaning? >> and that's what they said. meaning? at some level it was about this very deep human level emotion of i am somebody. and if you asked me, what is freedom? freedom is the ability to -- the desire, the aspiration to live in a context where i can realize my full potential as a

human being, a man or a woman. and i believe what tahrir square was about at its very root was that very, in some ways, apolitical aspiration, young people living in a world where they could see how everybody else was living, to also want to live in a context where they could realize their full potential. yes, it had to do with mubarak and corruption and a context that had been built where they couldn't realize their full potential, where they lived in a rigged game. but i've always thought freedom, it isn't just about the freedom to write anything, to say anything, to travel anywhere. it's all those things, to be sure, but there is something deeply personal about it. it's to live in a situation where i can be the fullest person i wouldn't -- want to be. >> do you feel, tom, that people all over the world share the same sentiment? >> well, it's a very interesting question and i've thought a lot about it since

the arab spring. one of my teachers, a business philosophier, doug seidman, liked to use the form la, freedom from and free to, based on the formula. what so much of the arab spring was about initially was freedom from. people wanted their freedom from various autocratic regimes. but what often stalled him in the next stage was freedom from is great but there's also freedom to. what do you want to be free to do? and for that you have to build a context. you have to enable people to be free to. it turned out people, some people wanted to be free to be more islamist. some wanted to be free to be more sectarian. and some wanted to be free in the democratic sense to be equal citizens with equal rights and responsibilities.

>> but, tom, that's more like choice. if you are free to have a choice and you can go one way or the other but what i'm asking you is something bigger than that. i'm asking you whether there is a concept that we call freedom at is due us as human beings or is this something that we simply acquire because we live in a united states where that idea of freedom is built into us from public school on? i'm trying to get from you a sense of how you get from the imagine -- majesty of freedom, not a choice. >> well, i do believe, because i believe everyone wants to live in a context that enables, empowers, inspires them to realize their full potential, i do believe the aspiration for freedom, to live in a context where i can do all those things, is universal. >> and yet as you were saying

before, some people in the middle east even today would have a areael about that in the the united states we grow up believing it is due s. >> yes. >> the people in >> the people in egypt and yemen do not. into then also fall opposite trap, to think that somehow we have got a and it is , and it is not an aspiration that other people necessarily want. i am only speaking from my own expense. -- experience. once we lifted the lid in that part of the world, it turned out wanted to be

free. maybe it was to live more within their own sect. so it is going to be different for different people, but i've found in my own travels and experience their, it remains a very, powerful and deep emotion. >> i do not think there is any doubt about that at all. in an american context we know that the first amendment to the u.s. constitution lays out a certain set of principles of freedom. togress cannot do anything abridge our freedom of religion, speech, press, the right to peaceably assemble, to petition our government for redress of grievances. they are laid out there, and they are large concepts. they are the underpinning, really, for the society. they have been described as god-given. i'm wondering if you share that view. >> gosh, i confess i have never

whetherabout, you know, they are god-given, but again, when i think of our own society -- i will give you the journalistic response. >> that's a duck. >> no, it is because i am not a philosopher. tellays, when ever people me china's stealing our secrets, ook, iwer always is, l don't encourage industrial theft eft, but only when they still a bill of rights. tell me when they steal the constitution. tell me when they steal the words off the lincoln and jefferson in washington memorials. then they will have stolen something. all the things that are worth stealing in this country are hiding in plain sight, because

as long as we have got those, we can always come up with another secret, another industrial advance, another innovation and breakthrough. the things that i think are of great value. and we sometimes, i find myself bristling at times when i hear our own lawmakers trashing o ur institutions. russiauld people in today give for one day of the sec? what would people in china today give for one day of the justice department human rights division? this countrykick around like it is a football sometimes. it is not a football. it is a fabergé egg. and it is one that a lot of people around the world would appreciate in terms of these bureaucrats -- washington, d.c. these institutions are precisely what enable our freedom to, to

do all these things. >> how do you think we got those? and this takes me to to origin once again. it happenedhink that this country has the first amendment that it does? does it have anything to do, for example, with the fact that there is written into the first commandment of the bible the idea that i am the lord who brought you out of the house of bondage. that there is something there having to do with an almighty force, liberating people from bondage, from bondage to what? you are talking about from-to. >> the early settlers in many ways were reenacting their own version of the exodus story. in leaving what they thought was monarchical tyranny in europe and coming to the shores as part of our core dna.

in terms of origin you are not going to go with me go any particular path? >> i'm going to stay away from that path. >> is it really possible in this country and in others to separate church and state? me,ou know, that reminds itt question, marvin, of is possible to be an objective journalist? dodging her question. because whenever i am asked that, i always answer, i haven't asked that. that. gotten > question before i will go to the next one then. >> and the answer to me is always that objectivity is not the thing. it is attention. the tension between understanding and disinterest. i cannot possibly write an objective story about you unless

at some level i really try to understand you almost see the world through your eyes. at the same time i cannot write an objective and story if i were to only see the world through your eyes. objectivity is a tension. sometimes in the middle east you have to think about these things a lot. and sometimes i may be a little bit too understanding of you, sometimes too disinterested. judge me over a period, but it's a tension. in a country like ours founded by people escaping religious freedom but also inspired by their own religious ethic, there is always going to be a tension between church and state. you hear in the state of the union when the president says god bless america and whatnot. as long as there is a tension, i have no problem with it. >> since 9/11, there has been a lot of tension certainly in this country and in other parts of the world as well. do you feel, as both a

journalist and a citizen of this country, that since 9/11 you have lost any of your freedoms? i don't feel that. that, um, i feel that, and what i wrote about 9/11 at the time was i do most,e it was one of the maybe the most dangerous challenge to our open society in this sense -- oft what this generation terrorists were doing were taking objects from our daily life, the backpack, the car, the airplane and turning them into weapons. and when you take objects from daily life, literally human

beings at the end and turning them into weapons, what you do the very thing that keeps an open society open and that is trust. we trusted that everyone came in this room tonight, was not wrapped in the suicide vest or caring a bomb in their shoe or purse, in their pen. lifeblood ofvery an open society. and what is so dangerous about this generation of terrorism is that what it tries to do is attack that very thing. so that we close ourselves off. we search everybody. i went to a lecture this morning at johns hopkins on tunisia. it was just a lecture. i had to show my driver's license to sign in. show my driver's license to a private security guard. there are those kinds of things that i find them -- they are still at the level of annoyance.

