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

quick, victorious war, and george bush said, sr., that is the smarter one-- [laughter] george bush said, 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.

george bush 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% and boomed the market and clinton said sensible things like welfare reform and signed that into law and no taxes on the internet and put that into law and reduced the capital gains levy on housing, a good, solid thing so those things work and raise taxes on capital you get less of it and less risk taking and lesser, long term growth and whether kennedy reducing tax rate, reagan, whenever it has been done it works. >> quentin we do desperately need more risk taking and banks

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 union speech. you can watch this online at some point in the evening. you will be all to watch all the intervie

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, completely irrelevant. >> what has been dealt now, he has to partner with wall street, right, and the banking system to try to get it out. >> some of that partnering or talk of it is not in wall street in the good for his numbers. >> not going so hot. >> is fat cats better for husband numbers. >> not sure. speaking of fat cats roman newspaper rag, average 2008 pay of the banks who received the bailout money. that's 2008. 2009 we're hearing some giving up a bonus, some restructuring, some of them are not going to allow cash compensation for the highest paid people. does america, i guess and the white house, is their relationship with the banking industry getting better? in

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 leave because there will be chaos in vietnam? so we stay. in 1967 when a few of us were calling for withdrawal, we were stated and what was the result? another 30000 american dead, another 1 million been amazed at. so same arguments today. we mustn't leave iraq, as if our presence in iraq is preventing civil war. the question is, is our presence preventing civil war or is our presence of provoking civil war? and i think the answer is clear, just looking at the history of these for years of our occupation in iraq, iraq is a mess after four years. and the numbers and numbers of iraqi dead and would are enormous, into the hundreds of thousands. so yes, the history is useful. and not the history that you get in the traditional textbooks, but the history that a citizen learned or himself or herself when he says and goes to the library or listens to the independent media, when a citizen reads alternative journals instead of simply watching cnn, and fox news. so yes, history is very useful. it still is today. and i think that one of the things we might learn from history, and this is very important, very important conclusion to get from the long history of this country. it's that the government's interest are not necessarily the same as ours. in fact, are really the same as ours. because if you think that governments interest are the same as yours, then you think, well, if something is going wrong it must be that they made a mistake because they really care about us. they don't care about us. the government does not care about its own soldiers. if it did it would not send soldiers into the quagmires of vietnam, and iraq. it would not send him into a situation where they will come back main or without arms or legs or they come back with her psyche destroyed, if they really cared about the soldiers and cared about the families of the soldiers that they would not be taking the wealth of this country and squandering it on $500 billion this year on the military budget. that's a hard thing to grasp, that the government does not have the same interest as us. it's hard to grasp because we grew up in a culture where the language of the culture predisposes us to think, yes, we have a common interest, the constitution starts off with a preamble, we, the people of the united states, cuba, establishes. it wasn't we, the people establish the constitution. it was 55 rich, white men who established the constitution. i know you're not supposed to say anything about the founding fathers. [laughter] >> they are our fathers. we are all one family. [laughter] >> not so. founding fathers were slaveholders and merchants and bondholders, really. they set up a government that was more democratic than other governments were. they set up a government that was independent of england, but they did not set up a government that was a government of the people. they set up a slaveholding government that was going to do the interests of the bondholders and the merchants. the interests of the government in the interest of the people, right from the beginning, were not the same. and that same difference of interest has continued down to the present day, all through -- look at the history of legislation in this country. it's class of legislation. it's legislation that has always benefited the upper classes. there's always been subsidies for the corporations and subsidies for the railroads that they didn't call it welfare. when the government began helping poor people, they called it welfare. when the government gave hundreds of millions of acres of land to the railroads, they didn't call that welfare. but the legislative history of this country as a history of legislation favoring the rich, to put it bluntly. and there were some breakthroughs, some oddities, there were some moments in history when this was not true. in the 1930s, something happened. in the 1960s, something happened. what happened is that people rose up all over the country and demanded change. and the demands grew so loud and so threatening, that didn't come in the 1930s, we got social security and we got unemployment insurance, and get subsidized housing. in the '60s we got medicare and medicaid. so there have been moments in our history when the people and their desires and their anguish over the situation has broken through, and then we got legislation that moved away from the traditional class, upper-class legislation of the government. but it's extremely important to understand this conflict of interest between government and us. otherwise, you would think, and the young guy going off to war while the, well, wish this interest was the same as mine. it's not. no one is excellent interests the same as mine. nor halliburton's interest is the same as mine. know. that's a very important thing to learn. i think from history. and when you learn, when you study the history of the united states, you do not see the kind of country that we all learn about when we go to school, which is a kind of america. we're not different by the way than other country. countries everywhere teach their history and a nationalist way. they are all prideful of their flag and their anthem, and you know, their history. and the united states is no different. except that we are bigger and better and stronger. [laughter] >> but we are -- we grew up in this country singing the star-spangled banner and liberty and justice, pledging allegiance and all that. we grow up with the idea that we're special, we are different. we are the boy scouts of the world. we help countries across the street. [laughter] >> we -- we are good. we have our little problems, like slavery may