you'll get these forces of anxiety trying to reduce what i think is the u.s.' s primary trump card. if you say the response is, let's put up trade barriers or let's be fearful of foreign investment, that is what will really close off the united states in these development possibilities. .

that, but in many countries, taking kids out of school, you lose a generation. there have been lessons learned over the last 10 years, first with things like conditional cash transfer policies, like mexico has with the programs. but even for poor countries, there's the possibility of trying to put in relatively efficient safety nets. the program is about a half of one per sent of g.d.p. in some african programs, we do feeding programs, nutrition programs. one reason we cry to emphasize effective safety nets. this isn't just tossing money away. it's trying to use it in a way that in the heart of the crisis you don't lose funds that again

will lose productive young people for a life. or for affect the healths of their mothers. these are the types of areas where you have to have effective and efficient interventions. coming out of this crisis, maybe coming back in a way to your first point is that there's an awful lot that one still needs to learn. this isn't a question that everybody has the answers and you can apply them. that's one of the roles that i hope interdiscipline anywhere schools can work with at the time. >> well, we're unfortunately out of time. i would like to thank bob for an extremely stimulating speech. [cheers and applause] >> just stay in your seats until he exits the room.

we would appreciate that. >> that's up from last week. over $102 billion has been paid out for those projects. you can learn more online. our live coverage continues at 1:00 with documentary film maker ken burns speaking at the national press club about his

latest public television series on the national parks. mr. burns is known for his documentaries on the civil war, baseball and jazz. also live with senator richard luger who will be speaking about nato and his role in afghanistan. then, the nato secretary general talks about nato's role in afghanistan. we'll have live coverage on c-span. >> c-span's supreme court week just a week away, featuring interviews with current and retired serving justices. >> why is it that we have an elegant, astonishingly, imposing, impressive structure? it's to remind us that we have an important function. and to remind the public when it sees the building, of the

importance of the law. >> supreme court week, starts sunday, october 4, on c-span. and to compliment our original production, c-span offers teachers free resources on the judicial system. >> investment research form moody's is projecting it will take 10 years for housing prices to fully catch up to their peak prices. this morning's washington journal with managing director about which areas will take the longest to recover. >> "washington journal" continues. host: from west chester, pa., steven cochrane, managing director of moody's economy.com. a new report on the construction and housing market in the next decade. thank you for being with us this morning. host: wanted to take a look of the overall findings that, that the housing correction is

bottoming as home sales and construction stabilize. prices will decline for another year, making this the steepest correction on record by many measures. tell us about your methodology. how are you able to look out 20 years or so and calculate how the market is going to do? guest: we have a economic forecasting models. one of the most and -- most important points is a balance between demand, largely by looking at the projection for growth in the number of households, and supply. we know how many houses are in the ground right now. we have projections of

construction activity going forward. so we can make an estimate of the supply-demand balance over the long term and then more broadly simulate the behavior of the tollway economy so you have the estimates, the pace of unemployment growth over the long term and that is important in determining the demand for housing as well. host: what surprised you about the data? guest: the most important finding is while house prices have fallen by about 30% from their peak 2005 till today, you will probably see a decline on average of of boards of 10%. that is because there is still such a overhang in the volume of homes available for sale right now or that will be available for sale over the next year. i think the most important point to make their is that the number of homes being foreclosed upon

is going to continue to rise over the next year, and that is going to be very important terms of weighing on house prices going forward. host: we invite viewers and listeners to weigh in with their thoughts. the managing director of moody's economy.com, and their report on the housing market across the country. we are showing the viewer is one of the charts you have in your reports, talking about and the rebound of markets. in the central part of the country, it looks as if prices according to your data will rebound both before 2014 or 2014 until 2017 -- from the deep central south of taxes all the way through the northern plains. but all the coasts, and the titular places like michigan, the recovery of housing prices will be well after 2023. what is the common factor? why is that?

guest: the most important factor is really how much it there has been excess of supply and excess of investment and housing and some of the areas. if you look at the central part from texas to the dakotas, there really was very little of the housing boom during the early part of this decade in that part of the country. there was not a lot of price appreciation -- so there was not a lot of interest and investors moving into that part of the country. and the economy actually was pretty slow. so there was no inordinate move in terms of the housing market. because there was no boom, there was no bust. and the balance between housing demand and supplies were fairly even and home prices have been a fairly stable. also recently if you looked at that economy in 2006, 2007, 2008, it was a fairly steady economy supported by prices of

commodities ranging from will too weak to corn, and so forth. 2008 was a very good year for that part of the country. so household income was pretty good, and even more importantly, state fiscal -- so the economy is in good shape there and housing market is in balance. host: you report one-third of buyers are no buyers. is it prompted solely by this $8,000 tax credit they are getting? is it likely to continue? guest: two things -- that is an important matter. as you know, it is set to expire in early november. there is a chance it can be extended going forward, although that is not certain. the other factor that brings in first-time homebuyers is simply in the coastal markets, particularly in california and florida and parts of the northeast, home prices are -- have fallen so far that

affordability is at record highs. particularly places like california where many households have been locked out of the market for a number of years because of the very poor affordability, there is some pent-up demand so households that have very good credit scores can get into a house and a pretty good price range. that is driving first-time home buyers. host: let's hear from a california caller, apple valley, on the democrats' line. caller: thank you for c-span. i just wanted to make a comment. i live in california. i lived in what you call the high desert. prices out here for houses are pretty beer compared to the rest of the state. i am thinking that maybe we need to go ahead and drive down the prices as far as reasonable. you have been in california, you are going to have to pay a lot

of money just to live out your compared to the rest of the united states, excluding like new york and florida. do you think it is agreed driving these prices -- greed driving these prices, or just regional? guest: in california housing affordability has improved probably more than anywhere else in the country because of a sharp decline from the high peaks back in 2005. they will probably fall a bit further, particularly parts in the high desert where you are. largely because we expect to seeing a further wave of foreclosures over the next six months to nine months or so. but again, affordability is a very good aspect of the housing market in california right now. given there is some pent-up demand in california, i think it bodes well for the market.

it is a bit of a sharp contrast to, say, florida, where house prices have also come down a law but affordability -- come down a lot and affordability has not been as much an issue and pent-up demand has not been a factor -- more retiree buyers coming from out of state. so i think there is less pressure on the market there. there is some upside potential longer-term ones we work through the foreclosures, that this renewed affordability will bring in more first-time homebuyers and more investors and stabilize the market. host: new york. philip on the democrats' line. caller: is your model computer- driven, and if so, how do you account for government policies? thank you. guest: our model is computer- driven beard and a model like this is a bit too complex to be

done any other way -- is computer-driven. any model like this is a bit too complex to be done other way. we take into account assumptions of government policy as well and applied them to results. the government has a stated goal of trying to get some kind of mortgage modification on upwards of about 4 million mortgages. that seems like a tough goal to make. our assumption is that we might have mortgage modification on may be about 2 million mortgages. we have put that figure into our model and that is one factor that then drives the forecast the won forward. we are able to take into account government policy as best we can. host: we have divided our lives by region for steven cochrane.

to the pacific coast. los angeles. good morning to brian. you are on. caller: one question for you. typically historical speaking the real-estate market is on a curb -- in the 1980's and we are seeing it now. host: what is your question? caller: basically the real estate market is on a curve like we saw in the 1980's, a dip and a peak. my condominium in marina del rey was appraised just under a million $3 years ago, have to sell it for 500,000, and in 10 years it is 1.3 -- it is a curve, folks. host: i guess -- guest: i guess the way to describe it is it is a cyclical

market and the amplitude of that cycle barry's -- varies. california tends to have one of the more volatile market. if it is good, it tends to be really good. if it is bad, it can be bad. the last time it suffered was in the early 1990's when the market faltered, when the economy faltered and the housing market was weak for over for five years in the mid-1990s. other parts of the country are much less cyclical, and certainly we saying peaks and troughs in the midsection of the country than we see in the west coast or the east coast. going forward we will see that again. the economy will likely strengthen through 2010 and into 2011. i think the strongest pace of the rebound in the housing market will come in 2012 once

the labor market is on its feet and producing jobs at a fairly good pace and demand will rise again. so when we get to 2012, we can see maybe during that year price appreciation return back to high single digits before it slows down to a longer-term trend of something closer to 5%. polls, the point about the curve, one of your points is that -- host: the point about the curve, you are saying this is longer than in history. guest: the peak was remarkably high in 2007 -- to the other five, and it has fallen very fall, in california it could be more than 60%. so to come back up to that peak that was reached in 2005 for california, we are looking at well beyond 2030 to reach it again. we are just not going to see

those numbers again for quite some time. host: your report not only looks at housing prices but mortgages, a jumble delinquencies. modifications are a wild card. what does the report find? guest: this goes back to my point that foreclosures are likely to rise further over the next year before they finally start to decline and start to stabilize house prices. what we are seeing is the pipeline for foreclosures is still filling. when you looked at delinquencies, 60-day, 90-day, 100 -- one of the 20-day, the air still rising. the number of mortgages that could ultimately be fought and go into foreclosure. add to that the fact that the first half of this year there were a number of moratorium on foreclosures, either private lenders or government. those moratorium are largely

over and mortgages aren't able to be worked out or modified through government or private programs, could easily move into foreclosure as well. host: of your concern about some of the mortgage servicers. what is clear that most of not adopted the treasury guidance which encourages them to write off the principal forbearance amounts at the time of modification. why haven't they move more quickly? guest: they have taken a different tactic. it has really been more on simply reducing interest rates or finding a way to reduce monthly mortgage payments, either reducing the rates or extending the length of turned -- of the term. they have been hesitant to reduce principal. sometimes it is not enough particularly the labor market is so weak, monthly payments are reduced -- but again, if you lose your job or some other economic hits to a household,

even if monthly mortgage payments are reduced it may not be enough. host: calif. -- larry, is your town sissonne? caller: a lot of mental cruelty from our government. the white service jobs from left over, other than public service jobs, not a hell of a lot jobs out there. and as far as the real estate economy itself, there is no equality in the capitalistic system we have. there should be a 100-year mortgage, 2% interest on the mortgage of the home. the 30 or 40-year loan is actually mendell coley to the of -- mental cruelty to the middle class.

host: and the thoughts? guest: 30-year or 40-year is the most usual loan is the idea that ultimately the loan of to be paid off within one's lifetime. i think another way to look at the housing market today, though, is there are multiple ways of founding affordable housing in many areas. and i think one of the most important things to think about is not only our house prices down and more affordable now than quite some time, but rents have come down as well given that the supply of housing is so large, particularly in california. so, a household having trouble affording the house, for a sense, should be looking at an affordable rental unit -- unit. in some areas it could be tough and government policy could come into play. but we have made the

overstretched ourselves in trying to extend housing affordability across such a large swath of the population. host: steven cochrane, "the baltimore sun" has another view. for more, affordable isn't so. tighter credit is hurting those looking to move in or bill lower-cost housing. they write that home prices and apartment rents both falling nationwide, it might seem like a good time to get more people into residences that don't overwhelm the monthly budgets. but affordable housing activists say the reality is the opposite. it is much harder now to get construction financing to build or to get permanent financing for affordable rentals once they're done. or to connect low and moderate income workers with mortgages. guest: of construction financing is hard to get. they are very hesitant to make construction loans. again because the supply is so strong so the financial viability of large construction

projects has to be very well proven before a loan will be made. another problem, too, is many construction loans for multifamily housing and commercial lending are made oftentimes by some of the smaller to mid-sized regional banks as opposed to the larger banks. right now financial conditions for the smaller to regional banks tend to be a little tougher right now than the larger banks and they are working on conserving capital and trying to be a bit more conservative in their lending practices, i think for good reason right now. that could ease up, again, over the next two or three years when the economy is stronger and banks will be a little more willing to lend. but there will be a period where it will be tough. host: washington, d.c. good morning to scott. caller: i want to thank you

guys are having this discussion. not too many other news outlets are discussing this and this kind of detail. my question is regarding some of the writing of a couple of other economics professors -- one on the left coast of one of the east. thomas soul of the west coast and walter williams here at george mason near us -- thomas sowell. a lot have been talking about the community reinvestment act and its effects and how it was a major contributor to the bubble bursting. and dr. sowell also discusses the policies of land use restrictions -- restrictions and how they have contributed. i am wondering what your thoughts are on the analysis that they have done and also what your thoughts are concerning this particular region, northern virginia, d.c. metro area real estate market.

i know personally, in my wife and i -- are situation, we purchased in 2006, two -- $320,000, small town house, and it is currently 156,000. host: what is your game plan for the town house? caller: that is the issue. i have been discussing it with several colleagues, some attorneys and also several other economic analysis guys. it occurs to us if we are looking at a decade just to break even, it doesn't make any sense. if it means -- on the one hand, staying in the home and maintaining the mortgage rate for a house that is worth half what we paid for, or risking the credit worthiness and walking away, i am sorry, in the end,

the bottom line, it actually makes more sense to walk away. we don't want to do that. host: steven cochrane, what you think about scott's situation in northern virginia? guest: the situation in northern virginia sounds typical for the region. the washington area was one of the markets that was one of the most overbuilt and overpriced. a fair amount of subprime lending that was extended in the northern virginia area. a lot of optimism about the economy. so that will be one of the areas that will be one of the slowest to come back. it is not quite as bad as, say, florida and california, but not too far behind. it is kind of an example of the pattern we have seen in terms of where housing markets have been, the most overbuilt and oversold. it is in many of the four suburban areas, or ex-urban

where there was aggressive lending and building going on beyond what demand could support. we saw it as it really extended out to the far suburbs of washington, d.c., just like the high desert of california. host: san diego, california. caller: one comment first. where was moody's 15 years ago looking at the bubble and everything that you mentioned? the question i am asking, i came from texas. i had a house in west texas, and i was able to sell it within a year of the bubble burst and i did not make that much money but i was able to make a little bit of a gain. then i come to california, and you mentioned about 2023, seeing a rise. but what i'm seeing here, the state pretty much is dying

because even though you mentioned how the market is going to get better by 2023, the market is not here for people to get into borrowed just to buy a $250,000 home, maybe 1600 up to 1800 square feet. you have families moving in like the old days, moving into a house where they share all of the utilities and payment and everything else. the bottom line is, somebody living in california, single- family would have to be making close to $150,000 just to live comfortably. that is my question. how do you project all of this information from movies for california, florida, east coast, and everything else -- the bottom line even in texas is there to see prices people can't afford. host: thank you for the call. guest: a quick answer to the first question is here at

moody's economy.com, we did foresee some trouble in the housing market back in 2004 and in 2005. we were watching more closely simply the disconnect between home prices and household income and also the fast ramp up and securitization of the mortgage market, which made it kind of hard to tell what is going on in terms of where the risk in mortgage finance was. we were projecting that there would be some kind of correction in the housing market, we thought, and what kind of went out on a limb. we thought house prices would fall by about 10% or so. it turned out back then it looked like a strong statement, but we underestimated the depth of the downturn. host: talking about areas of the country where there was not as much overbuilding and inflation in prices. what about the tie in with jobs

and housing market? how much of the swan sit tight in in terms of the jobs coming back, being able to drive not only availability but affordability? guest: this is really important and will be the final factor in determining how they come back. in the near term it is all about balance between supply and demand and where markets may be overwhelmed by foreclosures and you have supplies surging upwards in terms of homes available. in the long term, ultimately demand doesn't return until job growth returns. that is the most important factor. even if we have population growth at a very -- fairly steady pace, the number of households rising, if employment is not rising and households are not confident that they will stay in the job over the long term if they are not at risk of losing a job, they are not going to take that leap and move from being a rental or a buyer or move up from a smaller house to

a larger house. the labor market is critical, and that is one reason why we think the turnaround in the housing market will be slow. and it will not be until maybe late 2011 or into 2012 until we see what we might call a robust housing market, where we see some price appreciation return greater than inflation and where we actually see competition in the market in terms of folks trying to buy homes. host: about 10 more minutes from our guest, steven cochrane from moody's economy.com. caller: thank you very much for c-span. i wanted to ask about the new york city market and the metropolitan areas. i think you would agree we have one of the least affordable housing markets in the country. it has taken, i think, about a 25% hit over the last year or so. in many ways, here, this was a

bubble that fed on the other bubble, people working in the financial industry. i guess my gut feeling is we are going to see something like we sell after the 1980's crash, where it took about 10 years to 12 years for the markets to recover. maybe this will be even longer, i don't know. i just want to get your thoughts on that, on how you would characterize the new york city and metropolitan area market. guest: i think that is a fair assessment of the market. when i think of the new york market i think of the housing cycle today being kind of late in the game. it held in there longer, partly based on all the earnings coming from wall street, the financial- services industry. and it was one of the last, then, to be falling -- 25% is actually a little below average

right now. but i do think the new york market perhaps is one of the riskiest of afford because we really don't know what is going to happen with household income growth in new york going forward. it is a little uncertain what the future holds for financial- services. we don't know what kind of regulatory environment the industry is going to have to -- work under. if it is strict, it could very well limit the pace of earnings and the pace of income generated from that industry. so, given that house prices have a ways to fall still, it is a little late in the game, that the economy itself -- that the turnaround is quite uncertain, i think the new york economy will be one of the slowest to turn around. .

guest: i think that the shape of the half -- of the housing market is changing. part of this is due to demographics, the growth of the mcmansions was an effect of baby boomers moving up to larger houses, either for prestige or to house their families. with the demographics now, there will be the children of the baby boomers who are in their early to mid 20's who will be looking

for first-time homes. they will be looking for homes that are more affordable and not quite so large. the baby boomers are starting to look at retirement homes. they will no longer have the kids home. host: this is florida. good morning. caller: good morning. probably october, 2010, we are going to have a much larger group. their five-year contracts are going to do the same thing that happened with these three-year contracts. they know that 70% of these people are already under water. i think education is extremely important.