>> because you have written that 9/11, youere another would fearful that that would be the end of the open society. >> what i deeply worry about is another attack on the scale of 9/11. then manyfear americans would say, do whatever you need to do, do whatever you need to do. and i think our response to 9/11 in many ways has been remarkably restrained. how many years was that after 9/11, we elected an african-american whose middle name was hussein, whose grandfather was a muslim, who defeated a woman to run against the mormon. ok? who does that? ok? [laughter] that was an amazing thing. now, we have learned since then

that we still have a lot of work to do, you know. when you see some of the racial has been subtly and overtly directed at the president, but in many ways, the fact that we did -- that was the greatest repudiation of bin lade n. >> and yet, the tools that the bin ladens use remains such a threat that you can imagine and and to our society as we know it, were there another major attack. >> i do not think it is a joke. before i came over, i was reading the news. it is an amazing, perverse, bizarre story -- a suicide bomber trainee in iraq blew himself and 22 other trainees up, blew up 22 trainees who he was teaching and preparing how to build a suicide vest.

this is not a joke. you know, there were things that we see in the middle east in the last five or six years that that kind of thing, that you have to take it seriously. >> absolute. ly. let's talk a little bit about modern technology, of which i am not an expert. >> then you have really got the wrong guy. >> you are pretty good at this stuff. but a number of people of my point of view might look at all of that modern technology and say, ech, leave me alone. i want to go back to an old typewriter. is an technology to you good thing, and inspiring thing, and uplifting thing, or is it simply too heavy to lift? what is your sense of it and what is it doing at this point in our national lives to the wouldof privacy, which i

like to get your gut feeling about? >> oh, so i do not know where to dive in exactly. >> due to privacy. -- do the privacy. >> i read the israeli newspaper every day, and as some of you may know, i am a golfer. a couple months ago -- i buy golf clubs online occasionally. i pick up the israeli newspaper and there is an ad for golf clubs in the middle of the front page. how did that get there? >> you put it there. >> how did that get from golf smith threw some cookies onto my front page? and so i find that a little creepy. >> they knew you were a golfer. soldat somehow golfsmith when i went to the israeli newspaper an ad for a golf swing comes up on the front

page. i am reading the beirut daily. i get a call about trade a couple months ago, sharing economy site for women's apparel. and i wrote a column about it. the next day, i call up political and there is an ad. does it all mean in terms of -- you have given an illustration of how they have moved into your privacy in the area of golf. >> ok. >> what is it -- >> any purchase. it could've been anything. >> what is it about modern technology that would allow something like twitter, if my information is right here, to find out where you are on any given time of the day? are there no limits any longer. because i have a feeling that a

certain generation of the american people have no problem with yielding privacy. in fact, are quite happening about telling everything about themselves. what is that? and what is the danger if any exist at all? facebookot have a page, and the times tweaked my column. so i'm really not, i try to because i would be overwhelmed a little bit. i cannot deal with people wanting to friend me or whatever every hour. i can write my column or answer the mail, but it is one of the other. it cannot be both. it has been said by many people, privacy is over. get used to it. havingas, you know, breakfast at up in new york with a middle east diplomat friend of mine from the arab world, and u m, at a hotel, and a couple days later, he e-mailed me and said,

what's this? st from is a blog po would say an anti-arab site that thomas friedman giving his instructions fomrom a middle eat diplomat. it was like somebody was there with a cell phone, took a picture. i did not know was going on. boom, and you just have got to go with it. i do not know how to fight it. >> is there a danger, and this thought just occurred to me, that at a certain point if you amount of your privacy you are also yielding aspects of your freedom? >> oh, there is no question about it because it is on your mind all the time. you start to edit yourself. i'm doing that right now. in the sense that, you know, i that therelip up now

is no such thing as local anymore, ok? when we did this seven years ago or we had done this 20 years if i mixed up something -- if i make a mistake, make a full of myself whatevermething angry, -- it would, maybe somebody would tell somebody. there is no such thing as local anymore. you are in a search engine. marvin kalb, bam. and you just, you got a live with it. i do not particularly like it but it has upsides. you can learn about, you're in contact with more people all the time. i have just sort of given up on privacy in that sense. >> edward snowden. you have written that from your point of view you would like him to come back to united states, stand trial, and let's see what happens. he would be given a fair trial. does that mean that you consider that he has committed some kind of crime? >> you know, i have not really

delved into that issue. what you just referred to is about as much as i have written. that is a reason for because i find every week i read another set of revelations, and i read another set of arguments, con, that make me feel one week one thing about him and one week another. orthis idea of traitor whistleblower? >> clearly, what he has exposed to me in the mega sense is the fact that the technology has gone way ahead of, you know, i think some of both the legal protections and even society's understanding of what it can do on one side. i think what he is also expose, though, there has been no specific case of abuse unless you count listening to angelo merkel's cell phone.