be. maybe we weren't nice to the native americans. you know, we have our little problems, but basically we're okay. when you look at the history of this country, we were not. we were not. we destroyed the indian civilizations. we expanded into the caribbean. we expanded into the pacific. we send our young people into war again and again. we did not take care of poor people when poor people organize, when workers -- were organized into unions and went out on strike, the government called out the place and the national guard to suppress their strike. that's the history of labor struggles in this country. it's not the kind of glorifying history that too many of us, you know, grew up with. and when i say that, when anybody says something like that, that there is a kind of fear of saying it. you're putting in our country. you are unpatriotic. no, i'm not putting down our country. when i am honest about what our government has done. i am putting down our government, yes, but there's a distinct between a government and a country. there's a very fundamental principle of democracy, and the government and the country are not the same. the government and the people are not the same. that's the basic idea of the declaration of independence, which has governments are set up by the people. they are artificial creations. they are set to achieve certain ends, the right to live in liberty and the pursuit of happiness, equality. and when governments become destructive of those and, according to the words of the declaration of independence, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government. that's serious. those a revolution in which. after all, it was a revolution. and something about a revolution that brings out some honesty and also brings out the idealistic language and hopes and dreams, which may not be realized because the dream of the declaration of independence was not realize, but it is there. it is telling us that governments are not to be obeyed, simply because their governments. to be patriotic is not simply do what the government says. to be patriotic is to subscribe to the principles of the declaration of independence. to check up on the government to see if it really is fulfilling its obligation to take care of our right to equality, for life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. and patriotism, the best sense of the term, means follow those principles. and when the government doesn't follow those principles, the government is being unpatriotic. so we must be honest about ourselves. about our history. about the history of our government are and i think that we need -- maybe we need some concession on the part of our government leaders, and acknowledgment, you know, like alcohol synonymous? [laughter] >> where they get up before and confess, yes. and maybe, you know, cheney and bush and the others should get up, you know, form a group called in playlists anonymous. [laughter] [applause] >> and tell the truth, and that is what they're aiming for in the middle east is not democracy and not liberty, it and they don't really care about the overthrow of tyrants like saddam hussein. our governments have supported tyrants all over the world. know, what they really care about, this is hard to say. oil. it seems so means, so cheap. the oil will not be cheap. but it seems, you know, really it's just oil, yes. its oil. history comes in handy there. the history of american policy towards the middle east has been based on the desire to control the oil resources with the middle east. that's been true since the end of one or two. ever since president roosevelt got in and they made a deal. the unite states will replace the old oil powers of the dutch and british and french in the middle east, and in return the united states will support the government. talk about democracy. the saudi government, the government of saudi arabia all this years have been far from democracy as you can find. we did not invade saudi arabia to give democracy to saudi arabia, because saudi arabia gives us oil and is our ally in our quest for oil in the middle east. so yes, history is are useful in all of these ways. i guess our problem is, once we accept what the reality is, once we look honestly at what we have done and what we're doing, and the question is, you know, what do we do about it? and are we helpless to do anything about it? because i think that's a great problem, that people, even when they oppose the government feel helpless to do anything about it. and so we don't see, we don't see today, although most americans today are opposed to the war, and most americans today are opposed to the bush policies, we don't see a connection between that opposition and any kind of change in policy. we don't see the wishes of the people represented in what the government does. we are not seen the kind of actions that took place during the vietnam war with a passive opposition to the war that became more than passive when it became civil disobedience. we saw soldiers beginning to refuse to go back to iraq. we are. saying that we are opposed to this war. but the fact is we do not have democracy in foreign policy. that's a very important thing to knowledge. because we're always talking upbringing democracy everywhere else. we do not have democracy in this country when it comes to foreign policy. we learned in school, we have three branches of government and we have checks and balances, and the legislator will check, you know, the executive and the supreme court will seek if things are constitutional or not. that doesn't work in foreign policy. the president decides on war, and congress goes along like a bunch of sheep. really, that's what they did in the mexican war. that's what they did in the spanish-american war. that's what he did in the world war i. that's what they did with the vietnam war. when was -- did they know what happened in the gulf? it turned out to be a mass of lies. but they merely voted to give lyndon johnson the authority to launch what then became a very long war in vietnam. there's no democracy in the matters of foreign policy. and no checks and balances, no hope that congress will stop and say hey, let's look into this. let's see if this is true. know, and no hope for the supreme court deciding that a war is unconstitutional. and we have not fought the constitutional war since the end of world war two. constitution requires that congress declare war, connors has not declared war. in any war that we have fought. to have been many world war ii. you learn in school if something is unconstitutional, it's the job of the supreme court to say so and do something about it. know. after all, who are the supreme court? just because they wear black robes doesn't give them any special moral standing. they are apolitical appointees, and they do the bidding of the people who appointed them. so if they don't have democracy in the upper reaches of government, and we can't depend on checks and balances on representative government, then obviously i think it leads us to the thought that we're going to have democracy, it depends on is that it depends on the people. and distorted, that's been the situation. historically, when working people found out that the government is not going to do anything about the 12 hour day, they organize. they went out on strike and they won an