captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> i will do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. >> the perils of the modern presidency. >> obama being compared to nixon. how does he think about that? >> people who make those kinds of comparison need to check their history. >> people have to know whether their president is a crook. i am not a crook. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down that wall. >> its challenges. >> and the people who knocked these buildings down will to

hear all of us soon. >> and of course, it's an juiciest scandals. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman. >> this week we are going to throw caution to the wind and ignored the news of the week to examine the challenges of the modern presidency. let's start with the truth. we begin with ike, our first post world war ii president. he seemed to be so benign, bland, befuddle that times, even boring, but as richard nixon said, he was far more complex and devious than people realize. it is scandal time in washington, so let's begin there. richard nixon was one of the

first president to defend himself on television, accusation that he accepted political gifts. >> when charges of are made against you, you can ignore them or deny them without giving details. she does not have a mink coat, but she does have a respectable republican coat. i have always told her she would a good in anything. >> of course, richard nixon survives to run with ike. did eisenhower at some point contemplate dumping nixon because of this? >> he did, he treated nixon shabbily, in many ways. he let nixon twist in the wind, as one would say. you have to go on tv and save himself. it worked. it saved nixon's political career. >> that speech kind of makes your skin crawl, but it was

successful. a lesson for people that came afterwards. >> understand context. richard nixon was being called on by major republicans run the country to leave the ticket. he was under siege. eisenhower did leave him dangling in the wind. that was his last, only chance to save his vice-president sea and his public career, and he did it, brilliantly. it was checkers and the dog and those two little girls. it was brilliantly done and made possible for him to lead to become president of the united states. >> he said, we are not going to give the dog back, right back to the people. lie, you do the outright and you play for time. the thing that you showed of clinton, where he said, i did not have sexual relations with that woman, perhaps redefining the definition of the word sex,

but it was strong enough, believable enough -- stories were being put out about lewinsky being paranoid or delusional. by the time he admitted it in august, the store had run its course, people were tired of it, the republicans have overplayed their hand. relying on the passage of time, even if it takes an out my fly at the beginning, is useful. i was struck when i heard him say that. hasntially, and jay carney said about the current scandal, we, the state department, white house, did not edit those talking points, when they obviously did. it may not have been an outright lie, but it was a deception of sorts. they have strung out the benghazi thing for eight months, and now even carney himself says that it happened long time ago. you deny and the night and then you say it is old news, over.

all, don't you have a personal profit? you look at nixon, clinton, they got in trouble for what they did or said as individuals. this is not true of the eisenhower. in my view, the most prepared individual to go into the white house in the last century and this century. >> he had the sherman adams scandal, the great stone faced wife, with midterm elections coming, ike shoves him under the bus. >> he told richard nixon he had to get rid of him, ironically. in the end, ike had to do the dirty deed himself. every president in the modern age will face a scandal.

our system is set up this way. we have checks and balances, a hot press corps, opposition parties. you are guaranteed to have scandal. mission ofoved a caia invading cuba. the bay of pigs dogs kennedy for the rest of his presidency and sets up operation mongoose to destabilize the cuban government, which may have been could plans to assassinate castro. cost the president. along comes the cuban missile crisis. he holds back and gives khrushchev a horse to ride away on. >> of was on active duty at the time, i got the message that we would go on alert. i know that moment. it was a tough call for him but

it restored his present the -- presidency. unlike the invasion, which she said he should not have listened to the people would call them to do this, he handled the crisis with his people. >> you learn from the mistakes, charles. >> the irony with the bay of pigs, his ratings went way up. he accepted responsibility. he said victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan, but i am the president, the responsible party. then his ratings went up to about 90%. >> ironically, the reason he was wounded in public opinion, why the cuban crisis was a comeback, was because of what happened in vienna. he had a summit with khrushchev who beat the hell out of him, humiliated him, kennedy felt out of his death, and that hurt him.

it was remarkable. that was one of the reason that khrushchev pushed his locker and brought the missiles into cuba. he pushed kennedy over indiana and thought it would not be a problem. the finest moment of kennedy was reversing that and making khrushchev back down. as you say, giving him a horse that he could ride away on. >> two points on that. president kennedy said after the bay of pigs, ironically, two more weeks to let this, and we will have real elections. i do think john kennedy's experience in combat saved him from having to prove his anhood during the missile crisis. there was the sense that he could walk up to him and give khrushchev a way out to avoid nuclear confrontation. >> let's move to civil rights.