someone at the nsa saying, i want to know what my ex-girlfriend is doing. we have had several investigations that have also shown us that. i think it is a very vital case that was inevitably going to happen, and i think it is helping that it happened -- happened.at it has i also believe we do need protection from these rising threats, and i find myself really torn. and what i said in that one column is that i also trust the fairness of the american people. and that i do believe, if snowden came back, and got a trial where he could properly make his case, it was not done in secret and could actually present his evidence, i just trust the judgment of the american people. i do not know how it would come out, but i think that trial could be a huge teaching moment and one that would trigger a healthy debate and reform. >> tom, i want to ask you a

question about the relationship of journalism, as you have practiced it and i and many others, if a journalist comes upon the big story, he did not know it was there, he discovers that. and writes a big story. and that is terrific. that is what it is all about. but supposing you come upon the story in the sense that you know someone who has a lot of secrets, like snowden with the nsa. and you participate with that ich thatn the way in wh information is going to be given to the public, which the number of reporters in the snowden case actually did. are those reporters, not the others, are those complicit in what may be a crime? a and i'm going to give you very unsatisfactory answer. i am not going to play the hypothetical game. >> that is not hypothetical.

that actually did -- >> i realize that. and my answer is, i will answer for my own reporting and my own judgments, but i am not going to sit in judgment on others, especially in this case where my own newspaper was involved. >> ok. now toto take a minute identify ourselves for our radio and television audiences. this is "the kalb report." i am marvin kalb. and i'm here talking with "the new york times" columnist thomas friedman. >> very frustrating -- >> only on certain issues. a you have been at this for long time. 33 years with the times. upi before that. if you had it to do all over again, would you still do it as a journalist? >> oh, god, this is the most fun you can have legally that i know of. [laughter] growing up i only wanted to be gave it over stem, -- be david

him.ham, i got to meet i have had, this is been the most amazing run. i have never had a bad day, and i have never gotten up in the morning and said, you know, i just do not want to do this anymore. it has been an amazing privilege to do this for "the new york times," and the people i met along the way, the experiences i had -- some tragic and some uplifting -- i would not have traded a moment for it, and i wish i could be 30 again. >> that is marvelous. that is wonderful. i heard that and still are perhaps a very good golfer. >> i do play golf, yes. but i am on the staff of "golf digest." ever consider being a golfer is your number one goal? wanten i was young i did

to be a professional golfer. i had it in the 1971 the u.s. open in minnesota -- i caddied. it was one of my great experiences in life. i always tell people the story that back then, it was a time, it was an amazing time when you think about before sports was so professionalized, that in the u. s. open, you can not bring a pro caddy. what they did is they took caddies from each club and brought them to haseltine and they had a big bowl and all the names of the 179 players, and you stuck your hand in that bowl, and you could've picked jack nichlaus, and i picked chi chi rodriguez. he made the cup. we won all four days.

20 years later, some family friends of ours were down in puerto rico which was his home course, and they ran into them in the pro shop and they said, chi chi, do you remember who caddied for you? >> and without missing a beat, he said tommy. >they said, do you know he is more famous than you are today? [laughter] chi chi said, not in puerto rico. >> you have done every other bit of journalism. have you ever considered at this point in your career shifting over and being a sports columnist? >> i have. i am literally on the staff of "golf digest." because they are owned by "the new york times," and for while they are owned by conde naste, so i write for them regularly. i have thought about it. i've always wanted to write a golf book.

myer i wrote a book, publisher came to me and said, what do you want to write for your next book? and i said, john, i really want to write a book on golf. and he said, the persian gulf? i said, no, i want to write a golf book. >> now, you have been a columnist for almost 20 years. >> yes. >> what are the changes that you have felt and experienced over the last 20 years being a columnist? is it the same now as it was 20 years ago? >> um, you know, the -- nothing has changed in the craft, marvin, of how you write a column. that is still, you know, you got to get an idea, you got to report it out, i believe i write a very reported colin, i think the best columnists are toorters - or bring heart

their column. what changes is a couple things -- one is your reach. we have 20 web, million unique visitors. that is huge compared to the 1.6 million on sunday for "the new york times." even to syndication. you have comments on your column now. so there's your opinion and less are 300 more or every day of readers. everyone is in a two-way conversation now, columnists. >> do you have to answer the tweets or the messages that come into you? >> maybe some people do. i don't because it is just too exhausting. i have mixed feelings about the comments if they are anonymous. so people can be disparaging and you dive into them and sometimes i have time to and sometimes i don't, you always find one or two just amazing gems, also. kernel for a news story.

>> that is just so smart. that is a big difference. i,, when you think about it, reston'srited james office, the office he used his last office in the washington bureau of "the new york times." when i became a columnist in 1995. inheritreat honor to his office. i often tell people, you know, when mr. reston was doing his column, i'm sure he came in and said, i wonder what my seven competitors are going to write today. and he knew them all personally. i knew them all. do the same thing. i come into the same -- now, and i's office say, i wonder what my 70 million competitors are going to write. i feel i've got 70 million competitors. >> but that doesn't change how

you approach your responsibility or what it is that you're actually writing? >> no. know, i did aou book with michael mandelbaum that used to be us. and we have a chapter in the book called "averages over," and beis about robots that can above average. average is over for everybody, including me. i the example i gave is a, have 70 million competitors now. and hopefully i was never writing average columns, but i am just saying, i go to china, been going to china once a year for the last 22 years. it probably, when first started going to china, i had one goal in mind and that was to write something that my mother-in-law in chicago would not know about china, something that she --