this country lacks common sense. it is a point to take a hard hit. to the first part of my statement, what makes you say that the economy is going to start becoming more robust when factually, it is a much bigger group of people with these five- year notes that are coming up? we already know statistically that 80% of these people when they modify their loans, they are going to get out the same with the first group did. i have my house on the market. it is free and clear. i do not know what the economy will be like in 10 or 12 years.

my sole reason for selling is to sit back and be patient and watch carefully for better neighborhoods to take up a few of these foreclosed homes. i would like to make money off of this. if you can accumulate $1 million for retirement, with the way the economy is going, i am still going to be working. host: thank you for calling. guest: there really is a risk that there will be another wave of foreclosures hitting the housing market next year. it is one reason why we are forecasting that housing prices will continue to fall at least through the middle of next year. there is a lot of risk in the market. it certainly depends on where you are. i think one needs to be ready to face another year where house

prices continued to decline or certainly do not rise. i think it is important to note that while the housing market is important for the economy and the economy cannot really enter into any kind of robust growth until the housing market levels off -- we do not need the housing market to be strong to have a recovery, but we need the housing market to level off so that other areas of the economy can generate growth and not be distracted by the housing market. we are increasingly linked to the global economy. the continued growth of china, india, and even the european economies seem to be ahead of us in terms of a turnaround. also, there is good potential for business investment spending in this country to pick up. it has been very slow during

most of this decade. there has been a need for businesses to update their equipment. there are other avenues of growth for the economy. the housing market is a distraction right now and will continue to be a distraction. host: oak view, california. good morning. caller: distraction. i think going to real-estate school, i am very discouraged with the state of the market. i think the american dream is shattered. host: you are going to be our last caller. caller: if i were to sign off on a formula that says that the

housing market would increase at 6.5%, i would have been committing criminal fraud. these guys signed off on that. can you answer that for me? guest: when you look at the housing market, you have to look at to says. supply and demand have to return to some kind of balance. that will take another two years to happen. once that happens, house price appreciation will likely continue on basically at the pace of growth of household income. so, if we think nominal household income growth might be somewhere in the low to mid single digits, it is reasonable that the cost of housing could continue at that pace.

that is a maness outlook and a modest pace of price appreciation. >> at 1:00 eastern we'll have live coverage as ken burns talks about his favorite public television series on the national parks. mr. burns is known for his documentaries on the civil war, baseball and jazz. tonight on the communicators, two perspectives on f.c.c. proposals, and information that flows over the internet. the communicators tonight on c-span 2. the senate finance committee returns tomorrow to continue work on health care legislation. committee chairman told members to expect debate on whether to

include a public option for the government to provide health insurance choices to people without insurance. live coverage begins at 9:30 a.m. eastern here on c-span. while we wait for the start of ken burns comments at the national press club, a look at this morning's headlines from the washington journal. twitter. we will get to your response shortly. the news of the iranian missile launches, the tests leading the headlines. this headline, in show of force, iran test fires missiles. orange, register, iran plans more missile tests. successful test of shorter-range missiles may prompt harsh sanctions. in "the washington times," iran tests missiles after new disclosure. gates concedes u.s. has no

permanent military solution. they write that iran rebuked the united states and western partners sunday by testing a series of short range rockets almost as a caveat after days of rancor over tehran posset acknowledgement that it was building a second facility capable of making fuel for atomic bombs. iran also said it tested a multiple rocket launcher for the first time with its official english-language press broadcasting images of missiles being fired as part of the drobot units of the revolutionary guard. the test missiles were launched within hours of acknowledgment by defense secretary robert gates that the u.s. has no permanent military solution to stop iran from becoming a nuclear power. the report this morning in "the washington times." we will show you some of the secretary's comments later. look at "the london times online." perrin shows might of missiles days before nuclear plant show band. iran began to test fire missiles

yesterday and starting dates of war games before the confrontation with powers over a previously undisclosed secret nuclear facility. on thursday, western officials will demand iran allowed inspectors access. intelligence agencies estimate the plant is designed to house 3000 centrifuges, far too few to be used for far energy production but enough to produce about one bomb's worth of material in a year. "the washington post." iran test missiles on the eve of talks. u.s. considers severe sanctions and leaves the door open for diplomacy. the headline this morning in "the washington post." a little bit about what they write this morning. missile firings are not directly related to iran's nuclear

weapons program and the test apparently were planned before friday's disclosure by president obama and european leaders feared that tehrani is what it said was a military drill in the central iranian desert to underscore its rejection of international efforts to halt its nuclear@@@@@@ threatening for the last three years to blow up that particular nuclear site. so how can they say that it is a secret? and they have been watching this particular site for almost 10 years now. it shows over and over the pictures on the news and in

reality they have been threatening to blow up at least five of their nuclear sites. host: and this is reported in " the philadelphia enquirinquirer" israel trumpet the latest discoveries as proof that the top about the discovery of additional nuclear sites as proof of its long-held assertion that iran was seeking nuclear weapons. the revelation of the secret iranian facility also demonstrates to even the most skeptical people the evil intentions of iran, said the deputy foreign minister for israel. republican line is next. myrtle beach, south carolina. randy. caller: how are you doing today? i just had a suggestion. my response to it is we should get involved with it, and this would give us an opportunity to

draft and clean out all of our prisons -- host: talking about a u.s. draft? caller: at the u.s. draft. might as well do it now because it is coming. there is a lot of strife and we have all of the treaties between everybody. instead of putting everyone voluntarily, we have all the people in prison, they are useless. might as well put them to use because of the air doing is sitting there. host: of baltimore is next on the independent line. caller: what i want to say is that iran has the full right to test anything they want in their land. the problem with iran and the only reason why the media here puts a lot of attention on iran is that they are anti-zionist, which zionism is a the theology or methodology of ethnically

cleansing muslim and christian palestinians from palestine to make a jewish majority state called israel, i call it the fourth reich. and they control the media here. they set the agenda on what is important and they keep fear mongering people -- host: should israel be concerned with insecurity with iran apparently having the ability to strike it? caller: notice how insecure hitler was, the third reich, because he had bad intentions because he was always insecure about russia and of the body against him. the same thing with the jews. host: the view from baltimore, maryland. ohio, capeline all the democrats in line. caller: you just mentioned should is robby concern. of course, they should. but they should sign the non- proliferation treating. you can go to the u.n. website every letter after letter from

nation saying israel's capabilities, nuclear, biological, capabilities, threaten peace in the middle east. i want to also address how many of our people -- talking heads like on msnbc and david sanger, i just heard him on that program, and andrea mitchell, terry gross, david gregory, for the last four or five years i heard all of them repeat the unsubstantiated claims, you know, calling it a nuclear weapons program in iran. there is no substantiated proof. let us wait for the international atomic energy agency's filing. is it too much to ask that the talking heads of the mainstream media to ask logical, reasonable questions and challenges these claims as they did not do in of run up to iraq. they are not even asking questions about let us write for

the iaea. we have not seen anyone hold accountable -- held accountable for the intelligence. can you have people -- can you run over the national montpelier's gentry with the public? -- national nonproliferation treaty with the public? what that iran is really in violation is a huge question instead of just going on, the talking heads, -- mika brezinsky said when do we draw the suspected, not until the iaea confirms what everybody in the media has been claiming for the last five years. let us get proof, let us get evidence. why isn't our congress holding of the faults that lied to us in the run-up to iraq, why are they not holding those people accountable before running off and threatening iran? host: capeline from ohio. the front page of "the wall street journal" reporting on the

election in germany. mandate for change in germany. merkel's center-right commission wins, opening the door for tax cuts and labor revamped. center-right alliance won germany's national elections on sunday, opening the door to a modest tax cut and labour market changes that could opt help strengthen the fragile recovery in the country's crisis battered economy. jacksonville, florida. next call. ben would go to manhattan. juanita on the independent line. caller: thank you so much. it was written that the iranian people were supposed to have been attacked according to one dick cheney was setting up before bush and cheney left the white house. i think this is a comeuppance of that, the possibility of schering the people to death again and making them think that every and really has something to blow us up with.

i think, like the lady said before, we should wait and see what the report to bring us. we should wait until they have their meetings with the other countries and see what they find. i don't think we should rush into anything. we have nobody to fight. this gentleman from south carolina said that he thinks prisoners should be left out. the prisoners did not have an argument with these people. they probably don't know what is going on. it is not fair to send them. host: about 15 minutes on your calls, reaction and response to the iranian nuclear test. monroe, ga.. deerow of the democrats' line. caller: oi think we are missing the most important part of this. i think the moment israeli intelligence determines that iran has developed and can deliver a nuclear weapon, they will take care of it. host: look at the front page

here of " the new york times." u.s. is seeking tougher tactics against tehran. a broad coalition urged. new sanctions could focus on energy and financial sectors. and let me show you another part of the front page this morning. a photo of columnist william safire, the lower left-hand side of the front page. william safire dies. speechwriter for president nixon and pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the times and also one of the most widely read riders on language and unofficial arbiter of its usage. a full obituary and appreciation inside "the new york times," as you might expect. political columnist and or local of language dies at 79. part of their tribute, a bit wary -- behind the fund leaders say was a talented languish -- linguists, addiction to a little to of illusions. it was a consensus, too, that his op-ed essays, mostly written

in washington and syndicated was the work of a sophisticated analyst with a voluminous contacts and insight into the way things work in washington. he called themselves a pundit -- the word, with its implication of self-appointed expertise. attributed to william safire this morning in "the new york times. -- in "the new york times." president george w. bush in 2006 presenting william safire the medal of freedom. raleigh, north carolina. jay is next. good morning. what are republican line. caller: good morning. yes, i was just listening to some of your callers regarding the situation in iran. we are in a delicate time line. we are trying to keep the israelis from acting and that the same time supposedly a line in the sand because of their activities.

but i do think we should start off with sanctions because the people in iran will rise up once they start getting a lot of the stress from these sanctions. we saw a lot of that this past summer. host: what about the caller from ohio mention that she was not convinced that the iaea or other organizations had really certified that iran was working on a nuclear weapons program. what are your thoughts? caller: well, i am sure we are not privy of a lot of the intelligence we are getting when it comes to these sites. i think the iaea -- excuse me, has been used in the past for saddam hussein and when they get a little too close, the iranians will probably run at them out and probably by another nine or 12 months. as much as we would like to think about in non-military

action we better be prepared to take one especially if they do come up with solid evidence that would show they are closer to a nuclear program than what we think they are. o scott "the financial times" has -- host: "the financial times." willy on the democrats' line. make sure you turn down your television or radio. go ahead. caller: i am sorry. let me do this right here. this is willie from trenton, florida. i just want to say to all of the listeners out there and the politicians and everything that supposedly they have all the facts going and know what is happening, this is a very delicate situation, very

sensitive. talking about the nuclear stuff. i hope they have the facts straight and know what is going on because one slip and the whole world of everything could be blocked up -- blown up, you know? one thing concerning this. consider this. some 24 says the earth is the lords and the fulness thereof -- psalm. another thing, a wise man once said, either we live together as brothers or sisters or we die together as fools. let us live together and be good stewards of god's earth. thank you very much and have a good day. host: minnesota. richard on the independent line. woodcut what a shock -- but it is jack.

-- caller: if anybody has not noticed, we have had a propaganda avalanche for the last two or three or for five years about iran. and the propaganda which is supposed to get us all worked up about terrorism is not about terrorism and nuclear weapons. the propaganda is to get us ready to weaken our ran so we can go in and take charge of their 10% of the world will reserves, and even more the portly -- more importantly, their second position in the world as far as natural gas. our grand imperial strategy. and nothing more than that. and these neo-cons -- if our foreign operating base is a real

bombs iran or if we bomb iran, another country that has done nothing to us, i think obama and the democrats better get ready to be obliterated as a party. they are going to go into the dustbin of history. host: of the front page of "the financial times" on another country's nuclear arsenal. in the and ounces capability to build a high yield nuclear arsenal. -- india announces capability. nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world's major nuclear powers, bolstering its strategic defense against potential aggressors within the region. new delhi's siniora, officials said india had build weapons with?s?s?s?s?s?s?s?s?s?s?s?s?s?s

>> we're going to break away to take you live to the national press club. ken burns will talk his six part series on national parks that appeared yesterday on pbs, as well as some of his other projects. live coverage now on c-span. . o?o

>> i would now like to introduce our head table guests and ask them to stand briefly when their names are called. john lockwood, a national park service ranger for 25 years and a member of the national plus -- national press club. eleanor clift of "news we" magazine. sylvia smith, former president of the national press club. the president and ceo of pbs and a guest of the speaker. a reporter for bloomberg news and chair of the national press club speakers' committee. skipping over our guest, we have npc president and offer -- author of the centennial history. sharon rockefeller, the ceo of

weta. the producer and host of "white house chronicles" on pbs. the bureau chief of hearst newspapers and dave cook of the "christian science monitor." [applause] for decades, ken burns has been a leading documentary film maker who combines lyric pros and a thorough understanding of american history in works that have informed and enlightened public television audiences. he has appeared at the national press club numerous times. he first spoke here in 1990 after his series, "the civil war" which the "washington post" called [unintelligible] his latest project is a 12 part documentary called "the national parks: america's best idea." it began airing last night,

locally on weta, his partner in the project. combine to storytelling abilities with photographs of the parks brought into everyone's home in high- definition television. the series is not simply about beauty -- is the story of an american idea, that scenic lands should be set aside and protected, not for royalty and the wealthy, but for the enjoyment of all citizens. it is the story of the visionaries, the explorers, the writers, photographers, and even the politicians. they struggle to make this democratic idea happen. please, everyone, join us in a warm press club welcome for mr. ken burns. [applause] >> thank you very much. i have been asked by the officials at pbs to issue a warning that if those of you have high-definition, large format television screens and

5.1 surround sound, please wear a raincoat while you were watching the series because the spray from yosemite falls will go into your living room and we're not responsible for any water damage. i want to thank the press club for having me back. it has been many, many times. i am always thrilled to be here. i would like to particularly thank pbs, the greatest not work on earth. the corporation for public broadcasting for their support. [applause] also, to weta, production partners for 25 years and my dear friend, sharon rockefeller. paul lot at pbs has been a great pillar of support for the projects over the last several years we have attempted to do and i don't think i would be standing here before you without these two extraordinary woman. we also benefit from the

kindness of our underwriters, in this case, for this program, bank of america and general motors, the hoss jr. fund, the national park foundation, the parks foundation, the arthur vining davis foundation, the pew charitable trust, and the national endowment for the humanities. because i am here and you see me is in large measure of their very generous support, not only for this production but for many others. this represents an extraordinary collaboration between pbs, the prague -- the public broadcasting service, and the national park service. i would like to think this national representatives of the park service's, -- i would like to think these national representatives of the park service's here today. all of the extraordinary public service, the rangers who helped us from the gates of the arctic in northern alaska to the dry tortugas off the florida keys,

from hawaii volcanoes, to acadia in maine. they have been tremendous servants and i would like to thank them. we have been celebrating over the last several days our public lands. there has been an enormous outpouring of support, all across the country in more than 200 of the 391 sites of the national park service. citizens have been turning out and by the hundreds and by the thousands, to celebrate not just the initiation of this film, but our love of these public lands, these treasured landscapes, as the secretary of the interior, who has been a great champion of this project would say. it has been an amazing outpouring in a country that is often so distracted by the now that there are so many millions of citizens million -- willing to commit to these public lands in such a meaningful way. we, in turn, try to express some sort of thanks to the national

park service for their service to us. we are turning over to them, as of today, all of our research material, the full transcript, the full images of all the interviews we took in the course of this, the database at nearly 12,000 individual images called from hundreds and hundreds of archives around the country and the world. rights to which we do not possess, but i think will be an important database for the park service and historians and researchers for decades to come. we have also produced, with the help of the cost jr. fund, six other films -- one is a 45 minute films that is the unique story of the national parks, and five other contemporary films that i think will draw new visitors to the parks. we still have some populations in our country that do not yet feel the ownership of the national parks. it has been our commitment and

indeed our mandate to try to reach them and show them heroes of the national parks that look and sound like them. we are very happy to present to the park service and the department of interior the fruits of our labour in addition to sharing with our fellow -- with our fellow citizens are 10- year labor of love on this. we're very excited to do this and very grateful for the help you gave us at 3:00 a.m. with the rangers a standing next to us as we took a shot of dawn. it was very special. thank you. one learns, the nationalist john muir said, the world and made is yet to be made. this is still the morning of creation. this documentary film series and are companion book grew out of experiences and emotions and attitudes form and shape by more than three decades of trying to get to the heart of a deceptively simple question -- who are we? who are those strange and complicated people who like to call themselves americans?

what can an investigation of the past tell us not only but we have been as a people, but where we are and where we might be going? the various films we have made over the last 30 years have often tried to explore the central issue of race in america, the great sin and stained of slavery and its ennobling and bedeviling consequences. in works on the statue of liberty, the civil war, baseball, jazz, thomas jefferson, mark twain, and the first african american heavyweight, jack johnson, among others. but we have also been drawn inexorably to a question of space -- the way in which the sheer physicality of this great continent has molded us as a people for better and for worst. for films and on the history of the american west, that strange and dangerous intersection of cultures, where some of our national character and mythology has emerged, to the lewis and clark expedition and its own decidedly bittersweet lessons. from a light-hearted look at the

first cross-country automobile trip made a century after meriwether lewis and william clark made theirs, to the wonderful and unforgiving landscape that would inspire a young samuel clemens to take on the central themes of both race and space that is complicated young nation seemed unable to avoid. we too have been captivated and directed by a sense of possibility and promise in the magnificence our land. that interest has reached its apotheosis for us in the story of our national parks. in the narrative of their creation, in the evolution of their clean and stunningly influential ideal, we have been able to engage in joint teams that transcend the political or military or social elements that have traditionally passed for american history. and been able at times, i believe, to touch on or at least glance the internet and indeed spiritual things that bind us

and that complicated mass together. -- complicated path together. we have a curiosity for the still wild places of america, and animating spirit that has renewed our passion as filmmakers, writers, historians and friends. there is no person more central to this enterprise than my best friend, dayton duncan, the author and producer of this film, the person who brought this to my attention, who every day served as the general of this project and should be standing here with me as an equal co author of this effort. would you please acknowledge his central role? [applause] in every gesture and breath, i speak for him today and you know i stand here supported by his extraordinary words and kindness and friendship in all of this.

