>> rose: president obama today held his first meetings from both parties since the state of the union pledge odd-to-reach out to republicans.

issues such as job creation, health care reform and the deficit were at the top of the agenda. afterwards, the president held an unscheduled press conference and spoke about the pressing need for bipartisanship. >> bipartisanship depends on a willingness among democrats and republicans to put aside matters of party for the good of the country. i won't hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party. but i also won't hesitate to condemn what i consider to bes on thensy rooted not in substantive disagreement fwhus political expedience. i'm willing to move off some of the preferences of myarty in order to meet them halfway. but there's got to be some give from their side as well, that's true on health care, that's true on energy, that's true on financial reform. that's what i'm hope gets accomplished that the summit. >> rose: joining me now is david brooks, columnist in for the "new york times." he is someone who watches the obama presidency as close as anyone.

i'm very pleased to have him back on this program. welcome. >> good to be here, charlie. >> rose: last time i saw you was 4:00 a.m. in london after the state of the union. so where are we with this president? here he is coming after the state of the union, had these two sort of well publicized meetings, he's now talking about a third. he had has press conference, he's reaching out. where do you think he is in his presidency. >> well, i think fundamentally... i don't think he thinks this, but i think's a fundamental decision he has to make. we have this long debate in this country between conservatives who want to shrink government and then there's another debate, the liberals who want to create government to enhance equality sort of european welfare state. obama comes in with what you might call sort of modest tech no cat i can government, which is the larry summers peter orszag style which is hardened by experience but essentially using washington to change the energy policy, change health care, change education, a lot of stuff like that. if health care fails-- which i think it will-- that option,

which was really his offering, that's gone. so what is the sentence he is remembered? and if it's not going to be that then what is his presidency about? and i don't think he's made that transition to a post-health care world. i really liken it to the end of the cold war. but to me the options are these: he has always had even from the start of his campaign, two sides to him. there was the policy side on the campaign which was pretty coentionally democrat. but there was also the promise, which was post-partisan change the way washington works. and if he's not going to become the second new deal or the second great society with his democratic policies, then he's got to go back to the other side of him. which is changing washington. >> rose: is this as simple as running against washington, which a lot of people do to get elected and then they become consumed by what washington is. >> well, it wouldn't hurt, to be honest. to do it intelligently. not a cynical way, but in a way that gives rebirth to washington. we here in a great period of

distrust of washington. that's not anti-washington, that's not conservatism, because people want washington to work, they just don't believe that it does work. and so if you ask people "do you trust washington to do the right thing most of the time," between 1932 and 1964 the answer was 80%. now we're at like 17%, 23%. there's just no trust there. there's no trust to do... tackle big subjects. they don't trust leaders to take a leap of faith. and so i think the next sentence for the obama presidency is "i'm going to rebuild that. i haven't done that in my first year." he hasn't really done. that "but i'm going to figure out ways to do that." because he's still the giant of our political era. when people always say liberals or conservatives or moderates say "i'm disappointed in this or that aspect of obama." i always say "as opposed to who?" because i think there is really no figure in american politics still quite like him. >> rose: what does that mean "quite like him"? >> well, to be honest he's got... i disagreed with health care, i disagreed with parts of

the stimulus. he's got a seriousness of purpose and a seriousness of analysis which is still unrivaled. he makes one very good point right now in his attacks on the republicans. he is willing to go a couple steps toward the direction of fiscal sanity. i mean, he really was willing to cut medicare. he was really willing to raise taxes on these premium insurance plan. >> rose: he would say cutting medicare to make it more efficient. >> but, still, he was willing to do real stuff. and so now he's saying to the republicans "i a least took a couple steps." maybe not as far as he could have, "a couple steps. where are your steps? i'm at least somewhat serious about governing. you on the other hand used to be for a fiscal commission until you started winning and you didn't want to be for it anymore because you didn't want to raise the possibility of raising taxes. you have really... you are a pure opposition party, you are not a governing party." and to some extent he's right about that. so i give him credit for being the leading governor in the

country today. >> rose: leading governor meaning... >> meaning person actually grappling with issues. and the republicans to some degree are grappling with issues. >> rose: okay. but is it... is the transformation that he hoped to bring in terms of energy policy, in terms of education policy, was that hugely transformational. what was it about those ideas that were so scary? >> well, it was... >> rose: education, for example. i mean, the things he wanted to do are things you wanted him to do. >> right. and that part i think... i think that's the best thing that's happening in washington right now. i had a friend e-mail me saying "i've never been more optimistic about education in my life and i've never been more pessimistic about government otherwise in my life." i think's some truth to that. >> rose: because a democrat is willing to take on entrenched interests or at least to raise questions about how we approach education? >> he's willing to take on entrenched interests and he comes to the presidency at a time when we actually know what