>> it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of , and weand injustice shall overcome. [applause] background, june 11, 1963, president kennedy for does the nation to consider passage of the civil-rights bill. protests in sioux in birmingham, alabama, in which police turn attack dogs and water cannons on children. five days after president kennedy's assassination, lyndon johnson goes to congress and ask for the passage of the civil- rights bill. despite opposition, johnson makes it happen. what is the lesson for the current occupant of the white house? >> first of all, to understand the congress, but second, to seize the momt. president johnson did, and with

all the skill -- called the mention that eisenhower was the best prepared. for that moment, there was no better prepared to achieve what johnson did legislatively and to pose his will on the congress. theas a perfect joining of time than the individual. i think the president should -- president obama would do well to understand lyndon johnson's skills and empathy. obviously getson all the plaudits for what happened in the civil-rights period, but there are symbolic things that also happened in that civil rights era. was inrtin luther king when heingham jail, called coretta scott king, that put him in the right place in

the country, put the country on the right side of the issue morely by taking that position. lyndon johnson moved out of conviction. it was clear, during his push for political rights, it was more than a political calculation. they knew the democratic party would lose the south because of what he did, but it had to happen, and that came through. if barack obama could learn a lesson, you have to want something, and you have to be willing to put everything into it. >> you can go to birmingham, alabama today to the civil rights museum and you can hear martin luther king read the letter from the birmingham jail. it gives you goose bumps. >> not so far from that, the president using the words of an old negro spiritual, we shall overcome. that was a great moment for a president to use those words. they are familiar to us now, but back then they were associated

with crazy radicals. >> no, that was the song of the civil-rights movement. >> to a lot of americans -- .> here is lyndon johnson he says i am not going to be the first president to lose a war, and he is trapped in vietnam. >> in many ways, he is left with a great dilemma. people often wash the kennedy -- whitewash the kennedy legacy because he was a martyr, all the good things he did. eisenhower was very tepid, he stayed out of the indochina war when the french wanted him in, he was very cagey about it, he sent advisers, but kennedy was a combat veteran. that did not prevent him from deciding that they needed to go in there.

always fighting the last war. the last war was correa. they had to redeem that experience. lyndon johnson was unprepared. he was a great center, new so much about how the country ran, did medicare, medicaid, civil rights, but was extremely un schooled in foreign affairs. he was taught by the kennedy advisers, and then he was at a place where you had a humiliating withdrawal or an opportunity to extricate yourself in an honorable way. >> there were 16,000 americans in vietnam, all in advisory roles, not combat roles at the time john kennedy was assassinated, so a 550,000 american presence there. that is night and day, that is war and peace. >> i was on active duty at the

time, we were sending people to vietnam under classified orders. it was a military assistance advisory group. the problem with lyndon johnson and the war, when he knew that we could not win, he knew that we could not win, and he kept us there. that is unforgivable p.m. richard nixon inherits the war. how are presidents kept from being a snake pit? >> a full pardon for richard nixon for all offenses against the united states. >> that cost jury for the presidency. richard nixon rises from the political brains, it declares the war is coming to an end, he ends the draft, nixon, the ultimate anti-communists crusader, goes to communist china. it is clear despite all the noise and hell raising, nixon will be elected for a second term. his domestic policy, what is it about his personality that

allows him to sabotage his presidency in watergate? >> i have a psychiatrist and i do not play one on tv. there are a million books and everyone has their own interpretation. this is a guy that got himself and stared. in some ways, a lot of other presidents would do the same things. he talked about the use of the irs by other presidents, the wiretaps of martin luther king by the kennedy administration come on by the power of the fbi. hemay have done more, but did it in a situation where there were paranoia about leaks. he was also doing it in an era where the expectations of the presidency were changing. expectations changed over the years. also, using these agencies,

going outside a law, having your own plumbers and all of that, it was no longer acceptable, at least as overly as he did this. that is what brought him down. i will leave to others to do the internal psychology. >> ronald reagan had the marine barracks blowup in beirut, the iran-contra, yet he survives, you saw him talking about -- tear down that wall -- which happens under george h.w. bush's presidency, he reforms the tax , and he is not snake bit. he survives. how does he do that? is it the power of his personality? was never any sense

that he was as possible for the marine barracks. and he made the decision which was right at the time to pull them out and acknowledged that he had to. iran-contra, it happened on his watch, but the worst that you could say about it is that he appeared to was never any sense disengaged when that happened. he never came across as a vicious individual or a mean individual, he did not have that thing that richard nixon had. phrase.how to turn a he knew how to use the moment. >> people did like him. one thing about ronald reagan that he brought to the office which has been missing, frankly, is optimism. not unlike franklin roosevelt, kennedy to a considerable degree, americans look to a president for signs of optimism. as far as iran contra, i ask one of reagan's closest advisers, did he know about this, he said, of course he knew about it. when there is good news to deliver to a president, you are actually selling arms to the

