michael beschloss: pleasure. swain: barbara perry is a uva political scientist and as part of the "modern first ladies" series at the university of kansas has written a jacqueline kennedy biography. nice to see you. perry: great to be here. swain: i want to start on our program before we get into more details about her white house years, with the assassination and the imagery of the assassination since anyone alive at that age certainly has those images seared in their mind. and subsequently because of the power of the internet -- in the video we were talking before about, it's a collective consciousness. people have experienced this since it happened. she was just 34 years old, is that correct? beschloss: just 34 years old. and, you know, from the moment at dallas, you know, i think we know so much about this story, you sometimes forget he was shot, in fact into her arms for five minutes they were going to the hospital. he was there with sightless eyes. and she felt almost from the moment that they left the hosp

. >>> michael beschloss, thank you.e you here on these nights to give perspective. >> thank you, rachel. >>> we have not had a vice president succeed the president since -- very is powerful i wonder if the vice president -- the vice presidency is a job that's evolving to be less of a steppingstone and more of just a good job in its own right? >>> we'll be right back. just about anywhere you use sugar, you can use splenda®... ...no calorie sweetener. splenda® lets you experience... ...the joy of sugar... ...without all the calories. think sugar, say splenda® >>> who is the authority on this issue? the chicken or the egg? >> a lot of people are on becky's side, but a lot of people point out there was an egg that probably mutated. >> but it wasn't a real egg, so the chicken came first? >> oh, my god, this you don't see every day. >> smun was calling in my ear. >> i'm from ohio. >> a commercial when you guys are running together. >> senator rob portman. who says snooze button with you? you're on fire. >> you want to hear th

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. >> historian and author michael beschloss, whoever was the first to invoke the term pendulum to describe the shift of power between the parties, between and among the parties in american politics was really on to something. think about the eras of o'neill, of rayburn, of mccormick, and think about what we witnessed today. >> right. and one of the pendulum swings has always been between strong speakers and weaker speakers. and there have been a lot more weak speakers in american history than strong speakers. if paul ryan wants to accomplish the things that he talked about today, he's going to have to be a strong speaker. one other thing unusual, this is a new speaker who had an awful lot of americans three years ago vote for him for vice president. only james polk ever went from the speakership to the presidency. brian, earlier you said this was almost like a state of the union. it was more like speeches that you hear from a new speaker. one of the things paul ryan is trying to do is not just address his colleagues about house reform but go to americans and say the house is broken, as he