to do because of programs, because of nurse/family partnerships, because of early childhood. we actually now have stuff that really, really works and he's create regular forms that create a context. >> rose: okay. that's education. the stimulus. you wrote columns saying the stimulus was necessary and appropriate at the time to create jobs and to meet the crisis of the moment. >> rht. well i... >> rose: it was wasn't hugely transformational, it was simply something that had to be done. >> at the time, i thought the stimulus was necessary but done poorly. and i still think that. that we did not focus it on job creation, we did not focus it on really ginning up the economy. and to me, as i look back on the year, that was a crucial moment. i remember i was watching on c-span the house appropriations committee which which took the obama stimulus idea which was going to be timely, temporary, and targeted and david obey's committee there turned it into a grab bag of long-time wish... democratic wish lists. and they diffused it. and to me that was the moment

when i first began to see the promise of obama really get swallowed up on capitol hill and swallowed up in washington. >> rose: timely, targeted, and temporary was larry summers' phrase. >> and made economic sense. >> rose: exactly. but here's what i don't understand, too. because this is a man you respect so much and has such talent. and listens to everybody. did he simply sty congress and david obey's committee and to the speaker of the house and to the democratic chairman-- most of them men-- "you are to craft the legislation that will be a defining mark of my presidency." is that what he did? >> i don't think it was that formal. you've got to remember, a, they were tremendously understfed. especially the early days. they couldn't staff the administration. it turns out nobody in this country pays taxes. so they were trying to get people to join the administration but nobody pays taxes in this country. second, they didn't want lobbyists in the adminisation, former lobbyists. and that meant, to my mind, they

are often intellectually outgunned by the committee staffs on capil hill. so they were operating from a position of weakness. second it was speed. they just wanted to get it out. and third they thought congress... they're going to be there voting, we've got to get them involved in the beginning but i think they deferred too much to capitol hill and i think they now believe that. >> rose: these are people who knew the congress. >> they know how hard is it to get stuffed pass because one understood the decisions they made. they made a decision to make a deal with big pharma. they made decisions with the unions. they made decisions with ben nelsons of nebraska. >> rose: well, those are very different decisions. >> i would say they have this which n common. it was about making practical decisions to get that done. what that missed was the outside context. a country incredibly distrustful of washington that would interpret those decisions as business as usual and which would be revolted. i really don't think you can underestimate the importance of what's happening in the country. >> rose: and i want you to talk to that but what is it that's happening in the country you cannot underestimate which is in

some way given expression by the tea party. >> right. and beyond that. there are polls that show if you ask people "do you feel positive about the tea party, republicans or democrats," the tea party come out number one. more than the democrats and the republicans. and i've given talks out in the country and now minx the tea party and 20% of the audience gets up and applauds. >> rose: and what is that about? >> well, off country that is distrustful of washington and suddenly they felt washington was growing and coming at them all at once with a lot of money and a lot of activity and it was just coming at them and they've recoil sod it's that recoil, it's not conservative, it's not pro-republican it's just a recoil from what's happening and a protective sense. but it's just tremendously huge. i an, the massachusetts vote was obvious, but ifou look around the country at missouri, at illinois, at indiana, you see the exact same reaction everywhere around the country. >> rose: how much of this has to do with a sense that washington

and power in america is elitist and does not either represent or listen to me. >> i think it's likely. the first thing to remember is we had this period of trust in government '32 to '64. that was the exceptional perio in american history. it was because of franklin roosevelt and world war ii. people had trust. but for all the rest of american history, there has been this strong current of distrust. it's magnified, i think, by a lot of things. it started with watergate, vietnam, and all of that. but then i do think we have become a class society to this degree that people in washington-- including myself and maybe the viewers of this program-- are predominantly coastal, highly educated, and we live in a different world. and it's not traditional sort of liberal academic elites. i don't think that's what it is. it is in this country until 1964 college educated and non-college educated families were basically the same. the divorce rates were the same,

volunteering was the same, voting patterns were the same. that began to divide. and now you have this chasm in life-style. so people in the college educated class have half the divorce rates of people in the high school educated class. vote twice as often. volunteer twice as often. and most importantly have a much higher degree of social trust. the do you trust the institutions of society? people in my class have a relatively high level of trust. people with high school degrees or som college-- which is the vast majority-- do not have that level of trust. and they do not think those people get it. so if you have this climate of opinion in the country and you get the whole country really concerned about economics and you talk to them for nine months about health care, they're going whoa, what is that about? and then if you... if it at a moment of economic insecurity you add what you might call political insecurity with the whole raft of changes, they're going, whoa, what are you doing

here? and so i think those are the things which have fed this current climate. command will create, i'm convinced, the person who runs against barack obama-- we don't know who that person is yet-- it will not be the normal people and the republicans we know. >> rose: the mitt romneys. >> it will be a person from totally outside. >> rose: could it be a general in could it be someone from business? >> a general, from business, somewhere else. it's just like the perfect moment. >> rose: will that person... you wrote a column about this when you talked about ross perot. who fits that profile, even if that's not the person, fits that kind of profile. and do you believe that person will represent the majority so that the president of the united states either has to recognize it's coming at him or become it. >> well, i think he has to become it. because, frankly, a lot of what exists in the tea party movement ngor the opposition is scary to me. >> rose: what's scary to you? >> well, there's a lot of... it's based on... a lot of it is