we cannot imagine every subject to continue to pursue the questions that have propelled us for so long. it is not as if the national parks have not been done before. they have. but it was our intention to make a documentary film series and a book on the history of the parks. this would not be a tour guide, a travel log filled with pretty pictures of wildlife or spectacular natural scenery, bill our senior -- and though our film would have that in the end. nor would this be in a lodge to stay at one on vacation. we were more and agree -- we were more interested in calling the individuals that created this uniquely american thing called the national park, and then should we now take for granted like the air we breathe, the water we drink. we were principally drawn to the fact that for the first time in human history, land, great sections of our natural landscapes set-aside not for kings, noblemen, or the very rich, but for everyone and for

all time. we like the fact that we americans had invented such a wonderful thing, that this idea, like our articulation of universal political freedom and the declaration of independence should be so widely admired and copied throughout the rest of the world. in fact, we came to believe with every fiber of our being, the parks are nothing less than the declaration of independence applied to landscapes. three decades of continually brushing up against this amazing and surprisingly little- known story, during the course of producing are other projects, getting to know historical figures important to the evolution of the park idea, spending time out in these transformative and restorative places, only heighten our interest in the subject. 10 years ago, we committed to making a documentary film about our national parks. over the many years, it has taken to complete this project, we have found in this story of the parks, quite simply a remark

-- a reminder of our best selves, a connection to the most primitive impulses we human beings have. an appreciation of the value of commonwealth these parks represent on spiritual and material level. during the course of our investigation, we began to gain a new, intimate awareness of the flabbergasting and nearly incalculable geological forces at work and on display in the parks. one of the things we witness when we go to the park, a story and told us in an interview for the film, is the immensity and intimacy of time. on the one hand, we experience the immensity of time, the creation itself, the universe unfolding before us. yet it is also, time shared with the people we visit these places with. we remember when our parents took us for the first time and we as parents passing it on to our children -- and to amend

transmission from generation to generation of the love of place, the love of nation that the national parks are meant to stand for. walking quietly and all struck within a grove of huge sequoias trees that have borne silent witness to this immense passage of time, standing next to the rim of an immense chasm, gazing in wonder at the nighttime rest of tens of thousands of birds in a place dismissed once as a dismal swamp, walking in a cathedral still more impressive than any made by man, stepping gingerly around geysers and film roles and boiling in spitting mud pots in god's laboratory, watching clouds clear of that crown of our most massive mountain on the continent, we have come to want to know more about that in to the transmission. our film series and book is our attempt at an answer. for nearly seven years, we made trip after trip from our home in

new hampshire out into the national parks, looking, scouting, filming, interviewing, asking, delving into the origins and mythology, recovering their long neglected stories and archives, searching for some sign or guidepost that would illuminate our way, getting to know the remarkable people who continue to protect this fragile inheritance. in the course of our work, we were awakened daily by the life changing power these save and sacred places exert. stumbling among the ruins of mesa verde in colorado, we breathed the dry air of a civilization that vanished hundreds of years ago, yet in the eerie, silent ruins, a warren of now deserted rooms and passageways of the once flourishing culture, we came to know the fragility of our own existence. in the crisp air of the pines and maples, the thunder of the surf, we found an unusual,

sustaining tranquillity and reveled in the contradiction that must of the place had been saved by the son of the richest and some said most hated man in america. in northwestern montana, and later on in the near seattle, we hiked up to living that now threaten and disappearing glaciers. while still marveling at the floral collegium, the riot and jumble of brightly colored wild flowers, joyously blooming on the alpine slopes. it was hard to weave these protected places, and at the grief that fell over as was palpable and long-lasting. in hawaii, the hellish landscape of volcanoes provided us with a glance back into the moment of creation itself. while the colorful windswept canyons of southern utah were mesmerizing, sometimes forbidding museums of patient erosion. down in the grandest canyon on earth in northern arizona, we prayed the rapids of a still

insistent and dangerous colorado river and wondered again at the leaders of history, grand geological history, that river has revealed to travelers over the eons. back on its south wind, we felt the atomic insignificance of our own lives, a sense of one's smallness in the larger scheme of things that the canyons edge continue it promotes. we felt better in that knowledge. like privileged visitors to some sacred shrine, alaska took us in and commit as moments with mountains and fjords and tundra, brown bear, elk, moose, whale, steel, puffins and we will never forget. we saw lots of wolves to. in northwestern wyoming, found a second, among the wildlife and wild eruptions of the many stunning otherworldly thermal features. we fell silent and overlook that afforded the view of the

inspirational multi-you canyon of the yellowstone and had the sense there that the forces which had created europe were still operating to split the brittle, sometimes call a sounding ground were walking on. a cosmic laboratory of startling beauty and majesty. we come back to this place again and again, and every season and every time of day and night. we of struggle and strained to catch a view of the primeval and reconnect ourselves to the natural world that was our home as dayton duncan likes to say, at the beginning of our dynasts memories of a species. but one glorious moment, a magnificent bison walked out of a cut of steam and to our shot, a refugee of cautionary and the sea from one prehistoric age, a creature only recently stayed from extinction because we had the foresight -- recently saved from extinction because we and the foresight to set aside as place as a national park. in this year in them -- in the

sierra nevada of california, we found our century and church. is the genius of america was to each -- was to liberate human kind by permitting citizens to govern themselves, it has helped to free them in another important way -- by permitting its believers to worship god as they saw fit. where our european ancestors required a formalized, dogmatic devotion in cathedrals made by men, we americans would more easily find god or science or art, as that is a way, in capital and nature. on the western slopes of those same seeress, where the indians once made their home, was a valley of incomparable transcendent beauty that the white men who first discovered called yosemite. it is the first great national park in history and it contains towering waterfalls and then during cataracts, polished granite rocks of unusual and unique architecture, majestic

trees of almost super natural size, dense forests and alpine meadows, bald eagles and hermit thrush is, dear, and black bear. but an inventory of its treasures does not come close to describing its power. in yosemite, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. we as film makers and writers, photographers and editors have struggled these many years to comprehend the nearly cosmic calculus that continually recommends that special belly to us. the final accounting will not come, of course. our arithmetic will fail. the glories of yosemite and all the national parks will be impossible to articulate with any precision by us mere mortals. interestingly, these mortals have been in many ways, big and small, the glue that holds the story of the national parks together. it was people, after all who failed to find words to express the emotions they felt in these

places, but nonetheless moved fearlessly into that unknowing. it was people who, in fits and starts, and up against powerful and relentless opposition, first tried to set aside these parks. it was people who saw the danger to wildlife and scenery and rescued a threatened species from extinction. it was people who drew up the laws and fought the bureaucratic fight to create an agency charged with overseeing these spectacular parks. it was and still is people who have dedicated their lives to the ongoing park of protecting, expanding, and restoring the best idea we ever had. they include an energetic and idealistic young and president, a man with a nearly unquenchable thirst for knowledge of the natural world who would do more for parks and conservation and any other politician of his day, by emphasizing the central democracy of the heart of a park impulse. by insisting these locations be saved for all jordan and our

children's children. some -- for our children, and our children's children. we're not building this country for the day, it is to last through the ages, he said. it includes a young boy from kansas to -- who after reading in the newspaper about an exquisitely out west would dedicate the next 31 years of his life to saving one of the most beautiful spots in the country. they include restless housewife from lincoln, neb., who with her photographer husband, which tore the national parks each summer in their car, creating 11 scrap book and journal of startling poignancy and artistry filled with timeless memories the childless comfort -- childless couple adopted. it includes a hispanic biologist would do more than anyone else to turn the attention toward the preservation of wild west -- of wildlife in the correct stewardship of the many animals that called the parks are home. it includes to retire was an enterprising brothers who made photographing and filling the

grandest canyon on earth their life's work. they brought back some of the finest pictures of that reason -- of that region and made a living taking photographs of the equally awestruck tourists who rode mules down into the canyon. house ink -- it includes a fisherman's guy, the son of a slave, living off smoky in miami who refuse to sell his land to developers to spoil his beloved paradise and unhappily turned his island over to the people of the united states. -- and happily turn his people -- turned the island over to the people of the united states. over the course of our film, you'll meet several dozen other people, most of them and sunk or unfamiliar, who found in the parks, salvation of one kind or another. included a talented but troubled alcoholic that fell in love with the woods of north carolina and eastern tennessee, rehabilitated himself in the isolation of nature and sacrifice everything

to see the region transformed into a park. he was aided in turn by an equally dedicated japanese immigrant who would come with his camera, help ensure the preservation of the wilderness that was so close to and so threatened by the major population centers of the east. they include a family of colorado cowboys, quakers, who turned themselves in to archaeologists and helped save the dwindling and often vandalize relics of ancient american cultures. and minnesota's boy that stepped off the train in alaska and delays -- near the nation's highest peak in became of the fierce as protectors of the predators nearly everyone else wanted eradicated. they include the millionaire businessman with seemingly limitless enthusiasm for the expansion of park land in america, would spearhead the creation of the national park service and then benefit from its common and peaceful resources as perhaps no one else had. his nemesis that would be first to take over during his bosses mysterious absences and would

help an invalid, paraplegic president expand the very notion of what a national park could be. they include an iconoclastic crusader from florida, a woman with her own unique relationship to the swamp at her doorstep who helped lead the fight to save that swamp from a relentless tide of development and commercial exploitation. they also include a scottish born in wanderer who walked clear across california and into the our nietzsche magical valley in the middle of the high sierras and utterly transformed. finding in natures exquisite lessons, an alternative to the harsh religious discipline of his father and to articulate his new creed of nature in writing so transcendent that millions of americans are still beguiled and inspirited by the rapture flowing from his work. for john muir, yosemite indeed, any wild place revealed a design and intelligence more

permanent, more valuable than anything made by man. men would be wise to submit to that natural world. he was certain also that a genuine and authentic relationship with nature would help forge a special kinship between all lovers of the mountains. this can ship in turn requires each of us to work to become better people. for this new human evolution to take place, he insisted we had to, all less, got into nature. but by going out, he said we were really going in. this is a journey. the journey of self discovery that we can all make as we embrace our co-ownership of these national parks, these spectacular crown jewels. this is still, john muir wrote, this is still the morning of creation. thank you pretension.

[applause] -- thank you for your attention. [applause] >> and thank you very much for your words today, mr. burns. a reminder to the audience, if you have any questions, bring up here. we have a good amount of time and we thank you for the time you're spending answering our questions today. having watched the first installment last night, the thing was very striking was how these national parks are a matter of great pride in the region -- in the region once they are established. the battle to establish the park is very different from what actually ends up being there. could you talk about what seems to be the central conflict in the process of creation and a feeling one gets after the battles fought? >> all i can say is the state to and then fasten your seatbelts. it makes the creation of

yosemite and yellowstone look rather easy in comparison to some of the other parks. it is human nature, particularly american nature, to develop. this is where we got manifest destiny from. americans look at a stream and bank dam. they look at timber and think board seat. they'd look at a canyon and wonder what mineral wealth can be extracted. the amount of energy to rearrange that equation to make the river flow backwards is a tough one. beginning tonight, our second episode, that will become even more pronounced because the most of the parks are created by the designation of federal lands to be set aside, they never the last run up against those extractive and inquisitive interests that are usually a part of our country. they make for very interesting battles that are, as you suggest, nearly always resolved in favor of the parks. ithe many, many year battle to

create the most self evident park, the grand canyon, that spends a couple of our episodes, if you're going to set aside a park and have established a few of them, the grand canyon would be the next one you had, but it took decades to convince americans, because of the local resistance in arizona, it is now called the grand canyon state and it's on their license plate. they enjoy it. that struggle has been replicated throughout the story of the national parks. there is initial local resistance, then a grudging acquiescence, then a realization that this has so burnished the image of that place and has been such a spectacular june to economic development. it's such a source of not just local and national pride. the parks get embraced after the dust of what is often a very

contentious battle. >> you say a lot in installed on one of the contracts of niagara falls and a development that took place there. -- there are a lot of people that say don't let this place become the next niagara falls. do you see places in america that you could see as a niagara- ization of the area? why don't we have the time to talk about that. -- >> i don't think we have enough time to talk about that. parks are born of a strange set of circumstances, not the least of which is a mid-19th century in theory or the complex. europeans are continually belittling s. we don't have the palaces, we don't have the formal parks. we don't have the cathedral europe does. we have taken the only obvious east coast natural wonder, niagara falls, and turned it

into this huckster's paradise for people on both sides of the pols can expect to be swindled by the people they're trying to make an extra buck. this has become part of our national, natural shame. in many ways, the parks are born out of a sense of let's not create another national park. is there a way to set aside these places? the original impulses of the conservation one that we normally attributed in our history. that will come later. but it is the spiritual one -- a sense of possibility in these places that we have inherited a garden of eden that thomas jefferson thought would take hundreds of generations to fill up, but we had done so in less than five. we ran a very palpable danger of running out of these places, nothing to be able to reflect and say this is ours, this is what makes us so special. when we sing "my country to is of the close " we're not talking about metropolitan skyscraper

for trade statistics. we are talking about this that is a danger that could be gone. the bison, the most powerful symbol of our country could be extinct. it would be a stuffed animal in a museum similar to a woolly mammoth had we not set aside yellowstone national park. then strengthen it be poor laws existed that protected the animals within them and committed a handful of bison, remaining by some, to flourish and come back. without the national parks, we would be talking about an animal like the dodo bird or the passenger pigeon -- gone. >> what would be your pick for the next national park? >> documentary filmmakers and aunt -- and address koreans don't presume to make policy. particularly in front of the undersecretary of the interior and the acting director of the park service. however --

[laughter] our main task right now is restoration. we have a backlog of millions of dollars in maintenance that will bring a human physical structure of our national parks back up to snuff. this is not a partisan issue. these parks are beloved by republicans, democrats, an independent all across the country. we have unanimity on all that. we did get to work. as we approach the centennial of the existence of the national park service in 2016, we have an opportunity now to spend the next seven years working tirelessly to make sure we can do those restored of efforts within the parks. there are existing monuments that do not yet enjoy the full protection of the national park that could be elevated to full park status. there are places, forests, often still part of the agricultural department that dirt and surround existing parks that we may be able to use to expand the

borders of existing park land to more naturally take into account the grazing and migratory patterns of some of the large animals, with the park service called in its governmental euphemism, a charismatic megafauna. [laughter] i would like to see grants -- grand stick -- our legacy grand staircase and dinosaur park up to park status. dinosaur is in the upper corner of colorado and eastern utah and is a spectacularly beautiful place. if that was made into a park and was the grand scared -- and was a grand staircase as content, utah would have bragging rights to a great string of national parks. he would go from dinosaur tooth arches and canyon lands, capital reeves, and grand staircase, and rice, and sign on, and would be hard put in alaska and

california to come up with a more spectacular array of parks. but you were just listening to one humble citizen. [laughter] >> and a system that has shown a certain sense of place. the place your and now as washington d.c., home to a lot of exotic animals of its own. what would your message be -- being in washington d.c., would you like your -- what impact would like to have on these animals to help determine the fate of the national park system? >> that's a good question. i think that dayton duncan and i felt that as we work for 10 years that our main job was to tell a good story. that is our obligation. we would hope that once people had spent some time looking at the stories that we have taken a decade to put together and intertwine the 50 or 60 characters you meet set against a backdrop of what we think of them spectacular places on earth, that might galvanize you,

understanding not only the rich heritage we have, this sense of co ownership, but also the powerful emotions, personal become powerful emotions, generated by individuals and families as the clout in these parks that people will do just that. -- as people go out in these parks. as people go out, they will create problems for the park service of how to deal with the influx and there's always the worry of love in the parks to death. we have a chapter in the last episode called love to death. these are good problems for a democracy to have. the worst problem would be a lack of constituency. they want to add that damn, cut down the streets, mind that canyon. there -- our fervent wish is to make sure more families would go out and we can convince those populations, often african american, often hispanic americans, that do not feel that ownership of the national parks.

the history is on their side. there are heroes, as i said before, that look and sound like them. they're welcome. they own the parks as much as anyone. that is the simple, democratic equation here. it does not matter whether you came on the mayflower or ride yesterday. whether you are a billionaire or your mother is a maid. these parks are yours. you stand in them equal to everyone else. the film attempts to celebrate that and it's the images of this complex history and we would hope it just could be a galvanic moment for the parks, just as the civil war series was for some of the battlefield parks. after that series aired in 1990. >> what is your reaction to efforts to allow firearms into national parks? >> once again, i speak only as a public citizen. i personally think it is foolish. one of the interesting stories

we tell in this film and others is the way in which sometimes, in our contemporary argument over guns, we forget the real purpose of the second amendment. in this film, particularly, the african american buffalo soldiers, the celebrated calvary men, who were, as most people do not know, the first park protectors at yosemite and sequoia national parks, at one time checked the guns of the people coming in and the wildlife made a comeback. one imagines therefore, by extension, all species are threatened in a national parks. all species of all kinds, but a presence of firearms trade there is nothing to be gained a place in which hunting is not permitted by allowing them in there. it has become just a part of grandstanding contemporary politics that has no place in the national parks. again, i speak as a citizen. >> several questions have to deal with art and craft of

filmmaking. one question came up a couple of times is you are defining historical and cultural icons through some of your work and a lot of people are experiencing this work and having a defined for them by film by ken burns. what sort of responsibility do you have as a filmmaker when you are putting forth images that can have a powerful impact on people? >> i think we try very hard to be aware of that. more importantly, we're trying to be true to our own craft and our own sense of storytelling. the more important question is that we have been defined by these places. it is not so much that we are defining them. we have been defined by these places, the brooklyn bridge, the institution of jazz and baseball, the civil war, some extraordinary human beings, the national parks. we as american citizens, practicing this act of citizenship, we think with our craft of writing and film making, though not so much to set in stone some sort of

standard for these icons, but encourage the questioning. that question of who are we is never answered. it is only deepened for personally. we hope is passed on to the people who see the films. there is no sense on our part that we have made the first or last word on these things, but merely as citizens unable to contribute our own enthusiasm in the best sense of that word for the aspect of american history that we find valuable. each generation rediscovers and reexamines that part of the past it find useful. i think all of the times, because of the blessings at work with public television and pbs that we have been able to make films that celebrates stuff we have been drawn to. it has not been based on what a client wants to do. it has not been based on what ever the historical fashion of the moment is. it has not been based on what is just fashionable or controversy all. we have been able to explore

important aspects of american history without any sense they were the definitive portraits, but a way of engaging a national conversation that permits us all to further deepen our understanding because we spend in our media culture, no insult implied, a great deal of time on the surface of things. what history permits is a triangulation and perspective that adds depth and meaning and profundity, not just to past events, but the present moment, that we would all be well, journalists and citizens alike, to heat. -- to heed. >> could you talk a little bit about the film makers to have influence your work on commentary and narrative, and, given you have a platform as a documentary filmmaker, who are some lesser known documentary filmmakers who we might want to check out? >> that's a good question treed i originally wanted to be a filmmaker of the feature, hollywood kind, when i decided

at age 13 or 14 that's what i want to do. many of my heroes are this feature filmmakers. this is not apples and oranges. the same laws, the same politics apply to stories told in a documentary fashion based on fact and is told in a fiction circumstance. the laws of good storytelling apply. honey, how was your day, does not begin i backed the car slowly down the driveway, avoiding the garbage can at the coroner and proceeded to the stop sign, put on my bleaker, and turn right. you never say that unless you have a car accident at that moment. the essence of story telling applies, the laws apply to documentary as well as features. a lot of my heroes are the familiar heroes of our feature films around the globe. charlie chaplin, buster keaton, alfred hitchcock, martin scorsese, a character saba,

louis burrell, -- akira kuroswaw and luis bunel. errol morris, who produces an explicit, stylized movies. he is one of my heroes. we noticed the way in which the whole landscape in the -- the documentary landscape in the last 20 years has been changed and transformed. the rest of our environment -- i invite you to come up to the studios in new hampshire to see lots of young, talented filmmakers who are trying to make a go of it. >> what time of year is that invitation? >> i am away on the road an awful lot, so i hope to be able to introduce you personally, but you'll just have to take pot luck if i'm not there.

