he raised it in his first meeting with george bush.s is going to be the number-one issue of your time. that was before september the 11th so i think good things have been done differently? almost certainly. any decision you can go back over it but i think on the big picture, on the leadership he showed, the leadership the government showed, i was privileged to be there and i am very proud of the part that i was able to play. >> final question then. >> yes, can i just ask a couple of questions and reflections from you? the first question, you described to us before the break about the shock in discovering there may not be any wmd. when did you first realize how difficult the aftermath might be ended the strike even the same way? >> early, seven days, i think seven days after the invasion, there was a meeting in which john scarlett talked about sort of the real difficulties, the sense of the americans really not knowing, not appearing to have a plan that we thought they did, really serious questions starting quite early. >> and what was

and the second george bush it kroez agarose ag government -- >> you got it, he grew government, hold on, hold on -- >> it different pay -- >> increased when tax rates were cut under reagan and revenues, amount of money that came in, increased -- >> but david. >> hold on, victoria. go ahead, vickie. >> go ahead, vickie. >> increases in capital gains tax typically lead to lower revenues of capital gains. so you don't see the increase that you want because that -- those investment dollars go elsewhere. so these tax hikes -- >> but vick it increases at the level george bush was okay with, in 2001. >> quentin you complain about other people overtalk and you do it all the time. >> there we go, quiet. go ahead. >> and we take -- back to the '90s level and that was the decade of capital gains and the decade we had, nothing and capital gains and your s&p 500 index, nothing. so the '90s was higher capital gains, taxes had higher capital gains. >> goodness, we writing of history, soviet style and under clinton, thanks to a republican congress we cut the capital gains levy from 28 to 20% an

george bush, if you like picking our brains about this whole anti-americanism, and what our analysisor where it came from, how much, how real it was. so they were conscious i think of different strands of public opinion. and i think back to the point of this being kind or three different bits of the government, i probably overstated, the white house, the state department, pentagon, all different places. but i think certainly the people i was dealing with and the prime minister's discussions with president bush, they got some of the broader political and issues attached to this. >> there was a lot of common ground and you did not explore in some depth for the differences of emphasis like and what that would mean in the longer-term? >> but in a sense, this was an issue that was being played out in the public domain all the time. so there was -- the difference in emphasis was evident for all to see. for example, later on in the process, i can remember when we got onto the whole business of forgetting 1441, it is later the pursuit of the second resolution, that george bush was pretty cle

george bush's phrase, the war on terror, reduced bush's individual enemies to a generalized extraction. as if osama bin laden and all muslims who violently oppose the actions of the united states are so profoundly immoral and alien that they can't even be con fronted as human beings but can only be seen as a saleswoman of creatures to be exterminated. creatures who we imagine to be unable to understand human speech. creatures that communications is simply not possible. to call the concept on the war on terror is simply say, yes, it is hard to believe that any human beings could be so inhuman has to crash planes into the world trade center. it's also hard to believe that any human beings can murder the entire families as the british did in the days of the empire. or rape and murder innocent islanders as the japanese did in world war ii or systemically, relentlily, drop explosives from airplanes on the peasant villages as the americans did in the vietnam war. the americans happened to have destroyed the city of hiroshima with an atomic bomb. so americans who tend to be shocked by the vil

george bush used it an anti-american scentment. john kerry had to deny the fact that he spoke french. you do have this kind of slightly sort of ambivalent attitude. >> what katty is saying is so true. there's no other country in the world that would let anybody move here -- and yet americans are still very skidish. it's so schizophrenic. chris: let's go back to, he's an old democratic liberal. is that a vulnerability for the president? >> i think it is. if you look at what happened in the off year elections particularly in virginia, which is a classic swing state. if you look at what's happened to independent voters, a lot of it is driven by concern about the amount of spending, the size of the deficit. now we've got to be fair to barack obama. i don't think they've taken the credit for this. the $800 billion in stimulus. chris: that their punching bag. they keep hitting that $800 billion punching bag. >> america understand our core of our strength. there is that -- we're spinning ourselves into absolute oblivion. this is where it