based on sort of a class consciousness. you know, i think elitism and populism are opposite sides of the same things. crude class prejudices. and so this is a prejudice against anybody who seems experienced. >> rose: right. >> and i think that's dangerous for the country, as the founders did. and so it has to be... it's going to be formed. and it could be formed by relatively sophisticated people. there's a guy there florida, marco rubio who's running for the senate. >> rose: who's way ahead. >> he's way ahead. and somebody like that could create a political movement honor mall traditional republican grounds. but i just think there's a wide open... and i'm not sure the obama administration, to get back to them, really gets this. >> rose: i know you wrote that to. you say they haveind a kind of what in the white house today? >> i think they think it's economics. once the economy comes back, we'll come back. and i think it's the economics but also this anti-washington, this pervasive feeling of distrust. >> rose: or they think the

country doesn't really understand our policies, if they only understood our policies then everything would be fine. they would support us. >> but to create social change you have to have good policy but you've also got to have an organic connection to the people and you've got to have a sense of the historical moment. i'm not sure that organic connection to the people has been established and therefore the loss of distrust. >> rose: there's only one person that can do that, don't you think? that's what franklin roosevelt did. >> right. right. >> rose: and ronald reagan. >> and ronald reagan. >> rose: but has barack obama done that or failed to do that? >> well, i think he has not done that in part because he's historically had trouble getting independents, and especially white independents in places like indiana. and you began to see a huge shift in april. it was april to june that his ratings among independents dropped 15%. the number who said he was a liberal rose 18%. so he lost them then. then another shift in december. so there were these two big shifts and he sort of lost what he'd had was the connection that

i am something new and he lost that. >> rose: even though he says the same people... the people who elected scott brown were voting for change in the same way that the people who elected him... >> that's not credible. scott brown was running against barack obama. and... >> rose: health care and barack obama. >> i mean, it's... to the extent that there is a free floating desire to have something new and it floated to barack obama thinking it was this and it floated to scott brown, there's some continuity there. but the policies... policy implications are totally different. having said that, i do think the country hasn't ideologically shifted. it's not like they've gone from liberal to conservative in a year. they're shrill in the middle waiting for somebody who represents their point of view. it's just that the parties are on the either side of them. so they never name connection. he's reacting the way i would react. >> rose: but do you think that barack obama has a body of principles that he believes in or do you think it's much more a sense of a series of policies

that he believes in? >> i think he... >> rose: because you saw in the nobel speech something about the core of him that was reflected rather than a series of policies. >> right. i think he thinks himself-- and that nobel speech was exemplary of a man who i also mention reinhold niebuhr and who sometimes mentions edmund burke, a communitarian, believes change comes from the bottom up, thinks... but also sees himself as a very pragmatic guy. but i think he is pragmatic. a lot of people think he's a straight up liberal. but you watch the guy get moved by the evidence of afghanistan, that was not ideology. you look at his approach to governance. >> rose: you mean he went into afghanistan not knowing where he wanted to end up and he was moved by the evidence presented to him by stanley mcchrystal and others? >> i believe he went in thinking we should get the hell out of there. and we can't afford it, we have no partner. and was moved by the evidence. >> rose: that it was possible,

that the stakes were high and it was possible to achieve it with positive results. >> yes. and so if you saw that process of him being moved and if you see him being moved by all sorts of other things where he really does follow the evidence, you're impressed by the pragmatics. but that doesn't get to your question of principle. >> rose: yeah. >> and he doesn't... i do not believe he has a clearly defined word that describes him. liberalism, conservatism. maybe that's a great hope because there's still... but i do think he has a sense... a pratt mat i cans, a sense of caution. but two too great a faith for this moment in time in the power of smart people to solve problems from washington. >> rose: do you believe in the power of smart people to solve problems? >> i believe in modesty, the we don't know much and therefore we should be very cautious before trying to reorganize, say, 17%

of the health care system. and so i think that modesty should try to get you to disperse power and create a framework for change that happens in... >> rose: so w do you think they did it? they did it because of the... they believed in the political truism that you're never more popular than the day of the inauguration and you better try to get things done right away because you're inevitably going to lose popularity or did they do it because they thought health care was essential to the kind of changes they wanted to bring and including the deficit and other issues. >> right, th. both. they believe in the policies and they thought to do it right at first was the right thing politically to do. there were people... >> rose: and that was a huge miscalculation. >> i believe it was. and there were people in the administration warning them about this at the time and my friend bill gallstone at the brookings institution wrote a paper called "the case for the caution." saying social change depends on trust and the trust doesn't exist so try to build the trust, that was his case.

