captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> hello, i am through on king, the coast south of both 3/6 the host of local white house conference which chronicles." this is a political city, and we think, reid, talk politics all the time. high was pour -- fortunate to be a conference where politics was not mentioned, it was about technology, harnessing the power of the oceans to make electricity. it is a very new kind of -- not

a concept, but the new implementation is happening in the oceans. there are wonderful gadgets. extraordinary gadgets. there is a wave that it goes in and out. if there are turbines of the clock wind turbines, but they are in the oceans or rivers. there are some in the east river of new york. then, there is the circular turbine that goes like this. i only mention this one because it is fascinating, because it is innovative, and because we do not have a toehold on the technology. probably the united kingdom and scotland is the head of the game. it is worth watching because of our lives are often changed a great deal more by technology that they are by politics. look what electricity has done for us. we worry yet about little bits

of political this and that of what julie talks about as the culture of a bridge. things are happening out there. big things that are beginning to defect us, and they have nothing to do with the campaign, or the to and fro from the candidates. we will be right back with some of the brightest of the best, and wittiest lines in washington to describe -- discuss the flow of -- not of the water, but of the pockets. >> many have spoken out on the need to transitioned into a clean energy future. at exxon, we are and -- acting, committed to this place in more than 1500 -- million metric tons of gas emissions annually through green operations, helping committees reduce emissions, and offering more

low-carbon electricity in the marketplace. excellent, we are taking action, and we are seeing results. >> "white house chronicle" is produced in collaboration with whut, howard university television. now, llewellyn king and linda gasparello.>> hello, again. thank you for coming along. i promised you great people. we'll start with the co-host of the program, linda gasparello, and then moving to arnaud de borchgrave, one of the great columnists and one of the great journalists we have. is it honored to have you on the broadcast. a new guest. he and i have done a little bit

of radio work together, ed o'keefe, of "the washington post" who is in the thick of the news because he has been writing about certain parts of the civil service for young ladies. christopher chambers from georgetown university. linda gasparello, the vice president, we are suddenly hearing from him and taking notice. he is well-known for talking all the time, but suddenly people are listening. >> it is extraordinary. joe biden has been sent out to deliver -- it has been five of rein in speeches, what did administration has called framing speeches. he just did a lot -- he just delivered one in new york. he delivered one about manufacturing. in florida, retirement savings, new hampshire, about taxation,

and he has won more that escapes me right now. at the same point, these speeches have been important because it shows how the president has relied on the vice president in a way other presidents and did not. if you remember, the vice president for franklin delano roosevelt had called the vice president of both -- and the and aresident's seat a bucket of warm spit. this vice president has been important in the decision to withdraw from iraq. >> it was the other vice president who was important in the decision to get into iraq. >> the vice presidency, for the last three vice presidents, it has been an increasingly

important position. this vice president, joe biden, has been important in the decision to withdraw from iraq, to have the 2014 timeline to get out of afghanistan, has been thwarted in economic decisions, including persuading the president back baker's should not be involved in risky trading. he has been an important part of the administration, and going forward, he will be an importance spokesperson. >> is he the man who is helping to extend our commitment in afghanistan 10 years after we leave? >> if that does not mean a a lot. >> it meant little to the vietnamese. >> what you think about vice- president. he watched for many decades -- you have watched for many

decades. they are a strange office. they are selected, not the elected in the normal sense, yet they can become president, and they have differing roles in different administrations. some hardly let them through the gate. >> it depends entirely on the president. >> any particular vicepresident that stands out in your mind? >> not really. >> i would say lyndon johnson was an important vice president. >> i only knew him as president. >> he would not have gotten their with direct election. >> it was one of the smartest politicians since world war two. >> i agree, with one huge fatal flaw. does every president have one huge fatal flaw? >> i think like you and me, we

have not only one, but several. [laughter] >> it is basically like being a human being. >> the office extenuates it. >> it depends on what the president decides. if he wanted to take on more responsibility, that is what will make a great vice president. >> christopher chambers, the vice president can be, essentially, the nominee going forward. this is not going to happen this time. if he stays as the vice president, that means it is an open field for democrats in four years, assuming that obama wins. it does not nate -- matter one way or another. is the opportunity not wasted by the party? >> yes and no. yes. that we have site -- yes in that we have seen, especially on the

campus of georgetown i listen to the students, and they look at it with a young person's high that it is always a wasted opportunity when someone my age and older is sitting in a place that can not be used as a jumping point for somebody younger. at the same time, you have to have that steady hand, especially when you have a young president. whether he or she chooses someone that is older and wiser, supposedly, where it is hoisted up on them like john kennedy and lyndon johnson to make a scene. it makes our system that magical in positive and negative ways. you have this weird team worked hard >> on the other hand, we have this on workable system. >> i would not rule out joe biden in four years. he is building an impressive team. >> he will be fairly old, will he not?

