johnson did was call cokie's momma, and they called betty ford. and the three of them went to blair house, and they had phones put in in blair house just for the three of them, and they called every minister and every bus driver that they knew from the campaign trails because they had a week, a week, to get the program up and running, and so what they did was they said, okay, we'll use these buses. you know, the churches and different schools will use their buses, and that's how headstart money first got spent and the kids got to the classrooms. and there's a point of this. it's ingenuity. it's paying attention, and it's bipartisanship, and it's friendship focusing on an area of expertise that is good for the country, and it's a model that i think that we can all follow. >> yes, cat, i wanted to get to that part about the bipartisanship especially, you know. i had the great honor last summer of speaking at mrs. ford's funeral, which she asked me to do, and then told me what to say, but -- because she wanted me to talk about that time when everybod

i know you do, cokie. but 99.9% of the people that came to work at the federal government today came to do work for the american people. so somebody who gets a social security check today, somebody who gets a veteran's check today, somebody who took care of a problem for a congressman and the congressman took the credit deserves the credit for that. and there are so many good people that work in these agencies that we represent. we get a lot of the headlines and a lot of the credit. they deserve the credit. they'll never get the headlines. and every day that i can i praise people that work at d.o.t. and in the government. what we probably need, cokie, is more of the boggs-type families in congress. i think most of you know that cokie comes from one of the most outstanding public service families maybe ever to serve in congress. her father and mother both served in the house and served with distinction. and in those days they came like many, like the people that i worked for as a congressional staffer, bob

cokie, it's a real honor to have you here, and with that i'll turn the proceedings over to you. thank you, thank you so much. thank you. >> well, what a treat it is to be here. mrs. bush, so good to see you, and mrs. collins, an old, old friend, dee collins, from many years in washington, and these two women are out of a great tradition of the women who come as the adjuncts, really dumb term, to the men who make them, often make trouble and the women make it better, and the -- the ad that anita read, i was thinking at the end where it says the united states is an equal opportunity employer, actually not until a guy has to do all of those things and then we'll see how it goes. but the truth is the people are really so ignorant about the roles of first ladies and the jobs the first ladies have done throughout our history. so our little panel here is designed to try to shed some light and reduce some of that degree of ignorance, because there's an idea, and allida is an expert on eleanor roosevelt, and there's this sense that before eleanor roosevelt, first ladies was sitting aroun

and finally we have our moderator cokie roberts. cokie, as i'm sure you all know, is an internationally acclaimed journalist who has won so many awards, including three emmys, she's in the broadcasting and cable hall of fame and was cited by american women of radio and television as one of the 50 greatest women in the history of broadcasting and she's author of two works "founding mothers" and "ladies of liberty. it's an hopper nor to have you. and i will turn it over to you. >> well, what a treat it is to be here, mrs. bush, so good to see you, and mrs. collins, an old, old friend, dee collins from many years in washington, and these two women are out of a great tradition of the women who come as the adjuncts, really dumb term, to the men who make -- often make trouble and the women make it better. and the ad that anita read, i was thinking at the end where it says united states is an equal opportunity employer, actually not until a guy has to do all of those things, and then we'll see how it goes. but the truth is, is that people

abc news political commentator cokie roberts helps moderate the discussion. it's just over an hour. >> good morning, everybody. my name is max stieer. i'm the president of public service. we are a non-partisan public organization dedicated to make government more effective by focusing on people. and it's truly great to welcome you all here on behalf of the public employee roundtable and the partnership at public service recognition week. one week in the year when you have federal employees who hopefully are the subject of respect and accolades, people who otherwise all the rest of the 52 weeks, or 51 weeks are very much focused on trying to serve the american public. we want to take this week to make sure the minor public learns a little more about what their public servants are doing for them. we have an exceptional, truly exceptional panel here. i'm very excited myself to hear from. beginning with secretaries -- i'm going to get this right because i know there's supposed to be a special order here. but secretaries lahood, sebelius -- or sebelius, lahood, an

thank you very much, cokie roberts. [applause] >> thank you, an excuse my -- this is evidence ladies of a certain age should be more careful. and welcome all the. i must say it is a very brave of you to come here today. [laughter] secretary sebelius, you know the secretary of health and human services, former governor, secretary lahood, secretary of transportation, former member of congress, secretary napolitano, secretary of departments are magically, also former governor, and dan tangherlini, who you probably don't know is the really brave person because he is the acting head of the general services administration. he was at treasury for a long time, and was in charge of management there. so it's good to have him in general services administration now. .. still they are not getting our bombs, so -- [laughter] secret service, gsa, the buts of presidential jazz at the white house correspondents' dinner. course health care is never an issue. [laughter] and as i recall, secretary lahood you have a conference at the capito