and george bush was able to do that very well after 9/11. president obama gave a very good speech at' hood. but he seemed a little bit more removed from it. we're seeing sort of the big bear hugs, which is on a political level -- chris: isn't that him? he is the cool guy. >> he's a very cool guy. he's very reserved. he's very level-headed. this is a lot of reasons why he likes that. people want a president who's not hot-headed. chris: i was impssed by the fact that he is too cool and he is very cool at the right times. he seems to have detachments at the right time. >> it would be a terrible mistake for him to try to project something that he's not. that would come across as inauthentic for hi politic. people want a sense that our decisions are connected to -- chris: is he narcissistic. --? >> i think one photograph of him carrying "gq" is not a nar cyst. >> i think the coolness thing is it. i do people -- think people appreciate that he's temper mentally well suited at the presidency. they said the same thing about herbert hoover. i think t

i was extremely upset, being a disabled veteran, 1 george w. bush host: let me jump in here, because we're running out of time. what is your question or comment? guest: this is a question i have recently started asking my friends about voter fraud. which of the three largest cities in the u.s. have a reputation, whether it is deserved or not, for having corrupt elections? host: i am not sureç of this cn answer that we want to take a stab at it? guest: never be wrong picking cities in louisiana and new jersey. host: let me get to some criticism of the book from howard kurtz's column. he is referring to the quotation that came out about what harry reid said in private about barack obama toç john holliman, why don't you take that? -- john heilemann, why don't you take that? guest: in our author's note,ç we mentioned that we conducted the interview on deep background, basically what howie writes in the peace. it is not complete, the description of all the conversations we had with our sources to talk any great detail about how the interview we did co

. >> did you ever feel this way that any of george bush's state of the union speeches? >> i must admit i had my moments with george w. bush's speeches. i found some things of commonality in george bush's speeches. i think the fact that you can argue with what ever you want to argue with what george bush but nobody attacked this country. he made us safe. i think he really responded to that and i think the history books are going to treat him, and on that. i think the tax cuts or something that strategically needed to be done. i think also we should have found a way to pay for those as we go far because they hurt us there but again there are some things i found very moving and george bush's administration and things i worked with him on. i am a democrat who's worked with republicans to it i think i can be one who can turn that around and get some republicans to work with us. we've got to do it together. >> david scott, democrat of georgia. >> thank you. >> we are here live in statuary hall and i will be the end of the live coverage following the president's state of the un

, george bush sr. said well, we have now buried the vietnam syndrome in this sands of the arabian peninsula. where poetic statement out of the white house. [laughter] but, the fact is we have not buried the vietnam war govea thumb is coming back to haunt us and people are thinking about that more and more everyday. if people remembered vietnam they would remember how the calls for withdrawal that came early on, i must say in 1967, two years after we were escalating the war. in 1967 i wrote a book, i love to advertise my books-- i will try to resist it later on, but i can't resist this one. in 1967 i wrote a book called vietnam, the logic of withdrawal and i must say the first book, there have been a number of books on the war in vietnam and mine was the first book that called simply for the united states to get out, not equivocating, not setting timetables, not saying we will get out if and when, we are not going to go to paris to negotiate for five years and six years. leagis tett to get out. and the

. >> since you brought up history, look at george w. bush, 2001 approval rating, 86%. >> around the same time. clinton '93, approval rating 54%. george h.w. bush, '89, 17%. reagan, back in '81, approval rating of 49%. all gallup polls i think. cnn "usa today" gallup polls. it's got to be causing some, some pand wringing in the wus? >> the only one that's relevant. because with george bush -- >> reagan number opinion 49%. >> yeah. dealing with, he's dealing with the fallout from the carter years. you have 18 1/2% interest rates. so that's a relevant number. clinton's number completely irrelevant. he inherited george bush's bull market. the economy's booming. the george bush number is completely irrelevant because of 9/11. none of the numbers vaguely comparable. the only one comparable, herbert hoover what obama's dealing with. obama dealt one of the worst hands in the history of the countries. go back and look at abraham lincoln's approval ratings which were terribly low and that's what's relevant. the other things are, those number, complete

george bush vastly increased spending while cutting tax revenues. the structural deficit that he built in and left to president obama simply cannot be sustain sustained, but how soon our friends on the other side of the aisle forget. in fact, as this next chart shoarks the national debt limit had to be increased seven times -- seven times -- while george bush was president. president bush inherited from president clinton a $5.95 trillion national debt limit. and by the time he left office, his reckless spending and his tax policy favoring the rich at the expense of working americans necessitated a debt limit almost twice as high -- at $11.52 trillion. we should not take lightly the borrowing expansion that we are now forced to pursue to help recover from the bush economic meltdown, but we should also not forget how it is that we ended up in this position. each borrowed dollar brad under- each borrowed dollar borrowed under the bush administration includes a debt service cost and the republican explosion of debt tbeen 2001 and 2009 now makes everythi

