. >> up next on the presidency, historians jon meacham, annette gordon reid and ron chernow talk about the process of writing a presidential biography. they've written about george washington, andrew jackson, ulysses s. grant, franklin roosevelt and george h.w. bush. this was part of a centennial symposium hosted by the george w. bush presidential center. it's just over an hour. >> thank you. okay, that's enough. laura and i want to welcome you, ken and his wife julie who's the new president of the boosh center and all of us who work here are thrilled you're here. i must confess i've got mixed emotions. one i'm thrilled to be a part of this, two i'm very disappointed that you're not here to give me the pulitzer for the book i wrote. [ laughter ] by the way, every good organization needs a pulitzer prize recipient on their staff. and here at the bush center we have one in bill mckenzie and we're fortunate that bill is a part of our team. [ applause ] thank you very much, kevin, for convincing us to join you in hosting this. it's very exciting for the bush center that you're here and all

performances that will take place here in a little bit, and as a history buff, i'm thrilled that annette gordon reidron chernow and ron meacham are here to be interviewed by mark upterboro. at any rate, in order to get my book reconsidered, i thought i would sharone an anecdote with you. so i was tasked to -- it didn't require much tasking, by the way, to talk to vladimir putin about the necessities to have a free press in order for the society to be a wholesome and vibrant society. he had just suspended the independent press and this was in slovakia. i couldn't identify it during the debates. anyway -- [ laughter ] so i said, vladimir, really important that if you want to join those of us who realize the benefits of a free society that you have a vibrant press. and he looked at me and said, you're a hypocrite, you fired the famous newsman. kind of took me aback. i said, what the hell are you talking about, man? he said, you know what i'm talking about. you fired the newsman. is he talking about dan rather? he said, yeah. i said, well, you don't understand, vladimir, is that in our society, the pres