my mother-in-law in chicago back then had never been to china. so the truth is, i can go to china. but, theyi never did, have panda bears here. people use chopsticks. i could really write and average:. today, "the new york times -- you have the nytimes.com in chinese. when i go to china now, i have a different goal, and that is to tell people they do not know about china. >> you want to pick up and distribute it in china. >> right now we are shut down because we reported that wen jiabao's mother is worth $2.7 billion. you cannot get it in china unless you can get through the firewall. if you go to new york times.com, you'll notice -- one says international. that is the old international herald tribune. in over the next one is

chinese letters. it is our chinese edition. that is a great thrill for me to have my column twice a week in chinese. and i am so frustrated that we are shut out of their. but there are a lot of chinese speakers outside of china and there are chinese who know how there -- to find their way into the site. but i am keenly aware when i write about china now i am being read not but just by my mother-in-law but by chinese. does raise your game. again, i hope by -- >> it takes me back to a question that you sort of ducker onlie --- ducked earlier new technology and the effect that has. "the new york times" benefited from the wikileaks story. "the new york times" decided that it would send a team of reporters to another newspaper the information ofeady was, so it was no act

journalistic genius to go over there and pick up that information and then put it into the times. so what does that mean about the times and a fitting from wikileaks? is that a good thing? are they to be proud of the fact that they made that decision? >> you should really ask arthur sulzberger that. >> bill keller. he was seated here, and i did ask him. >> what did he say? >> he made an effort to answer it, which is more than you are doing. [laughter] you see, i'm trying to understand. >> the reason i am dodging this question and i am dodging it is because -- >> did you notice? >> is because it is a hugely complicated question, and i have not dealt with the raw material, the legal bit. i have not been deeply involved than i do not want to freelance on it. >> ok. then i will put it this way.

[laughter] tomorrow morning, you are sitting in your office, and you get a call from the guardian in london and the guardian says, hey, tom, you are one of the greatest columnists ever and we want to bring you in on something. we have just received from bin laden's mother-in-law who does not live in chicago, should live somewhere else in the middle east, and she has his personal plans for taking over the world. this is what he was going to do. we want to bring you in on that. you have to come over here and take a look at it and then run with it. would you do that? >> i would definitely go over there and take a look at it. whether i would run with it would depend on the veracity of it. would depend on what the real content was. the journalist in me get -- would definitely do that. >> let's move along.

"the new york times." i love to pick it up in the morning. ten years from now, will i have that privilege? >> don't know. really don't know. you know, one of the themes of my columns in the last seven or eight years has really, what i call, i think we are in a gutenberg scale moment of change. is, i believe that we're in a moment that is a kin to gutenberg's invention of the printing press when the way in which information is generated, turned into knowledge and transforms into products and services has undergone a massive transformation. i always tell people, someone was alive when gutenberg invented the printing priest. some monk said to some priests, now this is cool. i do not have to use this quill anymore.

we can stamp these things out, holy mackerel! i believ ve we are at a similar mom, and i call it the move from connected to hyper connected. and it happened just in the last decade or a little bit more, and it was completely disguised by the subprime crisis and post-9/11. we are living it. we are living all of the innovations that it is throwing off, all the incredibly rapid change. is really describing it. my sound bite on this, you may of heard me say is that when i sat down to write "that used to thing i didfirst was go back and get the first "dition of "the world is flat to remind myself what i said. i started that book in 2004. so i waited up to the index. i looked under abcdef -- facebook was not in it. so when i was running around the world, last time we talked, and

saying the world is flat. we are all connected. facebook did not exist. twitter was still a sound. the cloud was still in the sky. 4g was a parking place. linkedin was a prison. big ddata was a rap star and skype was a typo. ok, so all of that happened after i wrote "the world is flat." it tells you something really big just happened in the plumbing of the world. we went from connected to hyper connected, and it is changing every job, every workplace. >> how is it changing journalism? is that a good thing? what would you say? >> we now have -- when nytimes. com, we have the most e-mail lists. so we are using big data, to

track most tweeted. on the one hand, any "the new says,imes" journalist who i do not look at the list is lying to you. do they go up or down. but it also is very, that can be dangerous, because i write about foreign affairs. m, there are times when i should write about foreign affairs issues that may not make the list at all. you can tell. there are certain issues that just do not make the list. you write a political, sizzling piece about you know governor chris christie, goes to the top of the list. but if you write about the problem of water in chad, you are not going to make the list. as a journalist, as a columnist, do you start saying, i am not going to write about this whole set of issues because they are not going to make, most

tweeted. >> so what do i do? >> i write about them and despite that. some days it does not go up the list. is going tok times" have more of a lefty readership, onlinee new york times will have more of a young and left readership. just by its nature. if you were to write a pro- george w. bush column, it is not good to make the list, baby. it is not going to get near. in the way you would a pro-obama one. >> dan rather sitting here a couple of years ago said that in his judgment what rules ina newsroom these day is fear. he was talking about the consequences of 9/11, and the way in which journalism covers these events. of have introduced the cause my question, you have introduced an element now having to do with

the new way in which journalism has to be mindful of the new technology. >> right. >> does the new technology, in you view, pervert or force into places you would not want to be dealing with stories that you would not want to deal with? simply in order to get the ratings boost? >> um, i think it is an important question to be asking. i cannot give you a specific example right now, but what i can tell you is that you sit where i sit, it is just incredibly noisy now. thatm, you know, i find more and more, i'm shrinking my aperture. i got to filter out a lot of stuff. you are constantly being written about, basically. in,ou take otoo much of that