democrats didn't have a problem with it when george bush was in office.e absolutely need to look at strategies going forward, and i hope the administration starts to look at this as priority number one. given the fact that over the last year that a majority of the american people believed that the economy should be issue number one, yet democrats continued to focus on health care tells me they're still going to pursue other issues like climate change, immigration, when they should be focusing on this as their number one priority back to washington. >> larry: peter, hold up. isn't the economy and health care intertwined in a sense? >> i think, they are. the economy and health care happen to be massive of issues for tens of millions of americans that don't have jobs or health care. of course, terrorism is a significant issue. what you tend to find with dick cheney and other republicans is they make terrorism seem as if it's the only threat that america faces. let's put it in perspective. this was a much smaller attack attempted on 9/11, and it failed. i thi

and i watched the debate and it always think, well, george bush didn't do well.gore won that debate. he was very informative. and so at the end of the debate i would wait for the post debate coverage. sure enough they would say things like george bush was really funny, he did a good job on the debate. and i'm looking, going, did they just watched the same -- the media telling people that do as i get calls people's bank jason, i don't know, it looks like george bush won that debate. they're getting that information from the media. i got the idea then. but then once i saw obama at the convention give his speech back in 2004, i thought if he got a chance to run out be interested to see how the media tries to parse what he says and take them on. the book just wrote it so. from the first day of the democratic convention on. the first chapter in the book is called these people. every network i would check, i just get during that game, these people. who are these people? i said to myself, it will be interesting to see if the republican convention they will say who are t

and it will live in infamy like the statement that george bush george bush made after katrina or during katrina when he said heck of a job, brown yes, about his fema director at the time. it was a combination of system not connecting the dots and human error in the sense that those who got the story from the father into nigeria should have known that this not an em bittered ex-spouse, it was the father concerned about a son who called from yemen, this is a high level of index of suspicion. and there was not an agency that you should have had. it was a combination of factors. >> mark? >> i agree with my colleagues. i just add this, that the irony is that janet napolitano, who was and has a reputation as the first woman attorney general of arizona, as an u.s. attorney, as somebody who is serious, will in fact be remembered for this statement which understand trying to reassure people at the same time that you're trying to get -- it was totally wrong. and this is a massive screwup. but it involves individual accountability and responsibility as well as systemic problems. this isn't just a

and a lot of the spending went up, a lot of the things that hurt republicans and i think george bushn many ways, particularly on foreign-policy and protecting this this country from terror. but he was a liberal in some ways and i mean other than the fact that the countries going to be a third world country on the basis of this stimulus bill, other than that little detail i am enjoying being in the insurgency, the angry insurgents instead of having to be the governing majority. >> host: and almost makes you numb amah doesn't it? >> guest: gap. >> host: i think people are starting to wake up to it. let me ask you this. keeping your heart, is there a book i may be an esoteric topic that you'd kind of like to do even knowing it might not be a bestseller, maybe even a bio on clare boothe luce. >> guest: no, nothing on the nonfiction realm. the only unusual thing i'd like to write someday is a novel. but generally, your agent wins when you say that because everybody wants to write a novel. >> host: you could do something you like after seven months. i've done some interviews by liberals wh

he is not doing this because george bush wants to do it. was his genuine belief that iraq had to be confronted over its continued defiance of the united nations and over his continued attempts to develop the. but his disposition and that is a policy pursued the whole way through, right to the point of the house of commons vote, when you heard from mike boyce on the telephone to america. write to that point the prime minister was hopeful that the scripting could result peacefully. right up to that point. the whole way through, understanding that if it did come to military action, if that came the only feasible route to go down to make this discernment happened, then he would want to persuade the capital in parliament to commit forces to do that. >> okay. then i'll move on to the september 2002, when you accompany the prime minister to camp david for a further meeting with president bush. and i think you participated in a discussion which was to build a kind of international support for action against iraq. what were the rationales discussed