i think it was the right case. and i think they thought this was new deal two. they were reading franklin roosevelt. they saw a million people out on the mall. you understand why they thought that way. and so... and hubris comes to this country every four years. comes around inauguration time. i think they suffered a little of that. >> rose: do you think that the president understands where he is and the fact that he has to change? >> i don't detect that. i think the great thing about the white house now is that they're calm, they're not pan panicked, they still get along. the sort of moral culture of loyalty and discussion that he's created is still very healthy. and so that's the good part. the bad part is i don't think they've changed. i don't think they've understood how this political wind is so strong that you just can't keep on with the things you're doing. >> rose: okay. but why is that. why do a group of very smart people not see that and not take

the same... feel the same heat of what is roaring across the country? >> well, a, they believe in the policies so they want to keep on with them. >> rose: sure. >> b, they're in the white house which is inherently insulating. and, c, the... i think there's an information loop that we are part of that has been very slow to reflect what was out there. so personally i think... i saw the tea party movement as weird whackos in the beginning. but i didn't realize how broad it was. and it's not just... it's sort of a mishome iner to call it the tea party movement. it's like 60% of the country. it's not just this hard core group... >> rose: is it the center of the country and the independent center of the country? >> it is. >> rose: and you're saying... and you believe it's larger than any of the other two parties today? in terms of numbers committed to an idea or series of ideas? >> right. and what is it? it's a hunger for a new system of politics. a hunger for a belief that

washington can work, that the country will not be in decline. and this is inchoate in some sense because it's a hunger for something new. but it's out there waiting to be formed. and i still think obama is in a position to do it if he can build on what he's been doing over the past few days, which is start a bipartisanship, though a little of that is potemkin but create a substance for it. >> rose: and also to see himself being engaged, i think, gives a view of him the... of a rational man that you don't necessarily see either from speeches that e aspirational or from the stories of the deals being made with senator nelson and whoever. suggests somethinglse. >> because you see all elements of obama. you see someone who genuinely does believe in discussion and bipartisanship. you also see... >> rose: and listening. >> and listening. you also see the chicago polywho says... independents love this kind of talk. you see a guy who is sort of

morally offended by the republicans who are always talking a good game but who are not serious about governance and i'm going to expose that. and then another political thing is if washington is down and i'm the government, i want to get my opposing party in a bear hug and say "we're all in this together." do not let them pose as the outsiders. so he's trying to draw them into that bear hug. and believe me they're not going for it. and for good reasons and bad. i was at the white house and then i went to capitol hill to talk to the... some republicans and it was a mind-blowing experience because on the white house, you had this sense of continuity, calm. on the republican side, you had a sense "we're riding a wind, we are not going to change." and i said "well, he's going to offer all these modest programs for job creation." and they said no. >> rose: they think the wind is at their back. >> we're not going for that. so you see a radically different view of where the coury is and radically different interpretations of where they

should go. so he can talk about common ground-- and i've looked for that common ground, it's like a few little common pebbles. there's no xlon ground out there. >> rose: so health care is dead? >> i wouldn't... i think 70% or 80% dead. >> rose: what survives? >> well, i don't know if anything will survive. we could go back to a more modest covering a few more people, expanding the population. but, you know, it's possible to imagine little things but when the country has pretty much decided against it, it's very hard to pass the major initiative of our generation when it's about 15 points more unpopular than... >> rose: but isn't it also hard to pass the major initiative of our generation if you're dealing with the kind of economic cris here and the thing people most want you do is fix the economic crisis and make sure it doesn't get worse and make sure that it bottoms out and we are on a progress to recovery and that's what we want you do. that's what we voted for you to

do. >> for two reasons one, that's what we care about. two, remember, we keep coming back to this distrust theme. people feel trustful and are willing to take a risk what the wind's at their backs. when they're feeling comfortable and security. >> rose: when they're hurting they don't feel trust. >> no, pull in, why are you adding more insecurity in my life. so benjamin freedman, a harvard economist wrote a book on this subject that if you look at the moments when there are great periods of social reform, they're periods of economic growth. >> how many times have you had a private conversation with this man since he's been president? ten? >> no, not that mn m. >> rose: five? >> yeah, maybe. >> rose: five. one on one or one with a small group. and which you had a chance to test him. >> yeah. he's impressive. he remains... >> rose: impressive because? >> i think the most impressive thing is he reads everything. >> rose: really. including your column. >> but not only that. i mean everything. second if you make an argument against him he's heard that

argument and he's aware of it and handled it. at least in his own mind. maybe not sufficiently to yours but he's handled it. so he remains a remarkable figure, one whom it is possible even if you disagree with this policy one whom it is possible to he great faith in. >> rose: and also that he's capable of greatness. >> i still think that, yes. i think hubris was a problem, as it is for all new presidents. the desire to stick to the policy in the face of changing times. but i'm like 30 degrees to his right but i still think he's a serious guy and one still... i stibl believe he'll have six or seven more years in office and has a great... >> rose: even though you're telling him if you do not... if you don't become ross perot and if you don't separate yourself from washington you're in deep trouble so you can therefore assume he gets that message and he will. >> there are two issues here, one is the political issue, will