it is really paralyzing and i start to write for you, and that is really. dangerous i think this applies to young journalist, old journalist. i remember my daughter was in college, and she called me one day, there is an issue on campus that had disturbed her. and i said, honey, why don't you blog about it? in the campus newspaper. and she said no, everyone will blog about me. it really stuck in my mind. and so, to now be, i think a columnist at a place like "the new york times," wall street thick l," you need a fi skin, but you have to keep your balance. >> if you could imagine yourself being a very important politician for example responsible for making decisions

affecting all of us, the question that -- >> the feedback loop is so fast now. and so immediate. people tracking, twitter. i stay away from that stuff because i do not want to get knocked off my game. affect, if has to you are a politician, the way in which you think about voters, getting votes, saying certain things to attract certain constituencies. have you in your coverage, so i am putting you as a journalist -- going to be hard for you to duck it -- >> please. >> have you met a president since you have been doing these opinion pieces ejwho is a great man? >> um, you know, that's -- i think all the presidents i have moments ofe had

ofatness and a lot moments of not greatness. of affection,ot this may come as a surprise, i don't know, for george bush, the coveredhe father, who i as a reporter. i was the diplomatic correspondent for the times at the time. and the reason i have such great respect for him has to do with a very specific achievement that i think he forged that he was affectedn that so everyone that he has never quite gotten credit for. he brought the end of the cold war -- >> two germanies. >> the unification of germany and he brought the soviet union for a soft landing, and other than the one incident -- >> did he do that or gorbachev? >>he, gorbachev, that whole

generation i think was amazing. he, margaret thatcher, gorbachev. but he was there and had it not gone well, he would've gotten the blame. that,think hois role in the decisions he made were really, helped pave the way for the world that came afterward. >> are you optimistic -- maybe that is not quite the right word -- are you positive in your nteling that the curre generation a political leader in this country can cope with the dimension of challenge now facing political leadership? >> it is funny. i was just in israel and i was thinking about that issue. there. can the leadership there handle the lift. i begin to wonder. u.s. a very important question. first of all, i know how noisy it is if you're just writing a column for "the new york times." how noisy it is for the president of the united

states. just all of the stuff coming in now. someone checking twitter and facebook in the evening in the morning news and cable tv. and so it think that is a real problem. and i also think that thate complexity of the problems you have to deal with. think of you and your brother wrote an amazing biography of henry conditionkissinger. kissingerk of henry 1973 -- 1974. he goes to the middle east to forge the first real peace agreement, disengagement agreement between egypt, israel, and syria. in egypt, he negotiates with one egyptian pharaoh named sadat, syria, negotiates with a syrian dictator, and it is really negotiates with the prime minister golda maier whose majority in the knesset was so big no one had ever heard of the likud party. let's flash forward now.

you are john kerry. in syria, who do you negotiate with? who answers the phone that comes off the wall, basically. in israel, you have a kind of minority/majority coalition. not know who is in power but it is a really complicated set of coalition partners. --benjamin netanyahu is in power. the ministry of interior. 00, he will end his political life. hop over to egypt, it was the anerals and morsi, and general again. think of what a difficult time this is. i also have enormous sympathy for anyone in these jobs. >> you mentioned before your most recent book which is called "that used to be us." here i want to ask you about whether i'm right in my belief in my many years of radio that

you are a very optimistic and deeply patriotic --many years of reading you that you are a optimistic and patriotic person, and yet in this book, the title as well as part of it are for from a pessimistic. you seem to be suggesting that we are at a tipping point, and if something goes wrong, we're going to be up the creek without a paddle. what happened to your optimism? >> so, you know, let me start with where it came from and where it might have gone. so i grew up in minnesota, in time in a placea where politics -- the year i graduated high school, the then governor anderson was on the cover of time magazine holding in thelleye, holding headline. the state that works. i grew up in this place where

brothers,he cohen franken grew up at the same time. our congressmen were liberal republicans. the companies in minnesota, 3m, dayton hudson thought it was their obligation to build a theater. it was not a diverse place. we had one african-american person in my high school. i do not want to suggest it was a perfect or a snapshot of america, but i grew up in a place where politics seem to work and solve problems, and that really formed, that was really a formative thing -- i am always looking for minnesota in some way in my journalism. and by then i have gone off, to the middle east and obviously, that cheered me. i saw some horrific things in beirut and jerusalem and i

covered the massacre in syria. but i have never lost that sense. one of the things that journalists have lost, a bright dividing line today sometimes, some journalists, is the line between skepticism and cynicism. don'now, the skeptics -- i know. i want to check it out. i will not take anyone's word for it, but i want to report it out. show me. a cynic says, i already know who you are. one of the things that worries me is i did a call about this once where i came back. i was hired by upi, and spent two years in beirut. there was a reporter in the business section at that time. nathaniel was a wonderful, looks like a choir boy and he was a born-again christian and he loved to hear about the whole

event. so we did have lunch and talk to him about israel. when i went off to beirut for said, i am going to pray for your safety. i said, i will appreciate that. two years later after i got out iruter room alive -- be alive, he was one of the first people i called. i said, thank you. it was, i thought you were my good luck charm. was on ronel nash brown's airplane when it slammed into a mountain in bosnia and he died in that crash. he was suchbecause a -- she was someone who taught me the difference between skepticism and cynicism and i kept that in my mind. >> we have got about a minute left, and i want to know whether deep down you are an optimistic about america now. >> deep down i feel this -- that most important

national foreign-policy issue global issue in the world is the health and vitality of this country. if we go dark as a country -- >> go dark? if wewe are pessimistic, cannot emulate these values were restarted -- freedom, opportunity, perl is an -- growlism -- your kids will up in a fundamentally different world. that is why i invest so much of my time in writing about itrica, because i do believe is the most amazing country in the world and the world will be a very different place if we cannot be all we need to be. >> i am really sorry that our time was up because i would like to continue with that saying but we have run out of time. and i want to thank our audience first and i want to thank our audience around the nation and the world by way of the internet that, andnd all of