i don't know what cokie thinks. and lyndon johnson is knocking heads the way that only lyndon johnson can knock heads. >> can listen to on the tapes. it is so great. >> it is incredible. and he has lady bird and lady bird is doing the exact same thing with grace and tact. i mean, lyndon could, you know, do this. you know. and get them by the collars and have every piece of dirt known to human kind on him. you know. and then you've got lady bird reaching out afterwards sort of calming the feathers. feathers. keeping her own tally on how the votes were going at the exact same time that she's knowing how to balance. she's knowing how to do head start. she has tremendous relationships across the aisle. i mean, that's something that i think -- we don't really realize. i mean, i -- i mean, i have always been struck by the affection mrs. bush between you and senator kennedy. and eleanor roosevelt was very close to john foster dulles. i mean, the reason we have the universal declaration of human rights is because of eleanor

the story that cokie and i -- what else did she do for herself? she did exercise. you develop ways. she had a secret service man who was in her cone with her, mr. haley, who had played tennis with her son. had been there for the tragedy. helped dig a spruce tree from the vermont and plant on the grounds. she likepled haley. he was important to her in her -- but president coolidge was a jealous man. when they were -- >> she was a beautiful woman. >> she was a beautiful woman. one of the most beautiful -- she could wear any color, her complexion was like that. she and mr. haley went for a walk. they were an hour late. get got lost. the president, who always -- shoed scandal, transferred her secret serviceman away. he did that because he wanted to avoid scandal. he never let her do things that he thought might bring scandal upon the white house. but that backfired on calvin because the story was that calvin was cruel. and -- everyone was appalled. there was nothing wrong. grace wrote a letter to his employer to help him career because now the secret service man had aspersions. that was

and the media, particularly in a more kind after sophisticated media like npr, cokie roberts, doing greatging those decisions and work of the supreme court into sharper focus and consequence into sharper focus but this court will decide obviously the healthcare issue. and they will make that ruling. and of course, i have no doubt they will time it, you know, they will probably want that decision out there right away to nullify the osama bin laden anniversary. these guys are completely political. this is the most aabjectly supreme court. i'm only 54 years old. there are many supreme courts before my time. but in my lifetime i can't believe we would be in a court with worse decisions. bush v gore. and changing the country for political reasons. i add friend tell me once that he was at a party, and a member of the supreme court back in 2000 was at this event and they were watching the national -- the returns coming in. and this supreme court member was saying that the gore was going to be chosen the winner. and the member of the supreme court said, oh, god that can't be. they overheard this

thank you very much, cokie roberts. [applause] >> thank you. and excuse my silly wrist, this is evidence that ladies of a certain age should be more careful. [laughter] and welcome, all of you. i must say it is very brave of you to come here today. [laughter] secretary sebelius, um, you know the secretary of health and human services, former governor. secretary lahood, secretary of transportation, former member of congress. secretary napolitano, secretary of the department of homeland security, also a former governor. and dan tangor linney who you probably don't know. he is the really brave person because he is the acting head of the general services administration. he was at treasury for a long time and was in charge of management there, so it's good to have him at general services administration now. but it is a rough time. it is wonderful that we are having public service recognition week because we need to be doing that in this period of time. um, just on the way in on npr i was hearing complaints about immigration rules, you were being pic

steve roberts and cokie roberts were close friends of ours. they were doing the same thing we were. raising their children in traditional fashion but we often talked on weekends that you could put on costumes and the if not part time hippies you could skirt around the edge of what appeared to be a liberation movement of some kind. wasn't true for every one. there was the silent majority. a lot of people like ron ziegler and haldeman and dwight shaven. they were the straight arrow country club set. there were lots of cultures in play in california in those days but on monday morning i would put on a shirt and tie and jacket and pursue my career as a journalist. >> host: are the parallels to be drawn from the 60s to today? >> guest: there are some. the separation between the values of the parents and many of their children were not -- are not as great today as they were then. i had this mythical family i describe. imagine someone joining the marine corps at the age of 18 and went off and fought across the state and came home and married his high school sweetheart and got a good job in