and george bush said senior, the smarter one, -- george bush said in, well, we have now buried the vietnam syndrome. in the sands of the arabian peninsula. a rare politics demint out of the white house. [laughter] did well, the practice we have not. the vietnam syndrome. in vietnam is coming back to haunt us and people are thinking about that more and more every day and people who remembered the and on, they would remember how the calls for withdrawal that came early on. i must say in 1967 to years after we were escalating the war in 1967i wrote a book, i looked -- i love to advertise my books -- i will try to resist kids later on. but i can't resist this -- i wrote a book called bignami, the logic of withdrawal. mine was the first book that called simply for the united states to get out. .. >> we can't do that, there will be chaos. there will be chaos? in vietnam? there was chaos in vietnam. we were bombing vietnam into eternity. were destroyed vietnamese villages. we were destroying their lead. we were killing their people. ultimately, 2 million people died and it noncom and we mustn't l

que de nuevo fue por a gobierno de george bush, los demÓcratas aumentaron en la cÁmara del senado.unen noviembre son pÉrdidas demÓcratas a consecua univde una polÍtica totalmente equivocada no es cierto que estos fondos del gobierno que estÁn malgastando esta administraciÓn estÁn aplicados a los pequeÑos negocios de bajar los impuestos. lo que barack obama cree es que el gobiernpuede solucionar los problemas a travÉs de una burocracia en washington. yo le digo a los tséñ@bhddkph@univisi@ >> el presidente llevÓ a cabo una cumbre para la economÍa y hablar sobre la regeneraciÓn de empleos. invitÓ a empresarios de los negocios pequeÑos y lÍderes de nuestras industrias porque Él sabe que yo son los lÍderes. y que ellos son los que tienen la responsabilidad de generar empleo. tenemos que poner en pie las polÍticas pÚblicas que ayuden a ellos a regenerar empleos. >> marÍa, adolfo me quedan sÓlo segundos. la Última palabra por favor. >> esa reuniÓn de la que habla marÍa es una reuniÓn cumbre para el presidente tratar de vender sus ideas ya formadas y planteadas asÍ que ningÚn sentido, eso fu

just use the google, as george bush called it. he said the words terror and war on terror and terrorism many times. i think he understands it. we disagree on how to fight it. bay, we can't do it militarily. you can't go bomb yemen. >> you take action when they come after us. just as we did in afghanistan, stephanie. and that is absolutely certain. we must take strong action today. >> but that's a straw argument. at no point did president obama suggest we should not take action. i've never met anybody -- even dennis kucinich doesn't say we shouldn't take action if someone attacks us. it becomes a straw argument to suggest president obama doesn't want to be tough on terror. >> larry: amanda, the right wing is criticizing he doesn't say terror. i believe he said it 11 times today. >> he said it and talks about how this was an attempted act of terror. i want to say the most shocking thing that came out of the press conference today were statements made by janet napolitano. she was asked what were the most surprising things she found i

they grew up in river oaks down the block from george w. bush. she went to st. john's which is one of the finest private schools in america. george w. bush wanted to go to st. john's but they wouldn't let him and so he went to kincaid which isn't a bad school, another very prominent powerful school but they were in the same orbit. just down the block from each other in the river oaks area and they mingled with the country clubs and they were in the nexus of the high energy and political world in texas. senator john tower drop by the house. just the kind of environment, she grow extremely conservative and began resisting -- back on track should begin looking at things i think she felt were seditious, something the was going to bug the crap out of her father, and she began reading a little publication that a friend of hers had in her house that clearly was not welcome at the speed delete the ivins house also would was called the texas observer, 32nd sales pitch, if you believe molly ivins and fierce journalism by a copy of it, subscribe, go on line, told them you l

president george w. bush begins his second term.ope john paul ii, the world' pope dies and 17 days later german cardinal rahsinger elected to the papacy and taking the name the 16th. and michael jackson found not guilty. and suicide bombers underground. hurricane katrina hits new orleans and the gulf coast, elliss we've got to start with you on that one you're a louisiana native. your memories of the coverage of it. >> two categories, in the early days, marvelous, early print and television that did ensure even though the government responded so ineptly to it that eventually americans would need to respond to it. of course, we have a short attention span in the media coverage and years later gosh, i wish we could get people interested in it again. >> jon: jim. >> i agree the initial story was compelling and astonishing to people things could go this wrong and a story line that was all george w. bush's fault and satisfied them completely for the years after that. >> jon: 2006, the sago mine disaster in west virginia, 13 miners trappe