he be reelected? i still think he will be because as opposed to who? >> because there's no ross perot out there. >> unless that person comes along. and that secondary to me because who can tell what the world is going to be like. to me, the issue for him is what am i here? what am i doing? what's the one sentence my presidency will be remembered for. >> rose: and what do you think he would say today? >> i really don't know the answer to that question. i think i did at the inauguration. we're going to create education, energy, and health care this new america. but i think he's been assigned by history the role of saving the belief that the country is governable. >> rose: were the goals right and the proposals wrong? >> the goals were right, the proposals were right, the times were wrong. the reading of the country was wrong. >> rose: when you're hurting and not ready for change oyou are? >> you come in... and this happened to bush. it will please no one to compare the two. but you come in with this agenda you've been campaigning on this agenda for two years, you get

into office but times change but you want to keep on with your agenda. it's hard to pivot off that agenda because times have changed but times did change and the economic crisis created an entirely new mentality which i think some people did foresee how that mentality was going to be less... more resistant to the big government change that... >> rose: does she to do something dramatic to get people's attention? >> well, i'm against gimmicks. >> rose: or boldness? are you against boldness? >> yeah, i am. i'm against boldness. >> you are? >> rose: i think it's incremental. it's solve a problem then solve another problem. and it may not be the entire health care system but it's something you can say okay, we did that, we did that. >> rose: you talk about how the republicans feel like the wind is at their back and they have no interest in negotiation here. "we're going to win ande're going to win first with 25 to 30 seats in the house." >> at least. >> rose: in 2010.

>> i think if you woke them up in the middle of the night and said "are you going to win the house?" they'd say yeah. >> rose: and the senate? >> they are entertaining that possibility. and i think they're way ahead of themselves. it's a long time until november but they feel it. if you're on capitol hill and you sit with the republicans, people are coming out of the woodwork to come run for congress. even in the senate, which is late days for a senate campaign but dan koets of indiana, very strong candidate to take on evan bayh, already been a senator, a man with incredible integrity and so that... suddenly this is happening and when you're a politician... and this is the thing policy people and even journalists don't always get abt politicians. they feel it, they respect the populist. there's an instinctive respect for the wind. so they feel it. >> rose: and what you don't like about populism is that it seems to respond to the simplest idea. >> it's not a governing agenda, it's a rejection of a social

class. it really doesn't get you to... i mean, how is populism an attack on, say, rich elites, how is that going to create a more educated work force? how is that going to solve our deficit sflob how is that going to make it... >> rose: it's demonizing in part. >> it doesn't get you anywhere. i'm all for demonizing, you can demonize the "new york times" for all i care. i'll take some perverse pleasure in it. but it doesn't get you anywhere. we've had this long debate in american history and some people are jefferson yans, some are jackson yans and some of us believe in hamiltons. the and we've talked about things thahave failed. there this this mass hunger for a style of governance applied to our own day which can solve problems. i still think the hamilton agenda which is all about using government in limited but energetic ways to increase social mobility, that's out there. that's a movement that is out there that could be a governing

philosophy and the problem is a lot of of just not fleshed it out. so it's a mode of governance. >> rose: the interesting thing about this is it seemed to me this president had more forces at work for him when he came to power than anyone had. i mean, i talked to lots of people who say "i voted for him because i believed things were possible and i thought history was on our side and the narrative was right and now they are not only questioning, they're saying... >> rose: there's a period of disillusion. he has great skill, he has a great team and he had 70% or 80% national approval. but what else did she in? he had nancy pelosi and john boehner running congress. when you have hyperpartisans running congress, it's going to be hard to change things all at once. you had the culture of washington which is a team culture, you're on my team, you're on the other team, that's deeply entrenched now. so there were barriers. then you had this public

distrust and then the spinoff from the economic crisis which seemed like it was going to create the avenue for change but actually closed off. >> rose: some people are beginning to say and from this question raised. are... is there something... is there some kind of gridlock in washington that says something about the nature of our system? nothe constitution and the filibuster, but just the way that we are incapable of finding the best solution to the issues that confront us? and therefore we will note a competitive force in the future like we have in the past and the chinese on the other hand for all the criticisms you might have, seem to haven understanding of finding the solution to these kind of economic and technology problem >> i'm, as i said, more pessimistic about this country's governing future than ever before. simply because it's not only washington, it's the country at large that seems unwilling to take either cost of tax