>> share with our audience both on c-span and here at the national press club, was the most painful scene in this documentary that you had to leave on the cutting room floor and why did you let it go? [laughter] >> i have ice water running through my veins. there is no scene on the cutting room floor that for me i agonize about. the question though, that you have asked, should have been directed at dayton duncan. [laughter] he just assured me the question did not come from him. what happens, invariably, is that the cutting room floor is not filled with bad scenes, but in fact wonderful scenes. if we could pick them up and show them to you, you'd think we'd lost our minds. why isn't that in the final film? but for some strange alchemy, some strange reason, it just did not fit.

you remember the movie "amadeus" -- too many notes. we end up with the process of having to pull something out that looks great, but somehow destabilizes the film a half an hour down the line. it often takes a great deal of courage, not just on this film makers park, but certainly on the writer's part, to accept with graciousness and magnum at that -- magnanimity, the many amputations of his work that take place. fortunately for us, alfred not has published a wonderful book that -- alford knopf has permitted us the chance to expand the scenes that may have ended up on the cutting room floor that the film medium requires us to pare down. they did to be extended on the printed page and include many stories we were not able to include in the series itself. our friendship remains intact. >> here is another question from the audience.

another film maker who has a film out right now is michael more. could you contrast your work with his? [laughter] >> i cannot imagine to film makers that are more different. i tried to keep myself out of the film. it is important that every one of his films have him in there. he is a physical presence in every single film and that is so important to his work. he is involved in direct and obvious political advocacy. i have, and i films reflect a certain wide range of views, not just political, but otherwise, that we try to keep hidden or buried. we want a story to tell it. having said that, it takes a great deal of effort and energy to make a film. those people who actually finish a film are to be commended, as much as our critical established would like to judge with the

harshest language of the work that is done, it is incredibly difficult to make a film, and last time i checked, and it's so appropriately are here, the first amendment it is governed -- has governed our ability. of people ask me this question on the road as if somewhere there should be a check on someone like michael more where's their opinion on their sleeves and then i say, this runs counter to the first amendment. we are so grateful we have michael more and everyone else screaming and yelling and whispering and singing all the various opinions that we have. >> in your film, in our approach to representing the native american perspective and the folks working and living their lives in these parks millennium before they were established, what is the challenge of

captioning -- capturing the diversity of the native american experiences, given that were so many different cultures. >> that is an excellent question trade it's so it -- that's an excellent question. it so easy to jump from the geographical this corruption and i put the word discovered next to yosemite with reason. we tend to leap over that, because of this dark, dark past we have in which this garden of eden that we inherited it was actually taken, from, in the case of the continental united states, 300 other peoples. many of them with separate and distinct languages, as different from english as polish. we have conveniently ignored a lot of that. we made an effort in this film particularly, as well as other films, our history of the west, to highlight the native american presence and not leapfrog over their involvement. every single one of the parks is

in any case a hunting ground or sacred place or just homes for native peoples. so our film, you were here -- you will hear, if you are able to let us -- to lead it wash over you, i think you will allow washing over you the names of the indian tribes that were there. we have a marvelous -- the indian tribes in each place, we have a dear friend of ours who was an indian from north dakota who grew up on the reservation who is now, in the greatest of all ironies, the superintendent of mutt -- of mount rushmore national memorial. interpreting not just the recent history of the carving into the sacred black hills, sacred for so many different native peoples, the bust of four american presidents, but also met to launder and complicated

native american history of that place and the more complicated intersected -- intersection of the white appropriation of the black hills from the native peoples. that is part of the glory of our national parks services. we have been able -- we have been willing to expand the idea from saving natural scenery, archeologists -- archeological sites, natural habitat, sites that show political and military history, to the symbols of our country like the statue of liberty, the lincoln memorial and not rushmore. but also places like a slave cabins, people may be comfortable life of a slave owner possible. we saved central high school, still a central -- still a working high-school in arkansas. so was the place for japanese american citizens were shamelessly and turned during the second war.

sites of the massacre of native peoples by american cavalrymen -- shrinks will pa., heroic actions of the people on united flight 93. here -- oklahoma city, 168 shares commemorate the men, women, children commemorate the senseless act of domestic terrorism. our national parks have come not just to represent a geological past, but our complex, ethnographic, cultural, political, military saying. we have to apply ourselves. i know no other country on earth that takes a more difficult aspects of the past and puts them up in the same light that we would put the statue of liberty in and says that a great country can be even greater by acknowledging the reality of its complicated past. >> during your talk today, you have frequently spoke of the spiritual dimension of the parks. how did working on this project affect you spiritually? >> that's true. the initial impulse was often

spiritual or religious. certainly when people went into yosemite, the first white people, they were struck always by the sense of possibilities. following an amazonian sense you could find got more easily in nature than works created by men. -- an amber sony and cents -- and emersonian since you define more easily in nature than works greeted by men. that we are delivered, with ourselves or with our families, with moments that are transformative. the greatest surprise for dayton duncan, me, and this project was every single one of those 50 or 60 people we focus on, historical figures, had a moment in their lives for the parks transformed them utterly. college religious or spiritual, whatever you want to call. the people we interviewed to help us understand that story told us about these people, but

then felt compelled to tell us their own personal stories, why they became a historian, was their most satisfying moment. a former interior secretary brought us to tears describing a moment in the dollhouse, part of the canyon lands natural park. the party was able to help create. you realize people -- a park he was able to help create. you realize people are talking about the present world. john muir said everything is happening now. everything in our civilized environment convinces us that it was before and later. it is what we want and we haven't gotten yet. the great thing about the parks is the open us up. inevitably, in our own ways, together and with our families, have had experiences we will treasure for the rest for lives. it is our sincerest wish that our fellow citizens would have the opportunity to experience the glories of nature. nature is never wrong. civilization quite often is

wrong. there is nothing untrue about nature. nature never gets it wrong. the series, without pointing eras or neon signs at that is an attempt to celebrate that truce -- that truth, and the moment of being that is eternal. each one of the parks, at different times for different people, and for a moment for different people, at different places for different people, can perform that open-heart surgery and expose us, in a vulnerable way, that make us feel connected to everyone else. which is of course what we all hope for. we all want to be loved and belong. i can think of places that are more about love and longing and the national parks. -- love and belongings and the national parks. before we ask the final question, there are some important matters to take care of. first, a reminder feature speakers -- on october 5th, the

chairman of the commission on children and disasters and the administrator of the federal emergency management agency will review a report to president barack obama and congress that proposes new strategies to meet the needs of children affected by disasters. on october 8th, we'll have john potter, the postmaster general of the united states postal service. on november 13th, the president of chic fil-a will talk about our company. last, i would like to present our guests with another addition to its burgeoning collection of national press club mugs. [applause] so the final question today, when you were a child, you did not dream of historical documentary filmmaking. you from doing big feature films. you have been doing this

documentary thing for 20 years now, why don't you stretch yourself? why not have ken burns did a film with ninjas in a or a couple of cops making a lawless town turned straight? i'm just wondering, if ken burns were to do the hollywood feature film, what film would he be doing? >> i went to hamburg -- hampshire college in amherst massachusetts and my teachers were social documentary still photographers. they reminded me quite correctly that there is much more trauma in what is and what was. then anything the human imagination can dream up. we're working on an update of our 1994 series, "baseball." it will deal with all these spectacular action my beloved boston red sox, winning the world series, but steroids and strikes and money and all of those issues. we are working on a history of prohibition. we have just begun at thing that, a three part, six hour series that will be out in early

2011. it is filled with cops -- [laughter] i don't know if i can help you on the ninjas. we're also working on a long series of the roosevelts -- theodore, franklin, and eleanor. we're headed out to the panhandles of oklahoma and texas to record the memories of the last witnesses to the dust bowl, that horrific, man-made, ecological catastrophe, superimposed on the greatest economic catastrophe in the history of the world. before they pass from the scene. i'm working on a short modern history of the story of the central park jogger case were five black and hispanic boys were convicted and later had their convicted -- convictions vacated for a rape many people think they did not commit. a celebrated, red, headline- filled story in april of 1989. god willing, and funding

willing, keep watching pbs, we will be able to do those things. but, no ninjas. [laughter] >> regardless, thank you for coming today. [applause] i would also like to think the national press club's staff members for organizing today's lunch and thank you to the library for its research. for more information about the press club, please go to our web site -- our events are available for download on itunes. this meeting of the national press club is adjourned. [applause] >> tonight on "the communicators" -- two perspectives on that neutrality and informational flows over the

internet. "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. is that finance committee returns tomorrow to continue work on health care plan. committee chairman max baucus told them to prepare on a public option to the right choices with -- for people about health insurance. live coverage continues at 10:00 eastern here on c-span. .

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> supreme court week starts october 4. cspan offers teachers for resources on the judicial system. it is that cspan classroom.org. supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg. she spoke at the law school in chicago about her early days as a law clerk and her judicial philosophy. this is about one hour.

>> of the past couple of days, justice ginsburg has had opportunities to interact with our students, faculty and staff. yesterday, she taught a constitutional law class. she met with our faculty and federal judges from the area over lunch yesterday. a group of our students to occur on a tour of the facilities pritchett met with the number of student groups including the women's leadership coalition. earlier today, she led a supreme court clinic. that was followed by lunch from the legal clinic. howd

became a partner in 1956. he is also a member of northwestern university board of trustees. he has been on the board since 1967 and served as the chairman from 1986-1995. he received two degrees from northwestern, his bachelor's degree in 1945 and then his j.d. degree in 1949. after graduating from law school, he taught a course in criminal law. before permanently joining siddeley austin, powered served from 1950 until 1952. we are very pleased to have howard with us today along with some of his colleagues. [applause]

would like to thank sudley austin for bringing some of our most prominent jurists. john roberts, a justice rehnquist, justice john paul stevens is one of our alumni. justice antonin scalia, justice sandra day o'connor and more. the program has bought more renown judges from around the world. one was the lord chief justice from wells -- wales, richard goldstone the former chief justice from south africa and john noonan from the u.s. court

of appeals. before i turn the microphone over, i would like to recognize and thank members of our speakers committee who helped bring justice ginsburg to us today. bob bennett has been the chair. finally, we invite everyone to the reception in the atrium following the electorate -- following the lecture. many of you brought cameras but we ask that you do not have flash cameras going off during the talks. / . [applause] >> in its long and storied history, northwestern law school has played host to the giants of the legal profession. famous jurist, nationally known

scholars, as well as international and national political leaders. none of those visitors has contributed more to the growth of law or legal profession than our current visitor, just as ruth bader ginsburg. since ascending to the federal bench, she has served as an eloquent and vigorous defender of the liberties guaranteed by the bill of rights in and the 14th amendment. in doing so, she has always recognized the humility that flows from the judiciary. a graduate of cornell university and columbia law school, jews nominated to the u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit by president carter in 1980. she was nominated to the united states supreme court by president clinton in 1993. prior to entering the judicial branch, she taught on the faculty of rutgers and then columbia law school. during her academic career, she established herself as an important scholar, contributed extensively to the fields of civil procedure, conflict of

laws, and comparative law. while she has significant contributions, it is important to also recognize her valuable contributions as a pioneer in the field of women's rights. when she became an assistant professor of law at rutgers in 1963, justice ginsburg became only the 19th woman in the united states to be appointed a tenured member of a law faculty. in 1972, she was appointed columbia's first ever tenured woman law professor. when she was appointed the 107th justice of the supreme court, she became only the second female justice in american history. her accomplishments are many and we are truly honored to have her with us this week at northwestern. i could not complete his introduction without mentioning my colleagues and friends, bob burns and steve calabrese. bob burns is known for his

teaching and scholarship. in addition to winning numerous teaching awards, he has offered to important books on the theoretical underpinnings of american procedure. "a theory of the trial" and another book. steve calabrese' clerked for justice clea's -- just as costly apparent -- justice scalia. i'll make this up. [laughter] since joining the northwestern faculty in 1990, he has established himself as one of the leading scholars in the nation on constitutional law and

the constitutional implications of executive power. it is now my great pleasure and honor to introduce to you, my colleagues bob burns and stevecalabrese and the hon. ruth bader ginsburg. [applause] >> justice ginsburg, i would like to begin by asking your reflections -- for your reflections of one of the great stories in american legal war. lore. a young district court judge invited oliver wendell holmes late in his career out to lunch. they had had lunch and had returned to the capital where the supreme court was at the time.

the learned and it turned to oliver wendell holmes and the said," could buy, do justice." oliver wendell holmes by around -- spun around and turned on him fiercely with eyebrows bristling and said," that is not my job. my job is to play the game according to the rules." which of the great judges had it right? [laughter] does a distinctive sense of justice affect how you play the game by the rules? >> i think the story is probably apocryphal. [laughter] because the learned hand that i studied played by the rules and do justice. -- and did justice.

>> the learned hand said he did it deliberately to be provocative. he knew we would get the reaction from justice holmes. >> one of the great privileges i had as a law clerk -- this was way back in 1959-1961, was to ride in the back of the car while my judge, judge edmund palmieri, drove the great learned hand home. part of the story was that i would have given anything to clerk for learned hand. these were pre-title seven days and learned hand did not want a woman as a law clerk. yet, in the car, he would say anything that came into his head. he said words i had never heard. [laughter] i asked him why, when he is so

uninhibited in the car, which do not consider me as a law clerk? his answer was," young lady, i am looking at you." i was in the back. it was as though i was not there. [laughter] >> justice ginsburg, as a litigator for gender equality, you had to persuade the supreme court to reconsider the rational basis test of gossage purses and clearly. -- gossett vs query. -- cleary. what type of work which should be given to these decisions?