the low point* came when george w. bush wrote a letter to aerial chevron and gave recognition of some of the israeli settlements and to go parts of israel and wrote in light of new realities on the ground including already existing major israeli population centers it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations would be full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949. this is unfortunate for several reasons on the one hand it gave every incentive for the israelis to continue to change realities on the ground what incentive do have to preserve the status quo when the last remaining superpower says they would recognize the reality on the ground and it also lou took away her from the demesne of the critical question for america to agree on that position compromised america as an honest broker in any peace process. obama new america face day credibility problem of any revived peace process and to prove that he calls for a total freeze on all israeli settlement construction. the arab world took that

where is this in relation to what george bush called the war on her so will the parliament have a say. what we are trying to do was answer these questions over time and the thing that decapitating there is no one thing that will get through any one point. you've got to keep sitting of the documents. so we planned this, i don't think he thanked me for that much but we, having so i'm going to go out and take on the people who disagree with us we sort of for the example i discovered about the feb dossier and its province we were doing a very long and extended program a field with an audience. we had a thing with trevor mcdonald will literally the brief was to go to find women totally opposed to what we were doing, filled the room and the time mr. sits down and takes all of their questions and tries to answer them. so that was a part of the communications. and the rest of it was just the fact every week he is in parliament once a month he's got his press conference fairly regularly before this committee out and about. there was nothing i would say that we had a beyond realizing that we we

guest: george bush talked about that too.y find out it is easier said than done a lot -- a lot of it takes some restraint and a majority party. if they take the attitude is this president and the democratic majority has that we will do it our way and we do not need or what republican support, then you would see what will happen with the health care bill. you just got all 60 democrats in the senate to go along, and the majority in the house. they could still pass it on their own if they do not listen to the message. i think it will pay very dearly in november, 2010. i think the president said today, he called peter mcconnell and said let's talk about what you need. i think they would respond favorably. most of us come to washington not to devote an on everything. will lead to make a positive difference -- and not vote no on everything. when he did not show openness to meeting in the middle, it makes it impossible for the minority to have impact. guest: health care is not dead? guest: there are a lot of people meeting behind cl

they grew up in river oaks down the block from george w. bush. she went to saint john's, which is one of the finest private schools in america. george w. bush wanted to go to saint john's but they wouldn't let him in. so he went to kinkaid, which is not a bad school also. another very powerful ride school. but they were in the same area. they just live down the block from each other in river oaks area. they went to the same country clubs, they were in that the nexus of the high-energy and high political world in texas. senator john tower would drop by the house. john tower would. that's the kind of if i'm she grew a. she begin resisting, get back on track, she began looking at things -- i think she felt were seditious and he said. something that was just going to bug the crap out of her father, and she began reading a little publication that a friend of hers had had in her house that, you know, clearly was not welcome at the ivins house. although it was called "the texas observer." unit, 32nd sale pitch, support "the texas observer." if you believ

iwhvas very critical of the bush a9%mqipáion in a lot of different ways, even though i was a member of the republican leadership, and i was a foreign policy adviser to georgeresidency içç, but i had beey critical ofççxd him in years , and then met with nancyççmçç and her party began to control the congress -- began to oppose the president in waysç by sougt the congress should have stood up to him. up to him. no carrierringconnect 2400s i said, the real testç of your speakership is going to be -- this was even before the democratic primaries were completed. i said, if the democrats feel like a president and you are still speaker, will you stand up to the president then if you need to go -- if you need to? there is something here that really bothers me, not only about the nature of the presidency but about the nature of congress and how it is the vault. -- evolved. my hero is james madison, probably the greatest hero who ever lived, who really understood the kind of system required to keep of people free, and madison warned about a lot of things. he warned most about political parties and what has happened is we have devolved into a political syste

you know, the george w. bush that i saw every single day in the white house, in the oval office, in the roosevelt room, talking to troops on airs force one, there was a gap between what i saw and what the public perception was. i think people will get a better sense of who this man is. host: question in the back, go ahead, please. caller: as counselor to the bush administration, you said that you helped oversee the surge in iraq. what advice would you have for president obama for afghanistan an possible future involvement in pakistan? guest: my point is that i was there at the time that the surge was taking effect and we were seeing the positive benefits of it, and so i was involved in, you know, how are we talking about it, how are we conveying the information about what is going on with the surge, but the president, as commander in chief, made the decision to oversee the surge in iraq along with, obviously, general petraeus and general odierno, and others who did a spectacular job in that regard. i think in ter

