obviously, mark tapscott, no more critical a decision the president will make than to put the soldiersf his or her country at risk. are you -- how do you view the most recent events? >> well, i think that is obviously the most important decision a president can make. and president obama came into office with that decision having been made for him by president bush. and face the question for himself and his administration, do we reverse it? he had all but said that he would reverse it before he was elected. once we got into office we began to see paralysis by analysis and that's continued to this day. there has been a decision to stay, a modest increase in troops but we still have the paralysis by analysis that is characteristic of people who are not sure that they are doing the right thing. >> jonathan? >> look, when president bush was trying to figure out if he was going to do the surge in iraq he took as much if not more time, than president obama did with the afghanistan strategy. the interesting thing here, dylan, i think, here what we are seeing is the back and forth between all t

. >> mark tapscott, do you think you could articulate what the basic value system of a tea party republican is? what are they for? >> leave us alone. we're smart enough to manage our own life. stop telling us how to live. >> i get that. and that's a lot of negatives. that says don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. but what do they do? >> that's what we have to say. >> so, in other words, you wouldn't have the government prevent people from stealing all our money? >> of course not, dylan. >> no. i'm not trying to be difficult. but that attitude is a very attitude that allowed the banks to walk in and steal all of america's money because we don't want government. >> dylan, they did that with the government. >> i'm aware. i'm not saying -- they did it with the government and bill clinton and bob rubin in a room with four people. who are we kidding? i'm not excusing the government. my point is there's an emotional satisfaction of leave me alone. i'm a momma grizzly bear. i can take care of myself. but it doesn't acknowledge the imperative of having a governing institution that is reliabl

we will turn to mark tapscott. ark tapscotour next speaker is an editorial page editor of the washington examiner and a member of the examiners newspapers national editorial board. he's also provide of tapscott blog that you want to take a look efore it joined the examiner he was director of heritage foundation in washington. at heritage he found the foundations widely praised daily database 101 slashed 201 computer research and reporting good camp to the national press club. he continues a urnalism fellow at heritage. mark received a journalism lifetime achievement award at the 2008 conservative committee action conference and was inducted into national freedom of information act hall of fame in march 2006. he has been recognized by the national press foundation for his contributions to journalism, education that has testified widely before congress on transparency and government issues. and has appeared wide on television and in the media on these issues. he's a memr of the board of directors and media bloggers as