>> i should explain to the audience what gossett against cleary was then they could understand why it was not a difficult job urging the supreme court to overrule that case and others of that similar time periodthe gossetts or a mother and daughter for the mother owned a tavern and a daughter was a bartender. the state of michigan passed a law that said a woman could not serve as a bartender on lesser father or husband owns the establishment. that was billed as a law protective of women because unsavory things go on and taverns -- call on in taverns. blog did not say that women could not serve as waitresses -- the law did not say that women could not serve as waitresses.

that would put them closer to the man who might be tipsy [laughter] it was not so much to protect women but to protect the all male bartenders union against competition by women. the supreme court upheld the law on the notion that this was protecting women. it was protecting the mother and her business establishment and a daughter. -- and the doctor. but -- and the daughter. the supreme court never sought a gender case it did not like until 1971. then the supreme court began to see things in a new light, just as you the u.s. public did all

over the country. laws that were once thought to be protecting women came to be understood as loss -- as laws that did not put them on a pedestal but in a cage. shut them out from opportunities. the supreme court is an entirely rejected institution. it does not make the cost of -- the controversy is the comes before it. their response was put before them. -- they respond to what is put before them. in 1971, they made an about-face and it was a lot of the state of idaho that involve the administration of a deceased's estate.

as between persons equally entitled to a deceased estate, males must be preferred to females. the court saw that that was, in the latter part of the 20th century, not something that should govern u.s. society. without changing any formulation of what was the standard of review, the court unanimously held that law unconstitutional. in the decade that followed, in the 1970's but, the supreme court was generally known as conservative, headed by warren burger, struck down i don't know how many federal and state laws that they discriminated arbitrarily on the basis of gender. >> justice roberts famously said

in his confirmation hearings that deciding cases for an appellate judge is like calling balls and strikes. i don't know if you ever actually have called balls and strikes. i could see you being drafted for a children's little league game but does that metaphor fairly described your experience in deciding cases on united states of supreme court? >> part of the experience. chief justice rehnquist express the same idea but he -- his favorite sport was basketball. he used basketball is a metaphor. he said that if you are an appellate judge, sometimes you have to call a foul against the home team. he said you'll be roundly booed

but you have to call it as you see it and not as the home crowd, whether that is the president or the congress or the social group in which you fit. you have to call it as you see it. that is certainly true. but there are many cases that we get, as you well know, where the law is not clear in certain for it we have. we have general process old law and equal protection of laws. it is not like a computer where you can plug in facts of the case and get out an answer. these issues require judgment and the judgment can change. my favorite clause is the equal

protection clause. nor shall any state prevent protection of law spread that became part of the constitution in 1968. -- in 1868. -- women work barry for from the boat. -- women were far away from the vote. if you look at the preamble to the constitution, says "we the people of the united states, to form a more perfect union. ♪" who were we in the beginning? white property only man. who are we today? the united states and all its diversity. the genius of this document that was written toward the end of

the 18th-century and has governed us for well over 200 years is that it is ever becoming more perfect and we the people is ever becoming more inclusive. >> why do you think that the adoption of the 19th amendment in 1920 did not lead more rapidly to a change with respect to civil-rights? one of the theories about the origin of the equal protection clause is that it was designed to grant equal civil rights and for bed systems of class or iuçcaste. it may not have been apparent right away that gender discrimination was a form of caste, but surely after adoption of the 19th amendment, it should have been cleared. i guess the supreme court and actions against children's

hospital suggested that -- does the adoption of the 19th amendment particularly suggest the gender discrimination is addressable pretty equal protection clause, perhaps more than other forms of racial discrimination? >> it was a good argument. it tried and failed [laughter] the argument was, now women have become part of the political community. they are voters and they should have equal stature before the wall. the first trial of the right idea concern putting women on juries. the court's center was that the 19th amendment gave women the vote but only that. it did not make any other change. one would think that one of the basic rights and obligations of citizenship is that you take part in the administration of

justice. there was some history in the women's movement that made that distinction not entirely implausible. there was a split in the suffrage movement. the women who want to argue for the vote and nothing else and there were the more radical wing in the suffrage movement that was the national women's party that argued that they wanted more. they wanted an equal rights amendment. they said the 19 the minister -- the 19th amendment gives us a vote. and we need to give us truly equal status as citizens. in national women's party introduced that amendment in 1923. they introduced it every year after that. ultimately, as you know, in our

own time, it was not ratified and came close. >> what lessons should be dropped from the equal rights amendment, in particular from teaching comparative law. the u.s. constitution is order to amend in any other constitution. it is suggested of the fact that article 5 creates too high a hurdle for constitutional amendments. >> martha griffiths was a proponent of the equal rights amendment. she said there was never a time when sensible interpretation would not give us everything that we are asking for. i am still a partisan of the equal rights amendment, not because it would change the current jurisprudence of the court, but if you pick up and a

constitution written since 1970, any place in the world, you will find the equivalent of an equal rights amendment. my constitution does not have such a provision so i would like for my granddaughters, i visited them this morning, it was at their school in chicago, i would like them to be able to see that that is a fundamental premise of our system, that men and women are citizens of equal stature. i think it would be nice if they could see that in our fundamental instrument of government and not just as a reasonable interpretation of the equal protection clause. >> we and illinois have lots to apologize for per the equal rights amendment probably died its death in our legislature here. i have been told by a number of

trial judges that the hardest kind of case they face is a case where the two parties testified to incompatible and contradictory things, one of them must be lying and the other isn't. a trial judge tells me that those kinds of cases are hardest to resolve. is there an analogous sort of case that the supreme court level, a case that you find hard to decide where your remain undecided, perhaps even after a decision is made? >> there are many difficult challenging cases. as a feminist man once said, "it and over until it's over." [laughter] i told the clinic students that i met with this morning that last term, there were four

cases where the line about the conference, the majority at the conference, ended up being the minority because the business of thinking and rethinking and attempting to persuade one's colleagues, in those cases, that a person who was assigned to write the majority opinion ended up writing the dissent. i had one really heady experience. i cannot reveal which case. i was assigned to write the dissent by my senior college. there were only two of us in dissent. that decision came out and my descent game -- became the opinion of the court for six justices and only three on the other side. >> to what to you attribute that? [laughter]

i'm hoping for a repeat but it has not happened. [laughter] on the business of oath, one interesting thing about a comparison system -- as a young lawyer, i would love to sweden to study their procedures system. what they could not understand about our system was why we have parties that testify and have them take the oath. they thought that was requiring them to live. in their system, the parties do not take an oath. witnesses do but the parties to not. >> i think it was late in the 19th century when criminal defendants were allowed to testify under oath, those in england or the united states for similar reasons. >> you have commented before about what role foreign sources of law could potentially play in

constitutional interpretation. i'm wondering to what extent is inappropriate for the court to take note of what is happening in all the other constitutional courts that have sprung up around the world since world war two? >> the question of referring to foreign comparative law or international law, it is vastly misunderstood by a number of members of our congress. first of all, the only law that binds us is u.s. law, of course. we are not bound by the law of any other nation. however, nowadays, we have partners in the business of judicial review. it was not until after world war two that other countries got into the business of reviewing

ordinary laws for compatibility with the fundamental instrument of government. it happened after world war two because many nations came to perceive popular legislatures could not always be trusted to remain faithful to the core values of the society. they set up constitutional court's as one possible check. against return to tyrannical government. in the early days of those courts, including canada, they did not have traditional review for constitutionality until 1982. they all looked to us because there was no other player. more and more now, they are looking to each other.

one question i get when i go abroad is "we refer to the decisions of united states supreme court. you never defer to the decisions of our court. don't you think we have anything to contribute." ?" it is hard for me to answer that question. [laughter] justice kennedy was criticized in a consensual sodomy case because he referred to a decision of the european court of human rights in 1981. it was their decision saying that criminalizing consensual acts don't hurt anybody. that is a violation of the european convention of human rights. for referring to that, it was very clear that he was not using it in a binding authority.

it was kind of like citing a a law review article. [laughter] [applause] >> in the crawford line of cases in criminal procedure, those cases have really revolutionized the understanding of the meeting of the confrontation clause over the last few years in those cases, you have joined with justice scalia and he has based his notion of the meaning of the confrontation clause on the original understanding of the meaning of the clause in the original constitution. he has argued in those cases that he is bound to be faithful

to that original meaning, regardless of the policy consequences of different interpretations of the confrontation clause. it is criticized by prosecutors across the country. have you join with justice scalia for those reasons? do you think is understanding of the confrontation clause reflects the original understanding of the original meaning of that clause? >> the clause we are talking about reeds that the defendant has the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him. that seems pretty clear. there's not too much room for interpretation to be confronted with the witnesses against him yes, i have joined justice scalia's opinions, interpreting the confrontation clause to mean

that someone who is on trial should be confronted with the witnesses against him. this cannot of the star chamber proceedings. i think it is a fundamental right in our criminal justice system. >> several of your colleagues, particularly justice scalia and to some degree justice thomas, have articulated very elaborate theories of judicial philosophy or constitutional interpretation. in contrast, chief justice roberts and alito have said it's difficult to construct an overall approach to judging and cases need to be decided one case at a time. i was wondering if you could say

something about the judicial philosophy that you rely on in approaching cases and whether there are overarching themes. >> they talk about rather different things. i suppose if i had to pick either of the justices, i think i am an original list in the sense -- i think the constitution -- it is the oldest constitution still in force in the world. it was written at the end of the 18th-century but i think the expectation was that it would govern us through the ages through changes in time. that is why i do not treat the

grand clauses in the constitution, the due process clause, or the equal protection clause, as frozen in time. i think there were mentioned to govern society as it evolves. d. some would say that the fourth amendment has to apply to new circumstances. it gives the people the right to be secure in their houses against unreasonable search and seizure. at the end of the 18th century, it meant police or soldiers forcing their way into your house. what happens when there is a helicopter hovering over your roof, never touches your house, but it is able to measure the heat and that may lead you to be

suspect for growing marijuana. is that a violation of the fourth amendment? even though your home was never touched. justice scalia wrote a fine opinion which adjoins st., yes, it does violate the fourth amendment for the police to engage in a kind of search. >> could you say a few things about oral argument from the court. ? to remember any of which were memorable in your time on the bench? would you have advice that you can give to aspiring appellate advocate, many of whom are here today? >> i would say that appellate advocacy, in our country, it is

quite a difference from the way it is in most countries. in france, for example, they will give an elegant pleading which will not be interrupted or you can go to the european court of justice in luxembourg and observe proceedings there and you will see the lawyer is not interrupted. he gives a speech. in our system, all advocacy is more of a conversation. it is a conversation between a lawyer and members of the court. by far, the most important part of the appellate process is the written part. i begin preparing for an argument always by looking at other judges who have dealt with this case and had said and then

i may look at some of the leading precedent and the last and i will look at is the lawyers briefs. we are informed by all that reading when we come to the bench. the oral argument itself is pleading. lawyers will do best if they do not have a pained expression on their face when a justice asks a question. [laughter] they will welcome questions and see this as an opportunity for them to clarify a point that the judge might not understand as well without their aid. it is a conversation. anyone who comes in with a prepared script is going to be slow --=ñ slowly disappointed. you can probably get out a good for sentence but not much after [laughter] that>> has an oral argument ever

changed your mind? quest yes but rarely. >> we don't come on the bench with an empty my. should not be closed my either but once you have done all the reading, you have a clear idea about the way you think the case should be decided. sometimes, you will see a procedural impediments that says you cannot reach the question on the merits because there is a threshold problem. this might not be the right case to address that issue. you may decide the case on a different ground than the one you thought the case would turn on.

sometimes, if you observe an argument at the court, you will see that the justices are not only talking to the lawyer but to each other. sometimes, justice scalia will think the lawyer did not answer my question well enough so he will complete the answer or -- [laughter] and i do the same thing. >> what were the major differences that you noticed upon being so -- appointed to the supreme court from the d.c. circuit? it is different to be one of nine justices that set -- when the usual seven panels of three. >> one difference and it is really wonderful to be on the supreme court with respect to

this -- you go to the court of appeals from the trial court, from the district court, as a matter of right the parties present their issues. the d.c. circuit had many administrative law cases and the parties could raise 17 issues. in the supreme court, we have the luxury not only of deciding which cases we will year but what issues. we will take a case that may have had 17 issues in the d.c. circuit and pared down to the one question that we think may set an important precedent to guide the lower courts. that is one big difference. we choose the cases, not only the cases but the issues that we will hear. one has to be a bit more restrained when you have a college than when you have only two.

another restraint is that the supreme court allows a half-hour aside, no more, no less most courts of appeal they allow a less than half hour, maybe 15 or 20 minutes. if the bench becomes interested in an issue, the argument can go on and on, maybe best a half an hour. that does not happen in the supreme court. an half an hour means a half an hour. the current chief is more relaxed and chief justice rehnquist was. he will lead an advocate finish a sentence but -- [laughter] not much more than that. >> several justices in the recent past have had some marked in aleutians in their judicial philosophy.

i am wondering whether you have discerned any shift in your approach to cases over the years? you have been on the court and to speak generally about the experiences in judging that might lead a judge to change the way in which he or she abuse cases were decides cases. >> having been a lot teacher for 17 years and teaching constitutional law, and then 13 years on the d.c. circuit, i cannot say that my approach to cases has changed. the one colleague a overlapped with, justice blackmun, is the most graphic example of a justice who did change. he does not think he did. [laughter] he believes that the court changed and he say -- stayed in

the same place. if you look at his earlier decisions, like the one about the man who was too poor to file for bankruptcy, he said too bad, you can stop smoking and he would come up with the $50 filing fee. this is the same man that broke the poor joshua case. -- wrote the poor joshua case. i think the change and there is a wonderful book called " becoming justice blackmun." and the story is told of this man's odyssey. most tragically, is very close friendship with chief justice burger fell apart.

widened. there were very close and there were known as the minnesota twins won justice blackmun for skin on the court. >> in writing an opinion with conflicting priorities on the one hand to steady general rule will guide future decisions and make it clear that your opinion is situated within the rule block and on the other hand, the obligation to decide no more than the case or controversy before you. how does one balance the obligation to state a general rule with the obligation not to say more than you need to said? what you think the court should do in terms of making sure it does stay on one case at a time? >> when an area is new to the

court, that could be minimalism. i don't call it that. we cannot always see around corners. it is better that the first on an issue comes before the court to be very careful. even at a lot of cases i targeted the 1970's, when people told me that justice brennan had declared sex as suspect classification, it was much too early. that's what i was arguing but my thought was that there would be maybe a up to eight cases and when the courts so that none of these classifications made any sense, then it could come out with that general ruling. go-slow is the right approach

for judges. you cannot know from the first case what else is out there. you don't know what different configurations might lead you to do. >> we are at the point where we are ready to take questions from the audience. there are microphones and into the two aisles. if anybody would like to ask justice ginsburg a question, please come forward to one of the microphones. >> the first one is always the hardest. [laughter] >> here we go. [laughter]

>> we will start over here. >> thank you for being here. if the president is the only official elected by the entire nation, why isn't there a presumption that everything the executive does is constitutional? [laughter] >> because we have a constitution that puts checks on government. it says no person is above block, not even the president -- is above the law, not even the president is something about our system that is the wonder and then the of judges everywhere else. before we came to me with all of you, someone was talking about a procedure case. judges a broad really don't understand how a court could order a president's, even though

the case was against the secretary of commerce, to give the steel mills back to their owners or how not even the supreme court but they -- but a judge like judge sirica could tell president nixon to hand over the tapes from the oval office. how could a court order the chief executive around? it is because of the brave -- basic premise that this constitution is guiding us all. someone has to have the last word. it is the court and no person is higher than the law. >> in response, i want to probe for the idea of the court going slow on questions where the law is developing.

the court was quite cautious after brown vs. board of education in implementing that decision they were careful on a couple of occasions to avoid deciding very controversial question of interracial marriage. a couple of cases were dismissed for want of a substantial federal question. the court was afraid of the reaction, if the court took -- was to take that issue can you say something about what the court was up against in the cases? >> the brunt of and forcing brown vs. board of education was borne by the district judges. they had to said that this is law and some of them would take sam johnson from alabama whose

mother's house was bombed. there was nobody killed. think of skelly wriogght and the ostracism he suffered enormous because he was in forcing bill walsh. -- he was enforcing the law. i do not think that president eisenhower was the greatest fan of brown vs. board of education and yet when the governor stood in front of the central high school in little rock, arkansas, and would not allow a black child to enter that school, eisenhower called out the troops and the children walked through -- the african american children walk through

that door. i am getting lost. [laughter] the case you're talking about with the interracial marriage issue, why did the court wait that long to decide? before that case there was the march on washington, there was martin luther king, and the court recognized that society was ready for that. the story of the case is richard and mary loving. they grow and a part of virginia where there was no racial

prejudice. they fell in love. they could not get married in their state. they went into washington, d.c. and got married and came back to virginia and put their marriage license on the wall of their bedroom. on an anonymous tip, the sheriff and his henchmen came in and shined a flashlight in their eyes at 2:00 in the morning and ask a man who the woman was you sleeping with. he said it was his wife. he pointed to the marriage certificate and the sheriff said it does not mean anything there. he told them off to jail. they were frightened and on council and the judge said one year and go -- one year in jail but said he would suspend the sentence if they got out of the state and would not come back for 25 years. so, they made their home in

washington, d.c. until the civil rights movement came alive and then melded loving wrote to the attorney general, robert kennedy, and said this is her story. kennedy wrote back and ask him to contact the virginia affiliate of the aclu which they did and that is out loving v virginia began. there are people like them who have faith in our judicial system and use the courts to write something terribly wrong that happened. loving v virginia is a terribly important case and olsten will appreciate how not so long ago,

1967, and today we have a president who is himself the child of an interracial marriage. >> also not so long ago, women did not have the rights they have today. your one of the pioneering lawyers for that fight. first, thank you. the second thing i wanted to ask you about is your choice as a strategist, as a legal strategist when you were taking these kind of cases to the court, it seemed like print point is you were representing or man. -- plaintiffs you are representing were men. was there a deliberate decision on r your part to do that? is that a strategy that you think might have had the

(jjutáuq'ces? >> i wish i could say i had a strategy. i really didn't. [laughter] there was the case of sally reed. she was a woman who thought she faced an unjust law and she brought to the idaho courts. sharon frontiero was the next one. stephen wise and fell at a perfect case. -- wesinefeld was a men's rights advocates. his wife was the principal are in their family. she was a high-school math teacher. she had a very healthy pregnancy. she was in the classroom until the ninth month. she went to the hospital. she had an embolism and died. the child was born healthy and stephen was told that he had a

healthy baby boy but that his wife had died. he tried to get what were called child in care social security benefits so that he could take care of his baby and work only part-time and the social security benefits would supplement his part-time work. he was told that these are mother benefits, widow benefits, not words. -- not words. -- not widowers. he wrote a letter to local newspaper saying he was sick of women's lib. the tagline of his letter was " does gloria steinem know about this?

" [laughter] there was a spanish teacher that live there and you read this letter and she called me and asked if there was something wrong with this. i suggested that he called the new jersey affiliates of the aclu. that was the weidenfeld case. who was the subject of discrimination? the male wage earner gets for his family certain benefits. the female wage earner gets benefits only for herself, not for her family. she is considered a secondary and he is the primary breadwinner and that is the way the world was divided. there were the breadwinners who were male. they were the ones who were the child caretakers. they were women. in the we said this law does --

discriminates against everyone. there is no opportunity for the personal care of that parent, if the parent is mail rather than female. in all of these cases, whether the plaintiff is a woman or a man, the core discrimination was the law's view of the woman as not a wage earner who really counts. >> i was curious what advice you would give justice sonia sotomayor? [laughter] >> she has done just about everything one can do with the law. she was a prosecutor and a partner in a commercial law firm. she was a trial judge and was on the district court.

she was on the court of appeals. she doesn't need all lot of advice. [laughter] she did call me and ask me about something a couple of days before it came here. she said '" i like the road you were yesterday -- [laughter] [applause] -- the role but you were yesterday. .