most important, our guest new york times columnist thomas friedman for sharing his thoughts, his insights about big questions. i am very grateful to you. that is it for now. i am marvin kalb. good night, and good luck. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] now have about 15 or 320 minutes, and we can, that is to say you can, ask tom questions and what i would like to do is suggest you come up front where there are two people with microphones, and your voice will be heard if you come right up here to the microphone. please identify yourself. let us know what you're associated with, university or whatever, and please ask a question and not make a speech. navy captain,red and thanks for all of the great

thanksu do and mr. kalb, for putting this on tonight. first, i have a book from paul brinkley -- >> oh, good. >> i have a two part question. how would you rate the trust factor of america in the world right now? and two, since we are in the press club, how does the international press look to the american press and what is your assessment of that? ands are very fair question a big question. it is hard for me to generalize about how the whole world, how much it trust us are not. if you are saudi arabia right now and your fear is that we are going to make up with iran, you do not trust us very much. japan,f you raare and you are worried about china,

maybe you trust us a lot because you have to. it would be really hard to generalize. kind of know what is behind your question and on balance, you know, the trust level if we have put it -- quantify -- i think it is going down, not up. the second question was? >> the american press -- >> again, i think it really is, it really depends. and i think it depends the country, the newspaper, the tv outlet, the radio, the specific journalist -- i would be reluctant to generalize. there is international press here. you should ask them. >> thank you for that question. yes, please? >> hi, green connections. one of the issues -- >> your name? >> i did. one of the issues is energy and energy security. you mention it in your book and obviously energy security and

independence is critical to the future of this country being its potential and the freedom to and the freedom from. and we have stories like the clean tech crash from "60 minutes," and we have other journalism that is sometimes covering it and sometimes not, what is your assessment of the coverage, what army missing, and can you give us your take on this component of the issue -- what are we missing? >> i have not looked at all the coverage and i am not going to make, i would not want to make a grand sweep on the coverage per se. i think it is a hugely important utes", and i think "60 min did that story and the next week google bought an amazing clean teach company. people really have to be careful about, i think, generalizing about some of these things. so i spent a lot of time

covering climate, water, energy issues. i think it is hugely important. it is also from a journalistic point of view really interesting. you have given me a chance to make a plug that i just completed a documentary with showtime. "years of living dangerously." it begins on april 13. on climate andne environmental stresses and the arab spring, showing how underlying the arab uprising were a lot of climate, water and environmental stresses. they did not cause it but they contributed. harrison ford did deforestation in indonesia. matt damon the water issue. it is an amazing series, and we hope it will be something that helps rekindle interest and debate on this. coming over here, i mentioned to marvin at dinner, i had to start with 60 degrees in sochi today.

in the winter olympics. that is why i always use the term -- i never use the term global warming. i try not to, because that sounds so, so cuddly. global warming. it sounds like golf in february to me. i much prefer global weirding. what actually happens is the weather gets wird. eird. you get two feet of snow in new york and 60 degrees in sochi. the hots get hotter and the dries get dryer. you see what is happening in california. that is what climate scientists predict will unfold. giveam going to ask you to answers that are little brief because we have got so many people. just please. >> thank you very much. "the boston globe."

um, since we are talking about freedom, i would be interested in your take on this. 9/11t of freedom post online was couched in terms of spreading freedom by military force. i'm curious your take on the lessons learned of the post-9/11 approach to spreading freedom. what did we do wrong? where are we now, and what can we do to maybe improve that trust which is obviously down in part because of that reaction? >> hard to give a short answer to that very valid and important question. so many things went wrong in iraq and afghanistan. hard to know where to start. the first was obviously, one of the things i think most went wrong and iraq, which you can understand now. you are talking to someone who really wanted that war to work, who believed in the opportunity

and necessity of trying to build an island of freedom in that part of the world is that if you look at the arab spring today, which ones have succeeded and which one not, and your question deserves a long answer but i will just give you this part o f f it. there is one common denominator that tunisia and yemen have and that is the principle of no vic tor, no vanquished. somehow everyone has to be included, including the ancien regime. iraq a little bit of what we did iniraq iraq -- the one thing we did in iraq not only with saddam hussein. we also had to deal with the baathists. we created a victor and vanquished. because one side thinks sunnis in iraq think that that they can have it all. sunnis in iraq think they can

have it all -- i was speaking about serious. that-- syria. that was the biggest mistake of all. >> thank you. yes, please? >> a former white house foreign-policy adviser. i want to ask you about the current israeli-palestinian discussions that are going on, and do you feel optimistic that they will be a final resolution to this debate that has been going on for decades? more, um, i am, i'm optimistic than i have been in a while. and that means i think the chances are 50/50. you know, so that is what optimism really constitutes today. on the one hand, when i was just there last week, i just don't se this current leadership on both sides can make the big

lift, the huge concessions they have to make in order for a deal to be forged. and on the other hand, i do not see how they do not do it, because if -- what is really at stake to put into the context of middle east diplomacy, i truly believe, and there had to be at some point, i d believe that uso kerry mission will tell whether the two state solution is still possible. believe,ohn kerry, i is the last train. and the next train is the one coming out them. >> ok, thanks, tom. yes, please? >> hi. i'm working at brookings. i wanted to circle back to the freedom and freedom of the press. i did my graduate work in europe and ireland specifically, and i found that the news coverage of the irish times was fairly