i think george w. bush was not very good at that and i actually do not think bill clinton was very good at that. the irony is that obama may be returning us to a diplomatic style, which i think to a large degree was reflected in george herbert walker bush. host: moving on, cleveland, republican callers, go ahead please. caller: i just want to give you a quick background. i will make a comment and then as the professor a question. i came from egypt and i was born in the 1950's during the egyptian revolution. we believe that the united states was good. however, [unintelligible] i came to the united states and i have a lot of jewish friends. i have visited israel and i see the world completely different by coming year. my question for you guys is, number one, if we would like to improve our relationship with the arab countries, we have to show them that we support the arab countries and the muslim countries are getting rid of these oppressive regimes that are treating the people very badly and pushing them tow

obviously the administrations of george h. w. busha administration have worked and we have seen a lot of resources go to haiti and the haitian people. t(we obviously have a vested interestç in the government and the people there. he asked them to come together in an effortq similar to the one to was done for the tsunami. we will have more details on that in the coming days. again, our focus right now is on ensuring that what resources and capabilities we have are gotten to the region and gotten to haiti as quickly as possible to affect that window of time for search and rescue. >> can you tell us if they have at least initially agreed to go >> i'm sorry. both of them have agreed to take part in this. i did not have details past that at this point but in the very, very near future we will as we focus and for the time being on the search and rescue. ç>>ç on banks and bonuses, the president sounded particularly angry today. çwhat made him catch up with te street and the outrage of the people? >> i would remind you that little more th

the reason that is crazy is i mean i believe that some point george bush, they did have to have someestrictions. why is that? it is because liberals show up and start screaming their heads off. that is what the problem is, crazy liberals. he did not have college republicans disrupting speeches by michael moore i promise you and by the way i wrote about this in my last book the college lecture circuit and one interesting fact about it is at harvard, at the good schools, it basically any ivy league school and the equivalent they are not standing up screaming and they are not throwing food. they are smart enough. i will take questions until they have collapsed of exhaustion. in the southern schools they are far too chivalrous and bright i might add, the best region of the country, the self. it tends to be the bush league schools out in the middle of america were obviously there are some smart students. but, you also have some students who probably should not be a college in baird ginned up by lunatics like bill ayers college professor of. 82% of the membership in the underground is teac

it is sort of george bush in drag. [laughter] [applause] >> tom, would you like to weigh in on that? >> i don't think i can say anything that is going to top that. but there is a basic problem here, which is that in foreign policy terms, we cannot afford to throw anything out in terms of what may or may not work. our problem with the neocon is that they were doctrinary in saying we must not talk to people who we know who are our enemies. we must always rely on military power. and the world in which frankly military power ranks far below economic power as a way to move nations and do things. so, i think it is very early in the obama administration to make any summing up kinds of things. i think the most important thing that any of pfizer can say to the president is no. in presidents get tahir that very seldom. but, in terms of obama's foreign policy what they really have to say is yes, we must try everything. we must look at all sorts of ways and also we must take from the neocons and from grammar in particular a very i

>> larry: supported by george bush, wasn't it, initially? >> i think the idea of, right, of making sure that we inject some liquidity into the economy was absolutely supported. but what happened was it injected too much money into the public sector and we grew the size of government rather than stimulating the private sector job development that's needed. >> larry: hill? >> i don't think there's anything in president obama's policies that are talking about tearing down the wage payer. you know, i think that he wants incentives just like everyone else. i agree with arianna. we want to figure out different ways. now, here's the deal. do we have groups of people that are just saying no, no, no, no to everything that's proposed and nothing gets done? now there's no perfect panacea, no perfect policy, but if we do nothing, we can't progress to start to amend it to make it better. >> larry: we have another issue to discuss. i want nancy to get in on it. years from now, how will we look back on today? as the great recession? or as the recession tha

the people who were at the top when george bush and detainees were in office -- george bush and dickheney were in office. this is what the republicans have been talking about. no one has been killed by an outside a tttack from someone outside the united states since obama was in office. who will benefit from this attack? thank you. guest: the political point on this is something i tried to stay away from. it is not really what the central question is for me. the political implications of a terrorist attack is sort of irrelevant. host: let's talk about the difference in tone between president obama and president bush. it is something that your colleague, peter baker, writes about. president obama intentionally takes a different tone and reacts differently, even to the christmas day bomber. guest: that was a shift that was occurring in the bush administration, as well. if you look at the first homeland security security, tom ridge, and to look at michael chertoff, chertoff really shifted with the color alert system. basically, it did not happen under chertoff, except when there was the