>> i am curious about your thoughts on the right to travel across american jurisprudence? >> i might point that -- punt that to one of the colleagues here. there is a right to travel. we have had a common market in that respect from the very beginning. you can go from one state to another without any passport. the question is what benefits do you get when you are a newcomer to the state? i had to be very careful in asking a question -- answering a question like that because we have had the questions before. they will come up again. i do not want to preview to you how i might decide. [laughter]

>> and justice, i think we are out of time. i wonder if you had any concluding words of advice that you might want to give to the audience or any concluding words. >> i want to say to the students that i have had such tremendous satisfaction. [laughter] what is going on that i missed? how did i become a lawyer? i was a student at cornell in the early 1950's, not a very good time for our country. it was the heyday of senator joe mccarthy. my government professor, i was

his research assistant. he wanted me to see that our country was restrained from its most basic values by some of our politicians who were seeing a communist in every closet. their real lawyers who were defending the rights of these people -- there were lawyers. his point was that if you are a lawyer, you are able to make things a little better. that idea that you have a license to practice law. you can make a living, but you're not going to be satisfied if you are a skilled artists and like a plumber, you get your day's pay for your day's work. you have a skill that enables you to make life a little better for someone else, for your community.

my tremendous satisfaction is that i was able to use my skill as a lawyer to make things a little better for other people. i hope that the law students here will use their license to practice law in that way. to give back to their communities and to make life little better because you have been there. [applause]

[applause] [applause] >> first of all, i would like to thank our moderator's for asking questions and engaging in discussions. i would like to thank justice ruth trader ginsberg for spending a few days here with us. -- justice ruth ginsberg. you have in mind our community and please come back. thank you very much. -- you have enlightened our community. [applause] >> supreme court week is one week away. it features personal injury is with each of the currently serving and retired supreme court justices. get an insider's view of the

people and places that make up the nation's highest court. >> why is it that we have an elegant, astonishingly beautiful, imposing, impressive structure? it is to remind us that we have an important function. it is to remind the public when it seized the building of the importance and the centrality of law. >> supreme court week starts sunday, october 4th on c-span. c-span offers teachers free resources on the judicial system on cspanclassroom.com. >> of this week on ," information that travels over the internet. we have someone from the wireless association and someone from the public advocacy group free press. that is tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2.

>> tuesday, the senate finance committee continues to work on the amendments to the health care bill. at this the last of the five committees before the full senate debates the legislation. seamark of live at 9:30 p.m. -- 9:30 a.m. eastern here on c- span. >> and now, and look at political scandals and the -- and the community -- communication strategies. have been involved in crisis management and with members of the media. this is hosted by the college of charleston in south carolina and is about one hour. >> good evening. welcome to the college of charleston. let me begin by asking everyone

to do our panelists an audience a favor by turning off all of your electronic devices to the off or silent position. we are pleased to welcome you tonight to the college of charleston. on behalf of the department of communication, the school of humanities and social sciences, and the department of communication advisory council, i am delighted to invite you to a conversation about political scandal and communication. let me begin with a story. in 1832, what we might call a political scandal erupted in south carolina. a state senator and brother of two famous abolitionists, a trustee and graduate of the college of charleston wrote john callaghan to shift positions and defend the union rather than persist in the defense of state rights. when the latter became public, an angry mob appeared at his

home where he proclaimed his willingness to die for the union. fortunately, the mob disbursed. the story ends badly. the pro-union senator died two years later. nevertheless, this political scandal of 1832 might make some south carolinian proud today. we're not always so pleased with our most recent scandals. my name is brian mcgee i had the pleasure of introducing someone from the department of communication advisory council. [applause] >> thank you all. thank you to my cancel members. we are here for political scandals in a truly bipartisan activity. we have a truly bipartisan

panel,tripartisan if you count the media. i will introduce them in a minute after some introductory comments. i want to stress that we are here as council members, friends of the college, and in some cases south carolinians looking to help students affiliated with and studying under the department of communication prepare themselves for their internships, careers, lives, in communication. it is an honor to do so even when talking about the this honorable acts of political scandals. recently, the national spotlight has share hasshone on the palm estate as politico.com said "what is the matter with the south carolina?" i do not believe there is

anything wrong with south carolina, in a moment i will share with you my perspective on what is going on. i think today what is going on is a distinct focus on scandal. as being separate and different, perhaps, from crises. there's a crisis going on everyone right now. you know it. all the time, we are in a crisis. a little less frequency, a little more pungently, and a lot more impact filly, scandal hits us in the realm of politics. it has done it nationally in the person of senator john ensign, senator ted stevens, senator larry craig, former new york attorney general eliot spitzer, former illinois gov. blago jevich, and the current south carolina gov. sanford. it brings to mind another south carolinian, congressman from

the second congressional district. seven have asked me going into today's presentation whether or not joe wilson's actions in the congress represent a scandal. i will present to you today that the idea that it does not and leave open to our panelists and all of you questions and interactions that could further define that. in order to have a sense of where we were going, let me briefly state for you when we kapadia -- what wiki tells us is a scandal. they're accused of a corrupt or unethical practices. it's basically suggests a pretty serious stuff sprayed sometimes sex, money, abuse of power, and often illegal acts. in contemplating this, i looked at random house indicated that a disgraceful act, discrediting actions, some other form of misdeed could interpret could

interpret a scandal. i believe each of you to determine where the line is, but we will look at what the matter is south carolina to draw a distinction between a scandal, abuse of power and gaffe, controversy in the other case. by the way, i asked a friend of mine what the matter is with south carolina? we're just sorry. -- we are just ornery. proudly serving it up from always. sometimes it is in that sounds like "ornery" that is the problem. i have the great honor of presenting our first speaker, someone who can bring this into the here and now a political scandal. he is the reporter who drove to a lana and enterprise to her way into the first interview -- who drove to atlanta talking to

the governor who many of us thought was the appalachian trail what was indeed argentina. she is a south carolinian we can be proud of and a graduate from the college of charleston. everyone please welcome her. [applause] always want to know, what was it like sitting across from mark sanford? can you share some thoughts? >> i have to hold my hand it to keep the mike on which will be difficult. -- to keep the mic on. i think the best way to start the discussion is a to set the scene. i will take you back to june 24th, just a few months ago. if it was a little after 6:00 a.m. and i am standing there in

the atlanta airport staring down the escalator. i not know if any of you are familiar with the layout, but there is a central escalator. anyone getting off a flight has to get off the escalator to get to baggage claim and out the door. i'm looking and escalated to see if our governor is going to pop up out of this escalator linking there is no way. it was already a national story at that point. he had been missing five days. the lieutenant governor did not know where he was. his fellow lawmakers did not know where he was. the man who handles his security detail did not know where he was. his life did not know. his staff had been coy with the media. -- his wife did not know. i have reached the conclusion that he was hiking in the appalachian trail.

a pickup in bags and that claimed he was actually hiking in the appalachian trail. we at the state newspaper had some information. we have some tips. we had a hunch that he was not anywhere near the a.e. that led me to the airport -- near the a.t. i thought it was so far-fetched. there was no way. it's so contradicted anything that the public and the media thought about the governor. this respectable, fiscal conservative, libertarian, whatever you thought about his political views. if you're going to of list as possible biases, argentinian women would not be on the list. [laughter] i was standing there thinking it yak, yak, yak and up he pops.

as he is making his way to the men's restroom, i run over to him with my digital camera and a note pad. governor, where have you been? it was a career changing moment for me. i like to think that i have learned a few things about reporting in a few things about scandal and how the media covers scandal. i like to briefly go through three themes that i think are important to sort of facilitate this discussion. mike and phil may have different points of view. it is the greatest kind of work. it is very rewarding. it does not pay well, but it is very fine. the first big fema on how

scandal coverage is different than other types of story is that the media is injected into the story. write about politicians, the state house, and issues. by structure is it here is the group of people who want to see this one out come on an issue, and this is why they think this. in that same story, there is another -- a different group of people who wanted different outcome. i tell it as an observer watching from a distance. but scandals, the media becomes part of the story. for example, with the scandal, it is us, "state newspaper" and that he was not hiking but he was in argentina. no, he did not disappear so he could drive the coast alone, like he told me that morning in the airport. he was there with a woman and we have emails that could show the

relationship. it is an awkward position that the media is put into. i find it to be uncomfortable to be honest. in those situations, we have to clean even more tightly to our journalistic values of objectivity, fairness, impartiality. our verification process has to be more stringent. our fight checking meeting our fact checking has to be believable. the public knows that this is not about the media but this is about providing information that the public needs. i second thema that i've come to appreciate is that when you're riding but scandals, you have to draw this fine line in the sand that reporters usually do not have to worry about. you have to distinguish between titillating gossip that may be a whole lot of fun to read but does not serve much purpose

beyond that and information that serves the public good. that could reach to the public discourse, information that people need to know to understand about how their government is working. the most controversial example as where we come as the media outlet, drew that line and again this is very subjective is whether or not to publish the emails. we did decide to publish the emails between the governor and the argentinian woman. we published them on line a few hours after it caught him in the airport and then we published them in the next day's newspaper. we got mixed reactions from readers. some of them were very angry. my ears are still hurting from all of the phone calls we took three people canceled their subscriptions because they were saying it was private emails.

they're not meant for public consumption. you were just interested in driving traffic to your web site and is selling more newspapers. we got a lot of phone calls who said thank you. now they really believed he was in argentine debt and how incredibly in love he was and leave a man to secretly abandon his post for five days. it added a layer of context to the scandal that i do not think anyone knew about prior to these emails. in our defense, we felt that in the name of transparency that we needed to show our readers all the information we had that lettuce to be there in the airport that morning. we needed to show everything. the emails were a key piece of the story and a key piece of our evidence. it turned out the emails were not even that scandalous long

term. 48 hours later, he sat down with the associated press for a 3 hour interview that made -- that some of you may have heard about. he detailed his relationship with maria, how he was in love with her, how she was his soul mate. he had crossed the line with other unnamed women. suddenly, the emails seemed pretty tame. for the third and final theme i would like to make, but this seems like a really "duh" moment and that is often politicians and elected officials are not interested in telling us the whole truth. there are not always so forthcoming with information that does not some -- sued them or serve their purpose. the media's job, particularly when you're talking about big

story is like scandals, is it to be the watchdog for the public. i had an editor tell me years ago that among the many rows of the media, the most important thing we do is to serve as watchdogs. decision makers acted differently when they're being watched. there are more likely to tell the truth, keep their promises, usually better stewards of taxpayer money. we have to be there to do that. there's always going to be a place for reporters to serve than basic function of democracy. i will never know, i hope one day i might note, but i have a feeling that if we had not been at the airport that we would have never heard anything about his secret trip to argentina. all the questions that had been raised since about his travel, use of state aircraft, reimbursement to his campaign fund, these have all led to a

state panel ethics investigation, senate subcommittee investigations. i think we're going to get some serious answers. i do not think those questions would have been raised if we were not in the airport that morning. i hope that maybe in a few years when this is all died over that i will be able to sit down and have a beer with the governor and asking to tell me the truth. would we have heard about the glories of hiking the appalachian trail? is that the important question i really want to know. thank you. >> a thank you, gina. [applause] there really are several issues there and hope some of your thinking about questions. how the staff was to interact with, what sort of interchange the news room had with state officials in the run-up to and after that event and what it was

like? that could be read -- that could be very relevant to students here who go on as spokespeople or journalists. we are very fortunate to have on the council in here with us today one of the nation's preeminent political communicators, former press secretary to president bill clinton and having held spokesperson in communicator rolls up and down the government and the democratic political party. please join me in welcoming mike mccurry. [applause] you have been on the other hand, well there have been allegations. >> scandals? been there. it done that. >> it tells what it was like to be on the receiving end. -- tell us what it was like. >> i was born in the charleston, south carolina, so i can refer to some of the things that have been said about centerline

outside of the state in one commentary after the governor business. someone observed that south carolina is the state that is too small to be a nation but to large to be an insane asylum. [laughter] there are times when people thought they were proving that afterwards. i think she set the table very well. i would just offer some thoughts. if you recall what the clinton years, we invented a different scandal it seemed like every month. the most famous one that i probably got more prominence for was "l'affair monique." a think some of these students were too young to know the quality of that scandal which i will not going to because it would turn this into an x-rated program. one thing about that matter and the list that she gave us, look

at how many of those things involve sex and human misbehavior which the press finds irresistible. something as an incident or personal indiscretion or misbehavior boils into a scandal and they find justification to keep writing about it day in and day out. in the case of gov. sanford, it is reimbursement of the state. in the case of president clinton, it was whether or not he had testified truthfully in a grand jury agreed that is the justification for the press going on and on and on about the subject. what they really love is the sex. that is what is intoxicating about it. think about this summer and the same sequence of time in which we followed a day after day the governor matter. there was another state that had

an even worse reputation for scandal, new jersey. there was a major investigation and a series of really stunning allegations of bribery and impropriety in by a whole host of senior ranking people people -- people. how many of you know about this? some. when the arguments i make is what the press defines as a scandal sometimes it is the thing that this is their interest as political -- is holding audience share. that would be one observation. to pick up on your point, what are the things you do when you go through a crisis or if you are ever caught in a position where you are a spokesperson for someone who is facing that kind

of allegation? i will give you the mike mccurry 5 "c.s." if you write this down your qualified to the white house secretary. that the start with the first one, credibility. the reason people get in trouble is because they do not offer up the truth. they do not get to the truth quickly and try to obscure or cover-up things. those are always the elements that make a scandal worse. watergate, just about every other instance in which we have had major national political scandals. at the heart of it passes the violation of the relationship of trust that requires toothless. the second one candor. -- the second one is candor.

to aid the cookies? in the kids are pointing fingers. it is not a far distance from the national temptation natural temptation to lie to, " i did not -- " opening yourself up to scrutiny because you have done something wrong is not sending part of the human instinct. we have to recognize that it is one of the reasons it becomes so painful. the third is clarity. you have to know exactly what it is that you're trying to say. i think so often people get caught because they are not being precise in trying to of knowledge they have done something wrong and are moving beyond it. it was just and less, his explanation. i kept thinking to myself, where on earth is the press secretary who is supposed to step in and grab the politician and haul him

away? if you think about it, what people want are simple explanations. they can absorb that information. the scandals are people who have owned up, had a very clear explanation, made an apology quickly to those who had been injured. people would literally have moved on. that leaves it to the fourth which is compassion. the politician in trouble has to have compassion for the people he or she has defended and violated. there has to be some compassion for the turmoil that the public goes through when there is an instance in which leadership has gone short. we have had some sympathy for the conditioning of put yourself in. so often, the mentality is to get into that bunker and feel like the whole world is against me rather than putting an ounce -- putting yourself outside of the bunker and thinking about what the people who had elected

you are going through. my last one is consistency. what happens so often is people embellish a story or the story lingers on and they did not quite tell you the whole thing. bill clinton, i would argue, survived in part because the media never found the off button and kept going on long after the public had been interested. a political movement was formed as a result of it, moveon.org. it is true that people want some way in which the elected official gets back to the business that they are in charge of doing. if you remember, those of you who do remember the bill clinton business, he had one statement that he made early on in that matter and over and over

again he kept saying, i have said what i need to say and i'm going to go back to do the job that i was elected to do. most people forgive him because he was trying to do his job and alike to the jet -- i liked the job he was doing. that is probably how he made it through that episode. >> thank you, mike. [applause] professor lederman steinhorn said we have a communist framework. we work better when you apologize and repents. another commentator recently said we love resurrection stories more than destruction stories. that letter comment was about kanye west.

it is usually applied in a serious sense. our next speaker, first off to join me in welcoming a social launch premier -- a social phil noble. south carolina had a substantial but schedule -- scandal that had sex on the periphery. operation lost trust famously known by the protagonist of the center of the story that said, it is a pleasure doing business with you. he said it is a pleasure doing business -- it is a business doing pleasure with you. share with us. there is a conflict here. gina says the press believes in

applying context. we have used restraint. i do not know if i hear mike mccurry saying that he heard those things. phil, is there context and restraint? how should political figures act when they're caught with their hand or something else in the cookie jar? >> thank you. i have been around south carolina a good while. when they called me as a part of this advisory committee and said we're going to do this on the scandals in south carolina, they said was going to be on c-span. my first thought is c-span? they ought to get ken burns to do a 12th part miniseries because there is so much there. you really an interesting point.

you talk about the communist perspective on this. my father is a presbyterian minister so i am a 6 time, double dunk colonist. and forgive me if i appear self righteous. -- six time, double bunk calvinist. i never got to be press secretary, so i only have four and they do not rhyme. you have to forgive me. if you look at the scandals in south carolina and nationally, i am talking about the big ones. there are about four things that are common to most of them. i think there are two outcomes. the first thing is the reason most of these scandals happen is plain old everyday stupidity. richard nixon was up 142 points

ahead when watergate started. it is all about the human frailties and human stupidities of people doing things that they knew in kindergarten they were not supposed to do. really come most of those candles are, in my opinion, just that simple. -- most of those scandals of our simple. no one has to say, let's analyze this. boy, what day dumbass. -- what a dumbass. i think the second thing that usually happens is a two edger:, they are usually personal. you do not see people having scandals about substantive policy issues about what we should do, fixing the price of prescription drugs.

it is about women and sex. it is personal scandal that drives so much of this and not policy issues. the flip side of that is that one of the seven deadly sins is hubris, the notion that somehow does not apply to me. i can get by with this. i have a 48 staff people running around telling me i'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. they try to make me feel good. if you do x, it is stupid. and not care how many people tell you you are a good guy. that hubris and personal connectedness is the second piece. the third is that they are

almost all self-inflicted. they do to themselves. they do not -- they allow themselves to get into a situation where they surround themselves with people who are going to get them in trouble. they do it to themselves in one sense. i think that the fourth point is that they rarely, rarely, rarely ever say, "yep, i did it and here's how i'm going to fix it." it is always a cover-up. well, i went back and forth. i was not on the appalachian trail, i was on the coast road. the coverage begins. -- the cover up begins.