different than the -- what we would get here. when i spoke to my peers about it they said, your press is so sensitive. my question about it is do you put any stock in that snap judgment or do you think it is more of an audience issue or just what we care about? try to avoid gross generalizations like our press is censored. i have heard that. i went to graduate school in england. i know what it is like to look at america from the outside in. all i can tell you is -- you beirutike i served in with a lot of european and american correspondence, and we covered those stories very differently. and i don't think there is anything -- i really disagreed sometimes with some take they might have. theknow, you pick up

typical european prep on israel, for instance. the baseline starts at a much higher level of hostility, not just skepticism, frankly. and so they might say, well, you america.red in we might say that you start out with a bias. that is why like to read papers from all over the world and i like to see everybody's perspective, but i cannot pass judgment on who's censored and who is just coming at it totally straight. >> thank you, tom. yes, please. > i am currently with >> it's very different from what is written in the first amendment in america.

if people respected freedom so much someone would have intervened. if you look at the activities in the middle east and afghanistan, the killing of innocent people in iraq, yemen, so moll yarks how do you as a journalist econcile that. >> one of the problems you always have in this job is people and when you are a journalist as well, bad things happen all turnover world all the time -- over the world all the time. because bad things are happening, it doesn't always tell what you you should do. you might say we should have intervened in ro wand da. a lot of people felt that at the

time. like what we've already learned from some of our interventions already in iraq and afghanistan, maybe we don't know what we're doing and sometimes intervention, that gets you through day one. you stop people from doing bad things. but i think what we've learned from the whole middle east experience, we can stop people from doing bad things, but we can't always make them, we rarely can make them do good things. once you get done stopping bad people. we stopped what we thought was .oing to be a masacre

be my n lead to it can answer. mentioned your high regard for president bush in his work at international. your so mentioned secretary kissinger's work in the middle east. looking at bush the elder, does that high regard in respect also extend to his secretary of state jim baker? >> i covered jim baker. i was the diplomatic correspondent so i have high regard for the job he did as secretary of state. >> thank you very much. admirer of your

olumn and writing. i was here for one session when ted copple was the guest about the changing state of news and i read "the new york times" a lot, i'm reading bbc to avoid reading cynics. how do you feel about how businesses like fox news and if our news -- >> one question please. >> all i can tell you is one of the sites i go -- people ask what do you read? i read "the new york times" first. wall ashington post," the treet journal financial times. and i really enjoy real career

politics because it gives me a wide range and one of the questions international opinion. some a one-stop shop of so i really, i'm a news junky and i'm an opinion news junky so i love reading opinion and i love reading other people's opinion and a wide range of opinion. and i try to every once in a while, i don't have time and i'm not going to do it as a habit because you have to do a lot of preparation. asked me last year to be on their tough challenging debate. and an issue of debate was is america forced for good in the world and i took the affirmative

at the oxford union debating society. i do that to test myself. and i think it's real important when you is it where i is it to give people a shot at you every once in a while. something like bush never did. go to the heritage foundation and have no questions. and so again, it's not something i'm dog to do all the time but i believe from time to time you should do that. >> we have time for two questions. >> thanks for your talk. you mentioned early on a quote. i don't remember the exact one. but it's long the lines of those who give up their freedom to preserve security deserve neither. >> that was one of the introducers. >> i want to get your take on hat because my feeling is that freedoms are something we've

given up in favor of security. i'm wondering whether you believe there is any way and if there is what way people might be convinced to give up their security to preserve values. >> it's a very important question and all i can do is go back to what i said. my overwhelming reaction to the whole snowden affair is two things. this was nevtable and healthy we have this discussion. because if you see where technology is going now, it is leaping ahead as the world gets hyper connected, so much faster than human beings can adapt and adjust. at the same time you have to be aware. i go back to why i'm seeing ads people are voluntary giving up or in my case not voluntarily giving up freedom and information that is being used

and crammed at me. you think we have to have a very big discussion about this. >> last question please. >> thank you for the discussion. >> bill clifford. you mentioned your concern if america goes dark. i'd like you to assess the american education system and how good it does a job of keeping the lights on, of creting globally minded citizen what is would be the prescriptions to do a better job? that's like a whole new column. i do write about this occasionally. we have work to do. i write about education a lot. i'm not an educator, i just play one on tv. i'm interested in mesh power, that got me into industry and jobs and that takes you into

education. so i kind of back into it. i would just say that i think we have a lot of work to do. there is no question about it. i think the single most important issue in my view is parenting. that parents who snill a love of learning in their kids and hold them to high expectations and everything else, teacher, reform, technology is third, fourth and fifth as far as i'm concerned. these are great questions. i dodged as many as i could. but this issue of pessmism and optimism is run through. my column does run fairly regularly. eight or nine years ago i was in israel having dinner and i said why do you run my column. and he said tom, you're the only

optimist we have. i was getting up to go to the table. i know why you're an optimist he said. i said why. he says it's because you're short. you can always see that part of the glass that is half full. i'm not so short, but i am still an optimist. thank you very much for coming. >> thank you. > [applause] >> thanks for joining us ladies and gentlemen.