>> he has been in politics since he was 29. he commands respect on capitol hill. he has this in during quality as a bumbling, ", but also some and that is able to pick up the phone and call anyone. >> many journalists say he talks to much. that is the first thing the state. -- they say. he does have actual ideas. >> he does. he was a good senator, too. >> he was a great senator, and delaware would tell you that. you need a great team. he has such a vast knowledge on so many different issues. whether it is traditional issues -- look at of violence against women act. he wrote the thing. will be a campaign issue for the coming months. >> if it could be boiled down to 140 characters. >> that is very true.

>> in a sense, the president handed him a tremendous amount of responsibility, and we have not seen this handing over of responsibility to any other vice president in our history? >> 9 dick cheney and george bush? >> i think george biden -- i think joe biden has had more. whether it was what we did in iraq or what we are doing in afghanistan, the portfolio has been an enormous amount of responsibility. >> i think we have to deal with the scandals of the time. you wrote an interesting column where you conflated the scandals of the moment. how would you rate them? >> we have lost our sense of outrage. a grievous things are going on, and nobody seems to be outraged. maybe a because everyone wants things sewn up in 140

characters. >> are you having problems with technology? >> i'm having problems with a once-over society. >> you have the secret service sex scandal, then all of these issues with military troops in afghanistan, of those, the ones that are most concerned on capitol hill is the gsa scandal. >> no one is talking about leon panetta. >> there is that as well. >> remind our viewers. >> when he was in the cia, he would leave thursday evening, come back monday afternoon. nobody knew about this. it became public because the media covered the pentagon. he continued his long weekends in california. >> we do not know about the cia part. seven months as secretary of defense, it was almost $1

million. >> one does wonder why they love their homes so much, why they could not live a little closer to the office. >> he had a walnut farm in california. >> that sounds rather comical prepared -- comical. >> it always comes up about which president is spending money on travel that the campaign should pay for? every president runs into this. >> every president has the temptation of the air force one. it must be marvelous to have air force one. is an office, a refuge. the temptation to travel for a president are huge. you go to see people that are pleased to see you. they cheer you.

i would think the temptations are huge. i do not know how you draw a line between the campaign. presidents are essentially campaigning all the time. it is a bit of our rage you cannot do much about. i agree that we do get outraged about the wrong things, and the entire republican primary has been about one alleged national problem after another that is not a national problem at all. it is something that is cooked up to stimulate synthetic outrage. >> two foundations look at how much air time. more than the fall of the berlin wall. >> weird when to pause for station identification. the audio for this program is broadcast on sirius xm radio at

9:30, off 3:30 every saturday. we did a great number of e- mails. this can be seen on the english language stations of the voice of america, input 2 -- and 200 stations here. with us are linda gasparello arnaud de borchgrave, "the washington times -- that is one of your outlets? >> well, they pay me. [laughter] of thoughefe "washington post" and christopher chambers. arnaud de borchgrave, do i have

your attention? >> 100%. >> what about foreign policy? mitt romney is criticizing obama's foreign policy. >> he is the man that said russia is still our principal enemy. that ended about 20 years ago. >> how do you think obama has handled foreign affairs? >> well so far. the criticisms from the right have been very unfair, and of course on the right they are still saying he is not an american citizen and does not belong in the white house, and this should be a legal issue. >> what i find amazing is the idea that he could be born in kenya at a time when the 18- year-old white woman giving birth in kenya at a sensitive time could be born in a white hospital, and nothing would be said in the newspapers and at

that time about it, and somehow the conspiracy was so complete that people surrounding the birth new he was when the president of the united states and wrote to the newspapers in a white to get a birth notice. how ludicrous can this be? foreign policy. you are a middle east expert. what do you think? >> there are calls on the right because they feel they -- obama is leading from behind. with the right like us to enter another war in the middle east? >> you mean iraq? >> -- iran? >> syria is the closer call. what about the south sudan? do they want the spool -- want us to police that conflict? >> or somalia.