the cover up is usually worse than actually happened. as you drag out that cover up and the details, particularly if they say anything about sex, it very quickly goes zoom straight to the bottom line about sex. it is very curious. -- it's very prurient. remember with bill clinton. there was all of these distinguished features that he had below the belt. remember that, mike? he is getting red. >> thanks a lot, phil. [laughter] >> here was sanford, remember the tan lines and how she told herself in the moonlight? that is t.m.i., guys. too much

information. i think you see that pornogorahization. it gets into very prurient detail. at the risk of sounding like a self righteous calvinist, you should just resign. go away. you have broken the fundamental bond of trust between the electorate and the voter. if your wife can't trust you, why should the people trust you? to me, it is really basic. too often use the politicians who just will not accept that. somehow, i have to hang on and do something to redeem myself. i have to come back. well, it is not about you. at that point, you have really

begun to fundamentally and damage the bonds of what makes democracy work. if you do that, sure you may survive. sure, you may and -- end up doing something later, but the bottom line is you have diminished and degraded the political environment and the political culture of your state and nation. i think, given all of the forces of a media, internet, and everything else exerting such enormous downward pressure on our political -- political culture, i think the best thing to do is to resign. you have at least honorably exited which is a whole lot more than you can say for most of these people. that is my story and i am sticking to it. [applause]

>> we will try to honor to exit the presentation and get to questions. there are some who are acquitted either in the court of public opinion through their own redemption or sometimes literally. alaska senator ted stevens, the court has cleared him of some of the matters he was charged with. having served in the reagan white house, i believe the labor secretary winter years of trying to clear his name from charges that term -- that turned up to be trumped up. he asked, "where do i go now that i'm acquitted to get my reputation back?" sometimes the lines are clear and sometimes we leave it to the courts. in the court of public opinion, we would like all of you to pass judgment on what has been said. our executive in residence and

council chairman, tom martin, has a microphone and want to put it in front of you. if any of you wish to come up to him over here with the question, raise a hand, we will wait for our first questioner while he positions himself. gina, i tried to provoke a little conflict here. people thrive on it. it is not just sell newspapers. it fills auditoriums. i think his position for our first question. >> thank you for being here. i have a question. what is this secret or key to a resurrection for a future in politics after a scandal? >> #1 is being innocent. [laughter] [applause]

>> i think the cardinal sin, and i mean this quite seriously, the cardinal sin in american politics is -- and the cardinal demand of citizens is to tell us the truth. if it is bad, i want to know it. if the economy is heading into the tubes, i want to know it. if something happened out there that you are not ashamed of, tell me the truth. i think it is that fundamental acceptance by people that you do not have to be perfect, but if he lied to them and continue to live -- lie, how many times you have to lie to me before i say you are a liar?

the hope for resurrection is getting past sinfulness to getting back to truthfulness. if you are credible about it, that is what gets you back. i think it is too much in the cookie jar. i did not take the last cut the, you know? that is what people hate. yeah, i screwed up and i screwed up big time. i am really sorry. here is how i'm going to fix it. if i screw up again, you will not have to yell at me because i am gone. some sense of the blatant fairness and exceptions. getting back to killing -- telling the truth helps. >> tom, another question? what's my question is for mr. noble. you said the best thing to do is to just resign.

did you mean that from a moral perspective, a political respective -- a perspective? they have a responsibility of the amount of down wall street cheats on his wife. he is not going to quit his job. obviously if you're a public official, you have an extra set of responsibilities. do you say that from a moral perspective or a tactical perspective? are you therefore saying that president clinton should have resigned? >> i think you have to begin really quite seriously. are you guilty? and did you do it? if you are not guilty, then you ought to fight to the death. you should stay there and fight for your name and reputation. that is all you have in politics or in life. i do believe, ray donovan whether or not he was guilty, he

is absolutely right. he fought all the way to the and. it was terrible, but in the and he was exonerated. i think you make that basic difference between whether you did it or not. i personally believe that what you did is of less importance of -- than if you violated the basic trust. if you violated the trust then you should resign. i think clinton should have resigned. i do not think he should have been in peace, but i think he should have resigned. -- i do not think he should have been impeached. it is not because politically is smart. you blew it. you are elected by the people, they placed their trust in you, you violated that trust.

i am sorry. go. >> mike? >> look, if you read bill clinton's but, you get an explanation of what he believed. it -- if you read his book. he believed he had given a technically correct answer. that was the z'-- that wasw the " the definition of is is." relying on the definition that certainly misses mccurry would not appreciate. [laughter] he survived through legalism. he would take issue with what you said. he would probably agree that if there had been a fundamental violation of the public trust bomb -- public trust, he would

agree with you. he also firmly believe that by the time he got months later into the whole episode that it had become a political witch hunt. he felt like the opposite party was deliberately chasing this issue and trying to make more of it for their own political gains. he was absolutely right about that. i think there was a difference in this situation. >> you have said you have had your year to out by readers at the paper. it to people in the administration believes the newspaper was on a vendetta out to get them? tell us about your interaction with the office of governor, the staff, the spokesman, which have changed. can you give us some insight? >> there were prior rarely two of us who wrote most of the stories. i think that phil and mike both point out really good things

that the administration did not do well. first, fess up right from the beginning. they were seeing people had the cover-up more than what you did wrong. right off the bat, if he would have said this is what i did, i am only saying in one time. here is a three minute explanation. ladies and gentlemen, i am done. life would have been better. mike made the point that once you make the admission, move on. go back to doing your job. you talked about how clinton, making the point, i am back to working for the people. we failed to see him doing that. within the to see him getting back to the business of running the state. -- we failed to see him getting back to running the state. he was going to rotary club meetings, lines club meetings. -- lions club.

he was not doing anything to solve the woes of the state in terms of unemployment and trying to attract new business. i think that is what offends the readers and the media. it is not so much of the lie but it is what happened since. we keep waiting. when marie going to start seeing him do something? -- when are we going to start seeing him do something? we are humans. sex is sex. everyone likes to gossip about sex. also, our readers like to read about it. i think it is a natural part of being human. it is a natural part of the media. a politician can shape his message and he can make it very clear. i'm not talking about this anymore. you want to talk to me, this is what i'm going to talk about. we have not seen that. >> the conversation has continued publicly by both of them.

right here. >> this question is for mr. mccurry. having been on the other side of the firing squad, at what point did you know the truth of the matter? at that point, did you have any change on what your stance was a was it part of your job? how would you craft a message knowing full well what the details were? >> it just to remind people about the chronology, the story that the independent counsel was during -- doing an investigation. they were examining whether or not president clinton had testified truthfully in a separate matter about lewinsky which happened in january 1998. this is a summary of how we dealt with it. this was my second political

scandal. the first was right after i got out of college. i was working as a press secretary to the on the united states senator who was caught up in a scandal for an undercover fbi investigation. i have talked to the senator about the allegations that were about to appear in "the new york times" before the fbi which earned me a one-way ticket to the federal district court house in brooklyn. i was in front of a grand jury for eight hours. when this business happened, i lay down a very strict rule. we were not going to go to the president and say, "what is the deal with you and the chick?" he was being aggressively pursued by a prosecutor at that point. anything that we had said to each other with has been discoverable and i would've had

another lawyer and ended up testifying. we weren't that point talking only through the intermediaries who could have a conversation, lawyers, white house counsel. because of that, we lived with the same fiction that you all did. we said that there must be something to the denial that he give us because you cannot be that clear about the denial. we found out the truth when you did when he went on national television eight months later and said, "what i did was an appropriate." to this day as he writes in his book, he did not live. there are people who would contest this, but he does not believe that he lied. he thought that he gave a very legally correct answer to the question he was asked. he then came to say, look the problem was i never until eight

months later acknowledged that what i did was inappropriate. it then we had to read all of the details about when the starr report came out. plenty of us were mad. most of us accepted the apology it -- the apology he gave to us. he went before the country and said he did not measure up. that should have been the end of it, but the republicans in congress decided to push it. >> i guess i sort of have two questions. they both relate to the same thing. you're talking earlier about politicians embroiled in scandal should stand down because they violated the trust. would you say to politicians who already have a reputation for

being a playboy when they are elected as president clinton was when he was elected? was his previous reputation a factor when you thought about how to frame the message when the scandal broke? >> before i answer that, i would tell you in all sincerity that if you go to the political press and pandit community in washington today -- and pundit community can you talk to them about the clinton scandal and all the craziness that engendered and all of these repetitions it burned. what is interesting is the single one thing you will hear over and over again is that the one person who came out of that with his reputation not tarnished but enhanced for being

credible, honest, and forthright was mccurry. if you want to really understand how to do the job, the bottom line is you start with a sense of integrity and honesty that you do not violate under any circumstances for anyone at any time. the press knows that and everyone else knows that. that is why mike, love and kisses, was a great press secretary. he did not violate and did not spin away when the have behalf of political expedience. that is an important fundamental. people can elect scandalous and politicians and if they want to let a scandalous politician, so be it for the wisdom of the

people. there was a guy in alabama who said, "if you accuse me of being a womanizer, a drunk, irresponsible, and just plain carousing, i plead guilty on, every on but let's talk about what alabama needs. " i think it is that sense of not b.s.ing people. everyone knew he was a womanizer and a creek. when he ran against the head of the kkk, the slogan was, "vote for edwards, it is the moral thing to do." >> a vote for the correct, it is important. -- bove crook. vote for the crook.

>> phil, thank you. that was very generous. i wondered at times. i explained how we ended up where we ended up. we did not dig the hole and the deeper. people get in trouble in places like the white house in the press briefing room when they start to fill in the gaps when they do not have them. early on in that, we said we were not going to have facts. . .

>> there were plenty of people at the white house that said you are not being aggressive enough. you need to be out there and fight harder. it would have been exactly the wrong thing to do. that is what got staffers in trouble throughout history because they went out and spoke without having a strong foundation of truth. >> we have time for one more question. >> i have a question for janet smith. what did you have to go through to obtain those e-mail's and get them published? >> they were sent to us unanimously. we still do not know who sent them to us. there are a lot of different theories. my editor thinks it was her ex-

husband. we don't know and i really don't know. they were sent to us unanimously and we had to verify them. in a newsroom, you get so much crazy stuff all the time in your in box and people calling you. even when you get something like that, you are like, right, the governor and argentina, sure. it took a little while to verify. we were able to prove that the governor's portions, his e-mail was coming from his personal e- mail address. before we published them, we made it known close to him, including his press secretary, that we have those e-mail's and every intention of publishing them and if he was going to refuse them anyway, he better do

it in the next couple of hours because they were going to hit the internet. he never refuted them to this day. sometimes in press conferences, he almost kind of jokes. i think it is safe for us to assume that those e-mail's were valid. i don't know 20 years ago if we would have done that, if any media outlet would have done that. i think the will of the media is changing. i think what people expect of the media is changing. it will be interesting now. it has become so competitive with blogs and other types of media that are not traditionally trained that enjoy printing rumor. they don't have any problem with putting stuff out there that is not in any way back up. they don't have any money so they are not worried about being sued.

it will be interesting what the landscape of media looks like in this country and how they interact with politicians and the quality of news that we get. >> we could go on for another hour easily and talk about the role of the media and scandal, but i think we have time to thank our panelists. thanks to all of you. good evening. [applause] >> tonight, two perspectives on fcc proposals and neutrality. the communicators, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. the senate finance committee returns tomorrow to continue work on health care legislation. max baucus told members to expect a debate whether to include a public option for people without insurance.

live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> c-span's 2010 studen cam contest is here. the top prize is $5,000. create a 528 minute video on one of the country's greatest strengths. in must incorporate c-span programming. the deadline is january 20. grab a camera and get started. >> cuba's foreign minister to address the united nations today, saying the country is ready to normalize relations and until then wants to work with washington to fight drug and people smuggling, protect the environment, and cope with natural disasters. these comments are just more than 20 minutes.

>> mr. president, i would like to congratulate you on your election and will repeat to you our confidence in your ability to conduct our works and proceedings successfully. i would also like to recognize the excellent work of the president of the recently concluded session. the ethical dimension and political scope of this presidency has enabled us to move forward towards the goal of giving back to this assembly of its powers and will stand as a benchmark for the future thanks to his example. it has become clearer to us now that reforming the united nations is about democratizing it and bringing it closer to

the peoples. since the general debate one year ago, important events have occurred in the international arena. climate change is now more visible and dangerous. the economic crisis has become intents and global. social exclusion has increased. the international community reacted with deep optimism to the change of government in washington. it seemed that a period of extreme aggressiveness, arrogance in the foreign policy of the country had come to an end and the legacy of the george w. bush regime has been resigned to repudiation. we were able to appreciate the speech from the white house

raised great hopes and its reiterated messages about change, dialogue, and cooperation have been welcomed. unfortunately, time goes by and the speech does not seem to be supported by concrete facts. the speech, in fact, does not coincide with reality. the most serious and dangerous aspect of this new situation is the uncertainty about the real capacity on the part of the current authorities in washington to overcome the political and ideological trends that threaten the world under the previous administration. the neo conservative forces that took george bush to the presidency, which promoted the use of force and domination, with the support of the u.s.

call also military power, the ones to blame for torture, assassination, and the manipulation of the american people have quickly regrouped and still possess the reins of power and considerable influence which is contributed to to the announced change. the torture center in the guantanamo base which is a part of the cuban territory has not been shut down. the occupation of troops in iraq have not been withdrawn. the war in afghanistan is expanding and threatening to other states. as for cuba, which has suffered aggression for half a century from the u.s., the renewed u.s. government announced last april measures to abolish some of the most brutal actions taken by the george w. bush administration

which has present -- prevented any contact with relatives in cuba, particularly the possibility of visiting them and sending them assistance without limitation. these measures are a positive step but they are extremely committed and insufficient. the measures announced include in the authorization for some u.s. companies to carry out certain communication operations with cuba but other restrictions which prevent the implementation have not been modified. nor has there been any signal indicating that the u.s. government is ready to put an end to the immoral practice, which has increased in recent days of the misappropriation of cupid funds that have been frozen in american banks and other goods based on orders issued by the judges who are

violating their own laws. the essential thing is that the economic, commercial, and financial blockade of cuba remains intact. the u.s. president, despite the existence of laws, still possesses broad executive powers such as the ones to require licenses and means of which he could modify the implementation of the blockade. should there be a true desire to move towards a change, the u.s. government could authorize the export of cuban goods and services to the united states and vice versa. the united states could allow cuba to buy any products containing more than 10% of u.s. components or technology anywhere in the world regardless of its trademark or country of

origin. the u.s. treasury could abstain from persecuting and confiscating third country transfers weather in u.s. dollars or any other currency to cuban nationals or entities. washington could lift the ban preventing a third country from entering any u.s. port until 180 days have elapsed after putting it in any cuban port. the persecution unleased by the u.s. treasury department against financial institution companies which trade or carry out operations with cuba could be suspended. president obama could allow american citizens by means of license to travel to cuba. the only country in the world they are not allowed to visit.

the report submitted to this assembly by the u.s. secretary general contains abundant examples in the course of 2009. numerous actions have been taken to confiscate and had their transactions carried out by cuba or by third countries with cuba. as has been reported by the u.s. treasury department itself, since january of this year, almost half of the funds collected by its office of foreign assets control came from sanctions imposed on american and foreign companies for alleged violations of the economic blockade against cuba. the truth and indisputable fact is that the u.s. government continues to ignore the

overwhelming appeal made by this general assembly year after year to put an end to the blockade of cuba. two weeks ago, obama instructed the secretary of state and treasury, contrary to what all public opinion polls have reflected, that "it was in the national interest to maintain the economic sanctions against cuba under the trade with the enemy act approved in 1917 to cope with war situations and which is only applied to cuba." the u.s. blockade of cuba is an act of aggression which should

be unilaterally terminated. mr. president, for many years now, cuba has been expressing its willingness to normalize relations with the united states. on august 1, president castro publicly reiterated cuba's readiness to sustain a respectful dialogue among equals with the united states without overshadowing our independence. he emphasized we should respect our differences and we do not recognize in the government of that or any other country or in any other group of states, any jurisdiction over our sovereign affairs, internal affairs. the government of cuba has

proposed to the united states government a set of the central topics which it considers necessary to be discussed in the course of a future dialogue aimed at improving relations. mainly the lifting of economic, commercial, and financial blockade. the exclusion of cuba from the list of countries that forms terrorists. the abolition of the cuban adjustment act and the webfoot, dry food policy. the compensation of human damage. the return of the territory occupied by the guantanamo naval base. an end to all radio and television aggression against cuba. and the cessation of the funding of the domestic subversion.

an essential item on that agenda is the liberation of the anti- terrorism fighters who for 11 years have been unjustly imprisoned in the united states. president obama has the prerogative to set them free as an act of justice and as a commitment by his government against terrorism. we made a proposal between the united states to begin talks in order to establish cooperation to fight drug trafficking, terrorism, human smuggling, and to protect the environment, and deal with natural disasters. it is in that spirit that the cuban government has held talks on migration and the resumption

of direct coastal services with the u.s. government. these talks have been respectful and useful. mr. president, cuba has a broad and fruitful relations with countries all over our planet. with the sole exception of the united states, cuba has remained friendly relations with all countries and it enjoys the solidarity of the whole region. we maintained fraternal cooperation with dozens of countries from africa, asia, north america, and the caribbean. our country is a stable country with the united which has proven beyond any doubt even under

blockade conditions, it is capable of coping with the consequences of the global economic crisis and the effects of climate change, which last year cost the economy 20% of its gdp. cuba can cope with its own problems. and find solutions to them. we do this in a just and equitable society. which relies on the efforts and which has been able to move forward and develop in the most adverse conditions. we are ready to continue facing these challenges with patience and calm, confident that no citizen will be left to their own fate and with the certainty that we are defending the cause

of national independence and a socialist project overwhelmingly supported by cubans themselves. those who will try to put an end to the resolution and then the will of the cuban people are under delusions'. social justice and the decision to defend a dependence are all part of our national identity. marked by sharp contradictions that exist among big majorities. they are calling for justice and equity in the face of the traditional oligarchies which are bent on preserving the

privileges. the coup d'etat in honduras is a reflection of that. those who kidnap the legitimate president of the country are violating the constitution and are oppressing the people, something which happened during the dark years propped up by the united states and latin america. hundreds of thousands murdered and missing and tortured people's are still weighing on the conscious of americans in the face of impunity. there is no clarification why the plane that kidnap the president of honduras making a stopover at the u.s. base. this american fastest rate represented by cheney sustains the coup de tat.