>> >> host: jon wellingoff is joining us from san francisco this morning to talk about a "wall street journal" front page story last week, mystery assault on the power grid. general wellingoff what happened? >> guest: good morning, greta. what happened was basically a team of individuals went into first a number of cable vaults, a number of hundreds of yards outside of a high-voltage

transmission substation, cut the fibro optic cables are the 9/11 traffic there, then moved the cable vaults and moved into a pasture adjacent top the substation set up firing positions and fired approximatelibly 120 rounds from ak-47-style weapons into the substation and knocked out 17 transformers. >> host: who was involved? >> guest: well, we don't know. the fbi is continuing to investigate. the only evidence that was left were 120 shell casings, that had no dna or fingerprints. there was virtually no evidence of these individuals. there were some video frames from cameras that the utility had that were extremely grainy. can see the firing from the ak-47's and some of the bullets hitting the chain link fence as they go through, but you cannot

make out the figures or see who they are. you could see that there was, apparently, a leader of the group who was signaling them to commence firing with a flashlight. then he or she signaled to stop firing 19 minutes later right before the police arrived. the police arrived and apparently, these individuals stopped firing and left that area 70 seconds before the police arrived. >> host: was this an act of terrorism? >> guest: where will, it was certainly a percentsfully act. we know that. we know, also, it was an act buy a group of individuals who were dedicated to destroy or severely disrupt one of our most important and most vital areas of our electric grid, these high-voltage substations, and that they also put together a very, very professional plan,

and they executed it in a very, very professional manner, so we know, ultimately, that these individuals were not, for example, you know, a random group of people who are, you know, that out, to have some fun. i was somebody who had the intent to if into this facility to do they did. they had pacific targets they shot at they, they avoided other targets that would have caused immediate attention to what they were doing, so they knew exactly what they were doing. they carried it out in a very professional manner. >> this incident has been brought up during congressional hearings with the current chairman of the commission. and in those hearings, it has been talked about how details should not be disclosed because its an ongoing investigation. why are you talking about this now? >> guest: where will, i am talking about it because i think it is important for both the

administration and congress to understand how vital these individual transmission system assets are to this country, and how important it is for us to put together an organized plan to put in place midgation measures to protect against these type of attacks. >> host: let's break that down. why are these grids valuable? >> guest: well, they are valuable because we all depend on electricity. ultimately, every system in the country is dependent upon the electric system. so as such, if in fact, there was organized coordinated atick on a number of the substation, it could take down very large portions of our electric grid. if that attack was conducted in such a way that it actually destroyed the vital pieces of those substations, that is the transformers, we could be without power for a very, le!

very long time. >> host: what would be the economic impact of that? >> guest: trillions of dollars. >> host: how do we know that? >> guest: bus our entire economy, our entire society depends upon the electricity continuing to fuel all the systems in country. we would not have any commerce whatsoever. we wouldn't have any transportation because you couldn't pump gasoline. you know? we would be in complete chaos. am sure we are soon the tv shows where the grid goes up. well, that is are we would be if there was coordinated attack on these critical high-havage transformers in the country. >> why is there no plan to deal with such a sophisticated attack? >> well, because there mission to specific agency who has been given that authority. there are agencies and my former

agency folk was one who had authority to deal with the den are reliability of the grid on the long-term basis. no one has been given authority to look at what they call known vulnerabilities. and hazards of vulnerabilities. ultimately, in the short term, ultimately, we need to assign some agencies, some response k to put together a comprehensive coordinated plan. this is part of a number of proposed pieces of legislation over 200-2007-2008. i testified multiple times on this issue before congress asking for the authority to be given to somebody, i didn't care which agency would be give than authority, but there was no movement, unfortunately, on this legislation. so there is no one to coordinate this. the individual utilities, you

know, have other priorities and it is not really an individual utility problem. it is, in pack, a national problem. if we had blackouts in large portions of the country it would affect us nationally. >> host: where is the resistance coming from? is it the companies? is it congress? why? >> guest: well, i think at this time is the legacy of the fact that a number of industries, you know, not wanting more regulation? that is certainly understandable. i think this raises to the level hall we need to have some kind of coordinated effort at the federal agency level. it not, certain hi, a state problem. it is not a u tell will you ty problem because there are a number of the substations that are owned by the utilities. yes. hardening them and reducing them, the vulnerability to these physical attacks will help ebb. it will help all the neighboring utility and help all of the customers that are outside of those utility areas because they will be protected from these

types of attacks and the results in blackouts as well. it is something that the cost should be spread to everybody. perhaps we need some tax incentives. maybe there is some other way to approach this other than a regulatory one. you know, i am exploring those with a number of individuals, but ultimately, there needs to be some coordinated man to start protect these substations now that we know that there are individuals who have the capability to carry out an attack as sew fess indicated as this within we saw on april 16th. >> i want you to respond a column written in "the wall street journal" yesterday buy jenkins who says there is nothing new about americans shooting up the grid. this has been happening for a long time. he says this, that if the am mycation is that more attacks could be ek expected they can because they have been happening for decades. one expert suggests the assaults were widely replicated around the country. kite take down the prid.

he says yes. it would require an army. every substation is different. what has to be scouted accept prattly. wouldn't such an army be keen not give away the presence. why do the terrorists have tranned fighters to deploy, why would their target be a substation? >> guest: that is a very interesting col loam. i disagree with most everything that he says in that column. i haven't read it, fallly. you i will tell you this. numb per one, yes, there have been people who, you lo, they have taken shots at substations. you know? people, on a random basis, have gone out and shot at substation. no one, no one has ever planned and executed the lef joel of a sophisticated organized attack that you saw on april 16th.

that is undisputed. number two, you don't need an army. you just need a very few number of people with some fairly unsophisticated weapons to target the most critical substations in this country and tris not very many. i am not going to reveal specific numbers because that would be revealing things we shouldn't be talking about. but what was there, we did pacific modeling on load flows to show that you can, in pack, take down the entire grid by hitting a very few number of these substations. so this gentlemen who wrote this column has not done the analysis. he has not done the studies. really doesn't know the details of, in fact, what could be done. >> host: let's talk toal in watertown, tennessee. republican caller,en the air with jon.