increases or spending cuts. and so we're not a country that has been rallied to actually face reality. nonetheless, compared to china, compared to their system for all its good at moving apartment blocks and for all the intelligence of their leaders, we time and time again, democracies, are just more flexible than autocracys. >> rose: is the believe that it's at the heart of the confidence that america will come out of this. >> yeah. and if you look at our... our system of education fosters a great deal of creativity. we have silicon valley. we are really good at disruptive change. we have tremendous cultural strengths. >> rose: but there are real serious ways... you have been writing about this as well as anyone, you and tom and others. it is the notion of whether we are losing that edge. that particular edge that gave us the lead in science, the lead in education, the lead in technology. whether that is a lead we no longer have. >> i think our problems are entirely governmental and not

social. >> rose: do you really? >> i think our ability to produce creativity is incredible still. if you look at every single industry with the exception of wind power, maybe, we are still the world leader. >> rose: no we're not! we're not the world leader in steel. >> okay, maybe not steel. but in the growing high tech industries. our manufacturing, by the way, we still produce a lot of goods, we just don't employ anybody in doing it. if you look at people under 30, remarkably wholesome responsible creative talented generation. they're going to have the biggest mid-life crisis in human history in ten years but until then they work really hard. so that's very good. we're in a period of social repair and divorce rates, drug rates, a lot of good things are happening. i think we still have the... as i said, the most flexible economic system, and that's cultural apart from the governments of it. we just have a culture of creating a company, failing, creating another company. >> rose: are you prepared to sit at this table and say this country has to face up to

economic choices that involve cutting spending and raising taxes? >> the deficit issue is important on its own but it's also the symptom of a fundamental construction in the process which the inability to think long term, the inability to face reality, the willingness to push costs on others. >> rose: what's interesting about that the to me is that the important quality at barack obama seems to have is he's a practical person. rather than necessarily a warrior in that cause. and the cause of i'm premotorcade to deal with the political... i'm prepared to take the political risk to change. >> i think... i regard him as one of the good guys knowing about something that what happened the white house. i think peter orszag know it is numbers but i think he and the president are the two champions of trying to keep spending down, putting in a spending freeze, which is not a big thing but it's a symbolically important

step. and the presidents aides have often said to me "obama, the word responsibility is a very crucial word, behaving in a responsible way." >> rose: but that writtens your bell, too. >> well, what's wrong with that? >> rose: nothing's wrong with it. and you have praised him because you thought that his sense of responsibility was an important criteria of his inner quality. >> but, again, we're dancing between two different things. one is the personal character of the leader, which is very important, the other is the context in which he is embedded and the psychologists have this phrase the fundamental attribution error which is assigning to character traits that are actually product of context, of environment. and the context of politics right now that if you're for raising taxes on the middle-class, if you're for cutting spending in any serious way, you're doomed. and everybody in washingtonn both parties now bows down do that context with the exception of a guy named paul ryan who's a

wisconsin republican who proposed a budget which would really be balanced. whether it's a political seller is arucial question because it basically cashes out medicare, gives people a check which will not cover their health care costs but that's reality. >>ose: a couple other ideas you've been talking about is one in terms of these future problem there is's a real opportunity for the elder, the old among us, to make a difference. >> right, and, you know, what the... what elderly people do is what. >> eric:son called generativety, which is giving back. that's what they do. i had a grandfather who was tremendously important in my life. we have all had those people. and elderly people do that everyday. and yet one of the great fears about cutting spending and raising taxes is the fear of older voters. so i'm hopeful. i think's no way out of this mess unless a spontaneous movement of older voters comes forward and says "i's okay by

us." >> rose: we're doing this for our grandchildren. >> right. and we will not kill you, we will not vote against you if you are for this. and the last year, i think one can be depressed by the power of washington to lead movements but one has to be tremendously impressed by the power of social movements. obama road a social movement. the tea party movement, nobody in washington understood where that was coming from but it's a social movement and it arose. >> rose: did you see it coming from the beginning? >> no, i understood the distrust because i can read the polls but i certainly did not see how that tea party movement would be part of a larger movement. >> rose: are you also saying that what this president has to do most of all is get a trust and a connection with the country? a level of trust which we might have had if he had not tried to do too much? if he lad not seen too... as you wrote in one column, too too... what's the word? not imperial but as if i can fix everything and i am the great fixer.

>> activist, technocratic. and i do think that's what every politician has is the intuitive sense of where the country is. >> rose: does he have that? >> glong the moment he has it. he certainly did. >> rose: well why not? as smart as he is. he doesn't have an intuitive sense of where the country is? >> because he was trying to push this set of policies and was in love with the set of policies, was involved in incredibly complicated set of internal negotiations in the white house policy discussions, handling the this committee chairman, that lobby. imagine what his year has been like. he's had over a hundred major initiatives. he's had a million conversations with different players in washington. that's been the year. and because he's done so much... >> rose: and has such confidence in his own... >> right. and that was happening in his world and out there something else was happening. and i hope he reconnects. >> rose: what he has to do is