the president should be immediately and unconditionally reinstated in the exercise of his constitution. the ability of the embassy must be respected. the siege and the aggression against its predecessors must cease. the honduran people are putting up heroic resistance and will save the last word. these events coincide with the renewed and aggressive interest of the united states in establishing military bases in latin america and reactivating the full fleet. obviously, with the purpose of putting the region within reach of u.s. troops and only a matter of hours.

thus threatening the revolutionary process ies in the sister nation of fairness with and getting control over oil and other natural resources of the region. the slander and allies which have been uttered against the government of venezuela have been brutal. we should be reminded that this is the way it atrocious aggressions were perpetrated against our country. the broader and clearer the policy towards that sister nation is, the bigger our contribution to the independence of the line american and caribbean peoples will be. mr. president, latin america and the caribbean can mvoe on and to a certain extent they are moving

on to a new and superior form of integration. they have more water, land, forest, and energy resources than any other region on the planet. their population exceeds 570 million. the latin american-caribbean summit on development were created as a result of the bonds that unite us. the alliance for the peoples of our americas and the petro corp. scheme are the most observant examples. mr. president, the recent and optimistic forecasts in pittsburgh on the global economic crisis which promised

an economic recovery in early of next year are not based on solid data. at best, they can only forecast relief after the collapse suffered by a very limited group of the most powerful economies on the planet. the objectives have been set but no word has been said on how to achieve them. no one should disregard the fact that this is an unheard of crisis in the capital system that encompasses its various food, energy, psychological, social, and five men -- and financial crisis. although the risk of the debt inflation combination and the financial bubbles are a collapse.

developing countries are not responsible but rather victims of the consequences of the irrational and unsustainable model of consumption, exploitation, and speculation. the destruction of the environment and the corruption of the industrialized economies. one of the discussions taking place, a number of hungry people will read the figure of 1.2 billion in 2009. equivalent to one sixth of the world's population. this year, and additional 19 million people will move into poverty and another 50 million will be left unemployed. another 40,000 children are expected to die as a result of the crisis in these few months. the measures adopted perpetuate

the deficiencies of and i'm just exclusive and unsustainable system. it is necessary to promote a fully inclusive and and compass and dialogue with the active participation of all developing countries. we need to establish a new order based on the solidarity, justice, equity, and sustainable development. the international financial architecture should be founded a new. the united nations, particularly this general assembly, is called upon to play a key role in this endeavor. mr. president, in conclusion, i would like to reiterate cuba's

appreciation, thanks for the traditional and invaluable solidarity it has received from this general assembly in its struggle against the blockade. today, this solidarity it remains as indispensable as ever. as it was put by commander in chief fidel castro in this very room nine years ago, there is nothing in the existing political order which can serve the interests of humankind. thus, it is unsustainable and it must be changed. suffice it to say, the world population has already reached 6 billion, 80% of whom live in poverty. age-old diseases from third world nations such as malaria, 2 per caresses, and other lethal diseases have not been in eradicated.

new epidemics like aids threatened to exterminate the population of entire nations. at the same time, wealthy countries keep investing enormous sums of money and military and luxury items and of the voracious speculators exchange currencies, stocks, and other real or fictitious the use as many as trillions of dollars every day. nature has been devastated. the climate is changing before our very eyes and the drinking water is becoming increasingly contaminated or scarce. the sources of man's seafood are being depleted. crucial bryn we do -- crucial non-renewable resources are being destroyed. sensible rules for guiding human

destiny seems impossible to many. however, we are convinced that the struggle for the impossible should be the model of this institution which has brought us together today. mr. president, in spite of everything, the cuban revolution victoriously is celebrating its 50th anniversary. thank you. [applause] >> c-span is supreme court week is just a week away, featuring personal interviews with the current and retired supreme court justices. >> why is it that we have an elegant, astonishingly beautiful, imposing structure proved it is to remind us that

we have an important function and to remind the public when it sees the building of the importance and the centrality of the law. >> supreme court weak start sunday on c-span. c-span offers teachers free resources on the judicial system online. >> tonight, two perspectives on fcc proposals on net neutrality and information on the internet. 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span to. the senate finance committee returns tamara to continue work on health-care legislation. committee chairman max baucus told members to expect a debate whether to include a public option people without insurance. live coverage continues at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span.

the white house said progress on health care is one of the reasons president obama has decided to travel to copenhagen where a committee will announce the location of the 2016 olympics. the president and first lady will serve as advocates for the city of chicago. robert gibbs talks about this and other subjects for 35 minutes. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> good afternoon, everyone. i have no new announcements. >> why does the president think a trip to copenhagen is going to make a difference? what does he hope his appearance will help? >> i think he hopes he can make a strong case for chicago and america's bid for the olympics in 2016.

the olympics showcases the country that those alembics are in -- that those olympics are in. >> did you get a hint that an appearance would help america's bid? \ >> i certainly hope and the parents would not hurt it. we have no new intelligence on that. >> what is the white house's reaction of iran testing missiles? >> a couple of things. obviously, these were pre- planned mandatary exercises. -- military exercises. i would point out that the reason that missile defense decisions have been made in the

past couple of weeks to change from something that dealt virtually only with an icbm threat and dealt with medium- range missiles have proven out in many of the pictures you have sought in the past few hours. the decisions that secretary gates, the joint chiefs approved unanimously and forward it to the president is something that deals with the exact threat to the medium and intermediate rang e missiles that you saw i ran a testing yesterday. >> how does it affect the atmosphere for the october 1 talks? what specifically does iran need to do on october 1 to fill the call that they come clean? >> first and foremost, the p5 plus one strongly supports the

call for immediate and federal access to the facility, personnel, and to documents that are related to the construction of that facility. i think that this certainly what we would hope that iran is willing to do to engage in full transparency and demonstrate to the world that it will give up its nuclear weapons program and ensure that whatever it does in the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy. >> is there anything specific that they can do to demonstrate that? >> sure. they can agree to unfettered access. i think that would be the least that they can do. keep in mind, this is an important day and week for the iranians. they have decisions to make. they have one or -- they have

one of two paths that they can take. they can continue the path that they have been on even though the world has shown conclusive intelligence about the facility in the area or if can make a decision to step away from its nuclear weapons program to build confidence in the world and be entered into a meaningful relationship with the world based on their own security but not based on nuclear-weapons. >> back in june, when you were asked about whether or not the deadline to close down guantanamo bay could be reached, over the weekend, i am sure you heard secretary of defense say it was going to be tough. what happened? >> i believe the secretary. he always trumps me.

i think we are continuing to make progress. i think we have had more and more people transferred out of guantanamo bay. first and foremost, look what you saw this weekend. you saw secretary gates and senator mccain both believing strongly as the president believes that we have to shut down guantanamo bay, that it improves image around the world. obviously, we still have work to do, work that is progressing in the forming military commissions and in locating a permanent detention facility for those that would remain. >> has the white house resigned to the fact that -- >> we are not focused on whether or not the deadline will or will not be met on a particular day. we are insuring that the facility is closed and doing all that has to be done between now

and january to make the most progress that we can that is possible. >> how close is the president to reviewing this assessment strategy of troops overseas and making a decision on whether not more troops are needed? >> i think you have good video from secretary games this weekend, who mentioned that this was going to be a very deliberative process on the president's part. i assume that any decision is a number of weeks away. i think you saw secretary gates say that a resource request that he gets will not be sent here to the white house until he believes and the president believes we are at a position, having reached a consensus on moving forward, how best to resources that consensus. >> what can you tell us about the lobbying effort behind the

isc? >> i do not think it is much behind the scenes if you are asking me about it. the president has mentioned this in meetings. we were at the u.n. and at the g-20, he is going to continue to talk to people including in person and in copenhagen in an effort to bring the 2016 olympics to the united states. >> what is he telling them? >> i think having spent some time in chicago, i think it is a perfect place to hold the olympics. it offers a great place for the world to see. it offers all the amenities that one would want in the olympics. i think it is the strongest bid of the four that are out there.

>> what if he doesn't get it? >> you can call tommy on saturday and asked him. [laughter] >> is that deadline moved? >> i thought what the question was that if there were a lot of people over here obsessing about whether that particular day was going to be met rather than getting it done and that is why the focus is. >> if you are not focused on a particular day, there is no longer a deadline. >> that is not true. the deadline is still there. we want to get it done. i think secretary gates made it clear what happens in this town when you do not set a deadline. nothing gets done. there is no doubt we are making significant process. there is a bipartisan agreement. we need to get something done to close this facility.

it will improve our standing in the world. that is what the administration is focused on. >> do you have any commitments, have you made any progress over the last couple of days with russia and china to support sanctions? you cannot get them without them, right? >> we are focused on thursday. we are focused -- understand this. there has never been a stronger international consensus to address iran and its nuclear weapons program then there is right now. you saw the comments last week. you heard directly from the russian president about this. we are focused on the meeting on thursday and we hope iran is focused on its obligations internationally. we are not going to get far

ahead of ourselves as far as what happens beyond that. we are focused right now on this meeting this week. >> no matter how strong it is now, if you don't get them on board -- >> two weeks ago, and no one thought we would be where we are right now with an international consensus that something has to be done and that iran to live up to its international obligations. >> how concerned is the president that [unintelligible] >> you are a couple of -- >> i am just thinking about this. if you are thinking about sanctions, it will hurt the iranian people. >> i am not going to get into conjecture about what might happen. >> i think of days ago on the south lawn, "i would make the case [unintelligible] >> i say copenhagen but i am not

sure i should be the arbiter. denmark is good. >> i would make the case on copenhagen personally if i was not so committed in making real the promise of quality, affordable health care for every american. he sounded clear that he was not going to go. what changed in the meantime? is it health care that has changed? does it look like it is in better shape? >> i think the president thinks health care is in better shape. he felt strongly and personally he should go and make the case for the united states. >> he is not worried about health care as he seemed to be just 12 days ago? >> i think he believes he can do this and get back in time. >> tomorrow, you guys are meeting with the secretary of state, secretary of defense.

on afghanistan, is that where he is going to lay out a timetable to review the strategy of the decision. >> i think it is any number of weeks. >> could you lay out tomorrow's agenda? could you give a little more description progress we are not going to have a meeting to set a meeting agenda. we are going through the process of assessing where we are, what has changed, what needs to happen, where we need to go. this will not be finished in one meeting or several meetings but this is the beginning of a process for making some eventual determinations. understanding that as we have said before the president came into office and asked our policy to be reviewed. in late march and the lead up to the elections, the president requested additional troops be sent to afghanistan.

the end of that number is beginning to get to afghanistan now. but as you heard secretary gates say over the weekend, in that time period, we have had an election that has been far less inconclusive and the united states does not predetermine who that winner might be. secondly, secretary gates said the assessment of conditions on the ground were worse than previously assumed. >> so the president -- can you fully carried out or at least rule out a new strategy before there is certainty? >> that will be discussed over the course of the next several weeks. >> but you guys might wait to see -- >> i am not going to get into hypothetical.

>> your secretary of education talked about the possibility of seeing the school day expanded, shorter summer vacation. how can the federal government influence that? >> i would direct you to the secretary of education. i am sure there are incentives that can be given. obviously these are state decisions. you could test grants for all- day schools or year-round schools. you could do any types of those things. i think the president has talked in the past about the fact that we have to try new things in education to ensure that we are doing everything we can to educate as best as possible the workforce for tomorrow. the president was a big believer in expanding the number of charter schools, something that secretary duncan has done.

i think the president believes strongly in the education reform agenda. >> in a new york political question, the white house has completely -- has some opinions about the governor's race. does the white house have any opinion about the governor race in new york progress i have not -- >> there is no preference in who wins that? >> chuck, i said i did not talk to the political affairs office on that. >> when you look at this sort of picture of a top-level official, the president himself, mrs. obama, there is something that [unintelligible] >> call tommy. i'd appreciate getting into what happens on saturday to cope what

degree it is this -- are there any assurances -- >> i think i looked back and addressed this not long ago. i appreciate that. thank you. [laughter] >> is the chicago host committee paying for any of the costs for mr. obama or mrs. obama to go to copenhagen to >> i do not know. >> on another issue, is the white house hearing protests from any leaders about the arrest of [unintelligible] >> not that i have heard but i would direct you to state or d.o.j. for those specific questions. >> could you confirm the recent report about committing $85 billion to help states give mortgages to low and middle

income families? >> i think there is a policy that will be rolled out on that and i do not think the number will be that high. >> when? >> later this week. >> directed to small business and other areas? >> the administration has and will continue to pursue strategies to enable credit to flow to small businesses. i think the -- i would not put a whole lot of weight behind the criticisms whether there is one thing that one can do to help the economy or that we are one thing away from the economy doing what we all hope it will do. i think the administration is focused on a level of things, not the least of which is small businessmen, men and women each day and particularly at the beginning of the administration trying to get access to loans

and capital to meet payroll and expand their businesses. >> why do you think money should go to low income families and businesses? >> [inaudible] >> on the guantanamo bay, it appears the president has signed off on a congressional authorization for a specific contention law to fill the gap. can you explain why the president thinks it is not necessary to seek out that law that he indicated that in the speech should not be made by one man and it should have congressional oversight? >> based on where we are with the war, there is existing authority. >> in a speech, the president left the direct implication that the office should be used as a legal blanket. >> it has been a while since i have read that speech. >> it seems like one of the

things that is crucial to helping close guantanamo bay, a legal framework for the long term detainee's, the president has discovered is extremely problematic. you don't find there is an inconsistency there trying to find legal justification for congress to hold them for a prolonged amount of time? >> the president does not believe that there is an inherent used to this, that what has been approved by congress is statutory sufficient and that we don't need an additional law. >> i expect you to agree with the previous administration? >> i have not looked at the previous opinions of the previous administration. >i think the finance committee

continues to make progress. each of the committees that has jurisdiction in this legislation will have worked through their issues. >> i know every president tends not to speak to congress on its procedures but since the president talked about [unintelligible] do you think the finance committee should allow a period of time for the public to look at the finance committee product before it votes? >> i will let individual members and the committee determined that. i think since we are talking about this for the second week, there has been a lot of time. >> are you saying that the reason he was not going to go to copenhagen that health care is in better shape? >> as i understand it, chip

asked me that that was one of the reasons why the president stated and that while i believe that health care is in a better place and i believe he thinks health care is in a better place, he fills it is important to go and personally try to persuade the international olympic committee to pick the united states in 2016. >> did anything else change? so it is oklahoma for us to infer even though you said that will not be the difference between last week and this week? >> iowa acknowledged it to major and to chip. yes, we think health care is in a better place. >> how does he see going to

copenhagen as his court present -- as his core mission as the president? >> i think everybody is proud of the olympics. it provides a wonderful opportunity to showcase the united states. as i said earlier, it is a big economic benefits. surely, it is within the purview of the president to root for america but maybe i am wrong. >> was there a fear that the delegation that was going would not be on par with other countries going? >> no. i have said this many times in the past five years, and i think the president would agree that michelle and michelle alone was and is a powerful presence and will be a powerful voice for the

olympics coming to america. the president simply wanted to bend her voice to it. >> why do you need oprah goinng, too? >> ask the olympic committee. >> with respect to the afghan election, is its that the -- the secretary of state said the meeting on friday that the united states assumes it will be president karzai will be able to work with him if he does -- >> we believe we will be able to work with whoever wins the election. it is not for the united states to determine or predetermined route that winner is or the outcome of that election. there is an international commission looking at allegations of fraud. there is an internal commission looking at allegations of fraud.

the administration believes that they should be looked at and evaluated. >> do you assume that president karzai will emerge victorious from that process? >> i am not sure who will lead the afghan people at the end of this election. >> secretary of state? >> not the way i read that story. >> you said a minute ago that the international consensus is stronger than ever. why do you think that? the vote on sanctions was unanimous. what is stronger today than in the past? >> -what the president has been able to do to the policy of engagement is bring the p5 plus one to a point that it has not previously been. i think you saw what president medvedev it did on wednesday. i think you saw the statement from the past few days even from

the chinese about addressing that we needed to address the concerns of the iranian nuclear program. i don't think there has ever been a broad and as deep a consensus about addressing the concerns that we have right now. i think the least of which -- i think what happened on friday, the revelation of a facility that iran had a clearly long ago began construction, failed to live up to its u.n. security council or its other obligations that it had signed to lead the world know that it had intended to construct a facility. i think we have made strong process. >> his comment was that sometimes sanctions are necessary. how is that a different change? >> again, i think we are in a position to address the iranian

nuclear program if the iranians are willing to live up to their obligations on like they have ever been before. >> specific about the missile firings and the news of the day, we spoke about it as a provocative pattern. what about the particular tests done today? >> i think it continues -- a preplanned exercise but obviously provocative in nature. i don't think it was intended to be anything otherwise. i think it reinforces the decision that was made to not long ago to change the focus of our missile defense to ensure the security of our forces, our american bases, and the security of our allies more directly by the type of machinery that the iranians were testing. >> is this a deterrent? >> i don't buy a lot of it.

>> the first family's a chicago ties, with de a factor in the olympic trip? is there a feeling of front -- from the administration that [unintelligible] if there had been another city when there was not the same time? >> i don't think there is any doubt that the president is in -- enormously proud of chicago and would be enormously proud of the city hosting the olympics. i think it is silly if it had been lost angeles, i think the notion that the president would have done less because it was in a different city does not hold a lot of water. >> a virtue of being from chicago, and special message that they can carry. >> i think there is no doubt.