iranians, getting money, giving it to arm disengaged when that happened. the anti-communist guerrillas in nicaragua, a brilliant schemo ndon to give ge president. nobody wants to give him bad news. one final point, and gerald ford was the most emotionally healthy man that has ever served in the white house. he sacrificed his presidency with that part in and he did the thing for the country and by me andiled everyone else. >> he would have been a good president, if he would of been elected. >> the presidency is the most lonely, isolated job in the world. in the to protect themselves against that. nixon did not. by me and everyone else. successful presidents have been

the ones that they have someone who they can listen to our talk to. can be there wife, their spouse, somebody. >> george h.w. bush gets us out of kuwait, his approval ratings are through roof, and then he violates his code of not to raise taxes, and loses the presidency. >> you have the feeling that he was a man for to do two things, stock kuwait, iraq, save the west position in the gulf, and what people forget, he brokered the reunification of germany with russia in a way that no one ever wouldsuccessful presidents. that was one of the great diplomatic triumphs, and that is overlooked. moment.is let me say one thing about ford, i agree with you entirely. he was the healthiest. he was also the only one that never sought the office. there is a correlation between that. seeking the office implies that there is something a little bit wrong with you. >> george h.w. bush.

>> quick story, the white house speech writer of some of traveled on air force one, across the pacific, asked the pilot, which president do you let the best? , it easy, george h.w. bush. he knew all of us as human beings. he had met our kids, you remember their names. five years later, when all the presidents are flying, same thing. he stands heads and shoulders away from the others. >> bill clinton, who is caught with his pants down gets a second term, but destroys it by these inappropriate actions with a white house intern. he is impeached but manages to hang onto the office and the day and today one of the most popular americans abroad. >> talk about one of the worst

reputations of the second half of the 21st century. nixon and lbj were the ones who quit. decided -- remember, there were a lot of calls -- when he admitted that he lied about this, a lot of calls for his resignation. it was a humiliating moment. he decided, i am just going to tough it out. he is perhaps the most popular political figure now in the country. i think that is a lesson if you are in that office and you get whacked. the tough it out and you will be redeemed by history. >> we omitted one president, jimmy carter, who, for one thing, got shot down by that speech he made, and then of course the iran hostage crisis pay them that did not go well. -- crisis. >> that did that go well.

the attempted to get the hostages out and that failed. he had a lot of failures. doubleonomy whacked him, digit inflation, then he blamed the problem on the malaise in government. he came to the presidency eisenhower, who knewesidency .he institutions of government jimmy carter had none of that. i served in that administration and he was a decent person. >> carter had more current and

came across as more self righteous. i think that was off-putting. eisenhower had a huge ego but he contained it. you could sense he was a confident man but he was humble at the same time, and that more well with the american people. >> you talk about george w. bush, as likable a human being as has ever occupied the office. >> they are both likable individuals. this thing with george herbert walker bush, just for a moment, i remember when things started to go bad. during the time that david duke was running for government in was kind louisiana, it of going badly, but there with bush aterbert walker the compound, having a fine old time, with his boat colon across the water. he seemed to be completely out

of touch for that period, completely out of touch with the country, and he was getting whacked by pat buchanan for being out of touch. >> some final thoughts on the modern presidency. george bush has just opened up a presidential library in texas and you can test herself against some of the decisions he made as president. an interesting concept. bill clinton said once, there is no test on qualifications to be president, no school for the presidency. it is all on the job training. but with hindsight and no personal stake in the game, i give me your take on qualities for a successful presidency. personally, i would put good luck and good timing of the top of the list. >> you are right, you would prefer somebody who understands the country and what people are going through, but most of all, somebody who is not plagued by self doubt, not paralyzed by overconfidence. in other words, he is not there to try to prove something or to

turn somebody's respect. >> presidential historian. >> good judgment. it is hard to teach, but that ended the day, it is everything. ofthere are two kinds precedents. the ones that want to be someone, and the ones that want to do something. at the area classic, the classic of somebody who wanted to do something. those who see it as a way to complete them cells are the ones who see -- who end up rather tragically. >> i think the person need to have self discipline. there are so many competing claims on your time, mine, resources. that person has to be able to say no, when to shut up, when to listen, when to not make a decision, because there is so much power in that office.

to step back and reflect and make the right call is a tough one. >> it does not hurt if you like people. >> it does not hurt if you like the job. teddy roosevelt said that nobody has ever let the job of the president as i do. >> you get the last word. thank you very much. see you next week.

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