connect with it and also gain the trust of it. >> and embody it the way politicians... >> rose: and so are those in the middle, do you think, responsive to that possibility? >> yeah. and this is why i don't... you know, some people have given up on obama. but i do not read the polls saying most people have done that. he's still way more popular than his policies and i believe the country still wants government to work. and he is the government right now. or he's the leader of the government and so i think he that has potential to reconnect. i don't see widespread hostility to him out there in the country and therefore he has the power to adapt as bill clinton adapted. as other leaders. >> rose: as ronald reagan, he had very rough sledding in the beginning and then there was the assassination attempt and other things. what mistakes can the republicans make? >> by seeing the public revulsion as a ratification of a

libertarian economic philosophy. people are against washington therefore they want a libertarian view of government. well, we actually tried that. gingrich tried that and paul ryan who's a very respectable and very admirable member of congress, what he is essentially proposing is very intellectually honest but is essentially voucher government. government would give you a voucher for health care. >> rose: give you a voucher? you buy your own health care. you make the choices. >> and that's a coherent and honest position. i do not think that's where the country is. i do not think the country has lost a sense of common security and common cause. i don't think they're in that more libertarian spot and so i think the republican would make a mistake of overinterpreting the protest as an ideological shift, which i don't think it is. >> rose: turning the corner here. science, the brain, which we're doing a series on, which we've completed. is what what is it that's drawn

you this subject. for all of your... from the wide spectrum of your interest, there have been three or four columns about the brain. what is it you're discovering and what's worth... >> i'm writing a book on this so i've been five years following you. your shows have been very helpful to me. basically, first of all, it's the intellectual excitement and to me it's like lewis and clark. we were living... we've always known that unconscious processes were very important in our lives but we were living on the east coast in 13 little colonys of the unconscious sort of feeling our way here. suddenly for 30 years you have scientists shooting off into the unconscious and going deep into it a figuring out what the landscape is. and so that's just tremendously exciting and we're learning there are two different ways of thinking and we're learning the unconscious is most of our mind, that's most of who we are. you can absorb about 12 million pieces of information a minute, you can be consciously aware of

40. so that's a crude way of picturing the difference. but why am i interested in it? because my world is public policy. say you're dealing with the policy of high school dropout rates. why do 30% of kids drop out of high school? it's completely irrational. it goes against every economic incentive conceivable. and when you start looking into that question, you find yourself in the first three years of life. because you can predict with pretty great accuracy by age four who's going to drop out of high school. then you find yourself in brain formation. what you find that the way people perceive the world, the unconscious way they react to things is shaped by maternal relations, by all sorts of other influences they're not even aware of and which do not have anything to do with economic rationality. and that's not only dropping out of high school, that's many different decisions. so to me we invaded iraq without understanding the culture and mentality of iraq. i was in the soviet union when it collapsed and we sent all

chiss to give them economic privatization plans without understanding the unconscious lack of trust in russian society. so to me we've had a whole series of failures, policy failures which are derived from the fact that we have an inaccurate view of human nature. and this cognitive revolution is giving us a more accurate view of human nature that we are not only the rational incentive based, the linguistic logical parts of our mind, but we have other processs which are associational, which are emotional, and this is how we really navigate the world. so to me this is just exciting in its own way but also solves my problems. my problems of why we've had so many policy failures by giving us a more accurate view of human nature and how people are likely to respond to different situations. >> rose: it's stunning. and, you know, when i talk to

all these people and frequently say what's the one question you most want to answer, it's always about the unconscious. there is this ultimate fascination with, as you say, how much of what we do is unconscious. and how deeply influential it is in terms of all relationships we have. >> to me, the let fore that helps me understand it is the conscious is like a general. distanced from the world looking down on it. the unconscious are like scouts, millions of them, permeating the world, going into other minds, going into an environment and sending back these emotional signals go. no, go. so when you lo at many a menu, you can make a choice of what you want but you do not have a choice of whether you like broccoli. that's happening unconsciously. if you describe to me a story of incest, i have an immediate moral reaction to that. that's all donenconsciously. and, you know, so one of my

favorite little experiments are people named dennis are disproportionately likely to become dentists. people named lawrence are disproportionately likely to become lawyers because unconsciously we have a preference for things that are familiar and we follow those things. and by now there are now 30,000, 40,000 neuroscientists in the world as well as other fields and they're reshaping the way we understand how we navigate in this way, how these scouts send back signals. stinls they send back very brilliant signals, sometimes they send back biased signals. but it doesn't simplify life but it gives you a sense of why we react or don't react the way we do. >> rose: you've answered the question that i kept saying, why is david writing about this, one? and why is he at this cognitive conference and this other cognitive coerence? now i know, because of the book. what can you tell me about the book? can you tell me more? is it about the brain? is it about the unconscious? >> i'm not a neuroscientist so

it's not really about the brain. my goal is to go the whole book without using the word "amygdala" because there's all this stuff with brine geography which is cutting edge and not something i'm qualified to write about. >> rose: but it's the frontier of science right now. >> but for us outsiders, we really should be worried about it because the brain has a hundred billion neurons and inphi gnat numbers of connections and sometimes i look at the brain scans, the nice color pictures and you think, okay, they're flying over los angeles, they're looking at neighborhoods where the lights are on and they're trying to guess at what people are talking about at the dinner table. it's phenomenally complicated. and some of the things is absolutely persuasive. but i feel sometimes, especially we in the public sphere, in the media, get a little too carried away by the brain scans and the pretty colors on the brain. so we should be a little cautious about that. nonetheless, they don't solve philosophical problems. they don't giveou a new philosophy of life.