you can't turn this economy that george bush left you around in a year. you're just not.orking. ben is right, we can argue about how many jobs it created, but it's working. >> all presidents get ridiculed. that comes with the territory. all presidents get ridiculed. that's the name of the job. some love you and some hate you. >> larry: you'll get a big boost tomorrow night. >> what could obama say that would make stephanie not like him? >> what would could he say that what? >> what could obama say that could make you ant grnot agree me? >> he would have to come and pee on larry's desk. i don't know. >> that's my point. >> larry: this panel is taking us down to the dredges. they will be back. david gergen is standing by. he's advised many presidents. we'll ask him about his advice for the president and his first state of the union tomorrow. john will be with us, too, columnist with "the daily beast" all ahead. ( sneeze ) transform drinks you want, into cold medicine you need. introducing fast crystal packs. a new way from alka-seltzer plus to... get cold and flu relief in

obama is no better than george w. bush. rowland martin and donna brazil weigh in. >>> plus, another "the situation room" right here in washington as you know. we'll take you inside the president's command and control center. you're in "the situation room". let me take this. wait, there's no such thing as a projector phone. no, it's the lg phone and projector. there's no such thing as an lg phone and projector. ta-da. what ? the man said "ta-da" ! introducing the lg expo smartphone and lg projector. only at at&t. ( laughs, click ) when you hear a click, ( clicking ) you know it's closed and secure. that's why hefty food bags click closed. hefty! hefty! hefty! so you know you've helped lock in freshness and lock out air... to help prevent freezer burn. be sure it's secure with hefty food bags. just one click and you know it's closed. hefty! hefty! hefty! ( click, click, click ) my congestion is so bad right now i really am looking forward to getting relief. i've never used afrin before. relief! oh, it's like night and day. ca

bill clinton, george w. bush, and barack obama? do you think they're examples should not be examples for the rest of us? >> i can't see into their hearts. [laughter] look, what we need to do is to take them at their word. not only the most recent presidents, but presidents, current political figures, but potential candidates for president. we need to take them at their word and see what they say. i, for one, am for taking them very seriously. bill clinton did not have much to say about serious principles in this way. he did have a very progressive bit about how he talked about america. he made a living on constitutional arguments. george bush rarely talked about the topic at all. indeed, if you look at recent presidents, and the study has been done. we have one on here at heritage. see how often presidents speak about the constitution and principles. recent presidents including president bush were very low in terms of those references. the current president actually talks a lot about these ideas and these principles, which is why i

i think a lot of policies implemented by the george w. bush administration were said to be based on supply-side economics, but in fact, they were not. they were making ridiculous claims and implementing unwise policies. they said they were based on supply side economics, and they weren't. i think some of the problems we had were developed from that misunderstanding. host: i want to follow occupy that point, because in your introduction you write about what remains when people think of supply siders is a caricature, that there is no problem that more and bigger tax cuts won't solve. talk radio and groups such as the club for growth and americans for tax reform ruth wasly enforce this view among republicans, even though it's obvious that the tax cuts of the george w. bush years not especially successful, that the economy's problems today are due primarily to lack of demand and not supply. why did the bush administration, in your view, get it wrong? reaganomics, that is, and supply side economics. guest: well, keep in mind, the president's father

momentous lean with the george w. bush and george h. w. sh to have a 9/11 and the fall of the berlin wall and a pattern that was not easy to identify. -- that was easy. we are searching for a pattern rather than reacting. that only the frame of the discussion today. i would take note that the lack of gender balance because i am sensitive to this issue. i would point out that the issue as a better performance than the random acceptances of our invitations. these two women could not make it even by telephone but their essays are in the magazine. some of you will note them quite well. immediately to my right, the henry a. kissinger senior fellow and a bed -- and a board member of the new american foundation. he is a distinguished fellow at yale. that is a big title. he writes regularly for "the new york times," "the l.a. times," and others. his most recent book is "god and gold." "american foreign policy and how it changed the world" receive the prize in 2002 and "god and gold" to him that last year or the year before. john is the albert milba