>> we also have heard how can obama speak at a holocaust museum and not do something about these conflicts. come out and say it. do you want us involved in more wars? >> many people would like to see us get involved in iran, and the six most important people against dropping a senior bonn -- a nuclear bomb in iran happened to be the three former directors in israel. there are six very important people. enron has formidable, asymmetrical, a retaliatory capabilities. >> the irony is on the left, a lot of people would love to see the united states and the the police force in the sudan and places like that. he is almost like he has one on

one side, and another in towards the middle. that has been the hallmark since 2008. he has one monster on one side, another on another, biting at his ears, and i am surprised he has had anything coherent since then. i know this is boiling down to simple imagery, but that is really how i feel -- two monsters on either side. it is hard to navigate. >> the latin american summit was hardly one of his triumphs. what went wrong there? >> for one thing, the secret service certainly miss behavior before he got there. the fact that they did not set an agreement to meet again over continuing concern is that cuba does not invited, and there is this brewing disagreement to

legalize certain drugs in latin america, which could help reduce violence. that is a nonstarter in this country. the president said that i might have a conversation, but it is not going to happen. mitt romney has made the point that this administration has done very little to engage latin america because of the growing influence of china and iran, and others were clearly trying to take advantage of economic opportunities. if i travel to what a lot every year, and increasingly you see much more of an asian influence than you used to see because they understand it is a market right for the taking. american companies are there, certain he did not impress. >> this is an interesting dilemma -- asian penetration into the third world. africa has essentially been taken over without a shot fired.

the africans, once the chinese are there, are less happy when they bring their own workers in, but initially they say to the dictators and the corrupt we will not waive the finger at you, we are not the americans. we do not have bribery rules. which is what these raw materials, and the african countries are happy about this, then they find some other things happen -- the market is flooded with cheap chinese -- goods that can not sell here or in europe, the chinese bring their own labor, keep them in chinatowns, and they do not spend any money or for recognize, or any of the things traditionally colonial powers have done. the future of that is not clear. they have tied up in 48 countries, raw materials. >> 15 minutes from the airport, they are building the biggest

casino in the whole area. >> where did they get the management skill beck's -- skill? they have no history of colonial activity, no history of large involvement in the world. suddenly, the head a preponderant -- they have a preponderance of people capable of operating in maybe 100 countries in sophisticated ways. >> it is hardly useless, when you were in south africa, they were building the pennsylvania railroad and >> i was in zimbabwe -- but tanzanian railroad. >> i was in zimbabwe. but people at that time were

alarmed, what was the chinese intent? people in europe and america, the preoccupation of the railroad, which fell into disrepair and was not used for many decades, was some sort of harbinger of chinese interests in africa. >> is not a part of what is going on. administration the fact that they are extricating themselves from wars in the middle east, but they do not want to antagonize the chinese. they have decided china is america's future. >> becoming a superpower. >> absolutely. we have ignored europe, a long- time trading partner. we are looking to maintain good relations with china, because we recognize china will be the super power. >> why do conservative elements in the state's love to criticize europe? >> because europe is falling

apart. >> is it really? i am not sure of that prepared -- that. ed o'keefe? >> it is an easy political talking point to call someone european, or say they are inspired by european socialism. >> we do not like to mention it because arnaud de borchgrave as european. >> u.k., which is not really european. >> at think it is an easy talking point. >> the other thing is conservatives will not criticize when someone like president nicolas sarkozy of france has proposed helping syria in the way he has proposed. >> there is a long relationship between france and syria. >> i know that, when it involves war, they do not criticize. when the french were the cheese- in surrender monkeys, they did. now, that nicolas sarkozy has

decided maybe we should intervene in syria as they enter the in libya, all the sudden the french are good people. >> we have to leave the cheese- eaters there for our high points and low points. linda gasparello. >> my high point is in the awarding of the medal of freedom to jan karski, one of the first people to bring news of the holocaust out to the world. >> the project at george mason university which will in the next 25 years reverse engineered the human brain, and reach parity with the super computer. >> a bit late for us. >> yes. >> the bad news, we mentioned in the last few minutes, the collapse of the european union, which i see happening within the next year. >> ed o'keefe?

>> i could give you something non-political. the washington capitals knocked off the boston bruins in the nhl playoffs, but the low point was the response of some fans to the fact that it was a black hockey player the scored the winning goal. a big problem in the nhl in a demonstration that there are still problems in sports in europe and the united states when it comes to black athletes. >> high point, npr and private foundations funding young journalists to do stories about nigerian traders in china, which sets up a lot of interesting issues, putting immigration in context here. the low point is fox news and biting -- in the fighting -- in viting kim a quincy loiahan.

>> my problem is i might not recognize them. [laughter] >> that is our show for today. thank you to our sponsor, we will see the next week, at the same time. cheers. >> many have spoken out on the need to transition to a clean energy future.

at exxon, we are acting, committed to reducing or offsetting more than 15 million metric funds -- tons of a greenhouse gas emissions, by offering more low-carbon electricity in the marketplace. >> >> salon, we are taking action in seeing results. >> "white house chronicle" produced in collaboration with whut, howard university television. from washington, d.c., this has been "white house chronicle," a weekly analysis of the news with insight and a sense of humor featuring llewellyn king, linda gasparello, and guests. this program may be seen on pbs stations and cable access channel. to view the program online, visit us at whitehousechronicle.com.

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