but they do confirm or validate some old philosophies. if you thought that emotion was not separate from reason, that we were all fundamentally emotional creatures then this confirms that, the importance of emotion. and so few f you felt we were fundamentally social creatures then this confirms that because we get dopamine surges when we have social conferences. if you thought we were utilitarian purely rational individualists then this disconfirms all that. so it confirms certain... it settles certain philosophical arguments or at least biases you in one direction and i found that just tremendously useful and there are some people who sat at this table but others, the, they all have taken this into the broader realm where the rest of us really can find how it influences our life. >> rose: have you had in this

conversation with the president? >> no. i often tell people walter michelle is a great scroll gist here in new york at columbia and he has a think called the marshmallow experiment which you may know, it's been described. it's a test that predicts at age four who's going to have what college comption rates and who's going to have what incomes. and it's all based on self-control, whether they can colg impulses. and i tell every politician i can get this test because it... >> rose: describe it for us. >> sure. to simplify, he took four-year-olds, put them a room. >> rose: right. i know it. >> put a marshmallow on the table. said "i'm going to leave the room. you can eat this marshmallow now. i'll come back. if you haven't eaten the marshmallow, i'll give you two." so very kids can wait. there's a little girl banging her head on the table trying not to eat the marshmallow. one little guy was using an oreo cookie so the guy carefully picks it up, carefully opens the oreo, carefully eats out the middle and puts it back.

that kid is now a u.s. senator. so... but the scary thing is the kids who can wait seven, eight, ten, 12 minutes 20 years later have much higher college completion rates. >> rose: if they're disciplined to wait and not look for instant gratifications. >> they've grown up in homes where actions leads to consequences. they've developed strategies to control their impulses and if you can do that school will be okay. if you can't do that, school will be frustrating and life is going to be hard. >> rose: okay. but the interesting question is what shapes those that can or cannot. what influences those who have that? is it home? how much of it is... how much of it is environmental. >> we used to think thinking shapes behavior, but behavior also shapes thinking. >> rose: right. >> what's significant about human beings is not how much we're born with but how much we need to learn through life. and so we are... our brains are shaped by experience and so therefore the... it's growing up in a home mostly where you have a mother especially who's taught

you how to take turns, who's taught you how to focus connection, where you've had experience where an action leads to something good or bad in a predictable way and through that repetition you've learned to develop strategies. so for example one of the strategies the kids use to delay not eat the marshmallow, was to imagine oh, that's not a marshmallow, that's a picture of a marshmallow. i'm going to put a frame around the marshmallow. this is a trick they taught themselves. this is how i avoid my impulses. and they have tricks and some kids grow up in a home where it's predictable and organized and they have those impulses. >> rose: you do every year the awards, what do you call them... >> sydney awards. >> rose: best magazine stories or essays. >> according to a select panel of judge-- me. >> rose: (laughs) the dictatorship. so tell me what's on your reading list. what are the four or five things that you most enjoyed? >> the last year the one that leaps out in particular was a piece in the "new yorker" by

david gran. >> rose: oh, wonder. >> and this was a piece which change mid-view of capital punishment and it's about the arrest of a man for arson for allegedly killing his family and he spends the first half the building up the evidence they used to convict the guy. and then the last half showing our our science of arson is insecure at best. and then just destroying the case. and he... this man has been killed. he's been executed. and so that really i... >> rose: turned you around on capital punishment. >> if you believe as i do, that we don't know much, than that this ultimate punishment seems like a bad idea. so he does in the a beautiful way. i had a friend e-mail who said he'd just read it and he was shaking because of the power of the piece. that's the thing that long form journalism still offers us. that those who write newspaper columns can't get at. the sustained buildup of a complicated argument, taking you emotionally in different directions. and that david grand piece is a splendid example. >> rose: he went in search of a

great explorer and he wrote a book about that. it's great to have you here. >> thank y, always a pleasure. >> rose: my pleasure. i hope to do this again soon. >> always fun. >> thank you for joining us. before we leave you this evening here's another oscar moment. >> the more personal something is, the more political it becomes. and this guy was capable of such intense intimacy with one or many. and in particular with many. and so you could really sort of do your job while celebrating a person. and there's a simple word that struck me about harvey milk that was so powerful for him as a politician. he oozed kindness.

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