they offered nothing, except we're not george bush and we don't like iraq. >> i don't think republicans -- some republicans don't want to run that way. there is something interesting going on in the senate. which is that senator jim demint head of the senate steer committee is posing his own candidate to the 911 nnin j cornyn candidate. this is running against carly fiorina who is the candidate. this is the conservative pushed again cornyn's candidate charlie crist. the democrats say it means the republican party is again tearing each other up. i think it's good competition. if at the end of the day the winners are the primaries are supported by the republican voters. >> interesting trends starting in late 2009. two governorships in virginia and new jersey going republican. >> paul: right. >> you had some democrats in vulnerable districts announcing they're not going to run. party switch, conservative democrat switching to republican party. it will be interesting to see if the republicans can continue the momentum going forward in mid-term. >> paul: steve? >> could i raise a point about

referring to george bush i think he got this more than others in his administration if i can put it like that. there wasn't at least an understanding there were other countries out there and they had other interests. so flexible to give you one example where people talk about what was he able to do in relation to george bush i remember at hillsborough i think it was april 7 or april 8th where the u.n., the issue of the u.n. aftermath was piled agenda for whatever reason that time and condoleezza rice was very quite insistent any words that were agreed at the meeting at hillsborough were not too forward in relation to the role of the u.n. and she wanted to say it would be an important role and i can remember saying that sounds a bit grudging and this kind of meant to be and the prime minister said look this has got to be stronger than this and i think if i'm right finally agreed there would be a vital role for the u.n. and i was important but subsequently the u.n. did become involved the aftermath sliding fee exchanges, the relationship at the top level between the president and prime min

i am pleased president george w. bush and president bill clinton had agreed to lead a major fund-raising effort for relief. the clinton-bush haiti fund. i went to thank both of you for returning to service and leading this urgent mission. this is a model that works. after the terrible tsunami in asia president bush turned to president clinton to lead a similar fund. that effort raced resources for the victims of that disaster -- that effort raised resources that helped rebuild communities. that is exactly what the people of haiti need right now. every day that goes by we learn more about the scope of this catastrophe any. the suffering that defies comprehension, families sleeping in the streets, injured and desperate for care. many thousands feared dead. that is why thousands of american personnel are on the scene working to distribute clean drinking water and food and medicine, and tons of emergency food supplies are arriving every day. it will be difficult, it is an enormous challenge to distribute this ate quickly and

more than half of that deficit actually occurred during the george w. bush era in which this congress was controlled by the other party. i'm being a bit partisan here but these are the facts. now, what was left to us to clean up when president obama came in? the greatest recession since the great depression. the statistics are clear. look at the job losses, the way they accelerated during the bush era. and look what happened when obama and the stimulus package came into place, we saw a reversal of that. we're now building the american economy once again. one final point and this was brought you up by our colleagues here and -- brought up by our colleagues here and this is the investment in education. this is a long-term investment. before i took this job i was a regionent at the university of california and i watched the enormous decline in support to that university. 40,000 students are not at the state university and the university of california this year. those are the people that will need us in the future, they will not be available to us. the stimulus

they offered nothing except we're not george bush and we don't like iraq. >> well, i don't think republicans-- some republicans don't want to run that way. there's something very interesting going on in the senate which is that senator jim demint, who is the head of the senate steering committee is posing his own-- south carolina. own candidate in opposition, in california come up with a candidate conservative businessman named chuck debore who he's running against carle fee or rina. in florida o'rubio, against charlie crist. the democrats will say this means that the republican party is once again tearing each other up. i think it's good competition, if at the end of the day the winners of those primaries are supported by the republican voters. >> and you'll have interesting trends in 2009. the two governorships in virginia and new jersey going republican. >> right. >> and you had some democrats in vulnerable districts announcing they're not going to run. you had a party switch, conservative democrat switching to the republican party. so, it will be interesting to see if the republican can

during the administration of george w. bush again, many momentous events. just to mention one because time is running, i led the fight for embryonic stem cell research, the specter-harkin bill to use federal funds to use stem cells which had enormous potential for curing the maladies of the world. a veritable fountain of youth by injecting stem cells into diseased cells. president bush vetoed the specter-harkin bill, vetoed it twice, but now with president obama, there has been an executive order and senator harkin and i are continuing to push for legislation because legislation has more pharmacy than an executive order. an executive order can be changed by the next president. and then the obama administration -- administration of president obama. got to know senator barack obama, had his office down the corridor from mine on the seventh floor of the hart senate office building. and when he came forward with his proposal for a stimulus and i took a look at what was happening on the economy, i was concerned that we would slip back into a 1929 depression if w