eight hour day. when black people in the south saw the government not just the state government, but the national government, was not going to do anything about racial segregation or brutality in the south, then black people organized. they demonstrate. they went to prison. they were beaten. some of them were killed, but they created a national commotion which finally brought democracy alive. and that's the situation we're in today. we need to bring democracy alive today and it requires the actions of ordinary people. and we mustn't despair about the fact that the government has all the power. the government has the fbi, they have all their secret apparatus. they are watching us. i don't think i'm paranoid. [laughter] >> they really are watching us. and they love that. so our job is to watch them. and we have to understand that despite all the trappings of government, which indicate that they are all powerful, they have the military, they have the money, they have the security apparatus and so on. the fact is, historically, and here's where history comes in handy, the most powerful governments that had to change policy when the people demanded it. when an outcry grew so great, when the pressure from below grew so great that it appeared threatening to the government, then the government had to change policy. we have seen governments toppled. we have seen tyrannyis toppled all over the world that seem to be impregnable. you know, in the philippines, suddenly the dictatorship, marcos was totally in charge, he wakes up one morning and there are millions of people industry. he leaves. really. this is happening place after after place. in haiti, quick, get out of here. the people are rising up. the fact is, governments like all powerful entities are vulnerable. the government needs people to obey its in order to keep our and people stop obeying the government loses its power. corporations the people to work for it. when people stop working for corporations, then the corporations help us. we saw this in the 1930s with a general motors and ford. huge corporations. we're not going to a union here. but when the workers left the factories, or even when they sat in on the factors and wouldn't let production going. general motors was helpless. and so it's important to keep in mind that the power of the establishment rests on our obedience. when we start disobeying, that's where thoreau comes in, and that's where the great people in our history coming. that's where helen keller comes in and goldmann comes in, and mark twain comes in, and eugene debs and martin luther king, that's where they come in. and when that happens, then something will change. our job is to purchase but in that process. and to light a fire under these wishy-washy democrats who have just one an election, and you're sort of falling back timidly and they want to pass nonbinding resolutions. how about a binding resolution? [laughter] >> yes. [applause] >> how about holding hearings on impeachment? [applause] >> and impeachment -- talking about a double impeachment. i'm talking bush and cheney. because, you know, they go together. know, impeachment is not a radical solution. some people act, impeachment, they come of the thought of impeachment. in the high reaches of the democratic party, we mustn't talk about impeachment that impeachment is a constitutional measure. it's right there in the constitution. the president may be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. what bush has done has not met -- does that not match the requirement of high crimes? sending us into war, lying to us, taking away our liberties, taking away the lives of thousands of americans and subjecting so many of them to mutilation and a terrible future, does that not make the requirement of high crimes? we have to talk to our congressmen or congresswomen. we have to talk to them, and let them know how we feel. we have to beef them up and stiffened their spine am a tell them to get going. because it's a situation that cannot be tolerated for too long. i have to stop him because i have to give you a chance. also the orthodox definition of treason speech is the speech he gives 50 minute and give the audience five minutes. freedom of speech. freedom of speech means the president can speak to millions of people, i can speak to a few hundred. it's a free country. [laughter] >> keep this in mind and keep this in mind about what the government says we will not retreat, we will not give in, we will stay no matter what. to ask them what about the people? what about the fact that most people are opposed to this? well, that doesn't bother me. well, we have seen that in history. we have seen people say, i will never yield. i will never give in. and they gave him. when enough people got together and enough people organized, they gave him. we've seen that again and again. i remember george wallace getting up before a crowd of a few southern supporters, and sang in segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. and a wild applause. two years later, the segregation signs were down in the south there can wallace was campaigning in the black neighborhoods for support in his presidential race. things change. things change. it's up to us to move that change along. it's up to us to bring democracy alive. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. >> we're going to take questions for about half an hour. there are two microphones up here. if you can line up in the side aisles, if you have a question, and villages go back and forth starting with this one and into that one and go for half an hour, and then we will do book signings that if you have questions, feel free to come up to the aisle. >> as you know, i came from a how to ask you this question so i will try to make it good. and i took off the yankees at. [applause] [laughter] >> being a community organizer

george w. bush and george h. w. bush 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 milbank professor at princeton and the co-director of the princeton project on national security and has been a transatlantic fellow and has served on the policy planning staff of the state department and has written several books. richard is a resident fellow. he was chairman of the defense policy board and assisted the secretary of defense during the reagan administration. stephen is the second of our telephone speakers is a professor of natural relations -- national relations. he has written six books and dozens of journal articles. he writes and publishes the political blog "the washington note," and appears regularly on television and radio. he was the first executive director of the nixon center. will is the president and founder of the progressive policy institute which modernizes progressive politics for the local stage. they helped create many of the new democrat ideas for the clinton administration and influences and works with european parties as well. he is the co editor include " memos to the new president," and others. finally, ronald steel professor emeritus of international relations at the university of southern california. he has previously taught at texas, dartmouth, rutgers, ucla, and princeton. he has a problem holding down a job. [laughter] he ended up in a good place. he has written in lots of other places, so really a terrific group. he is the editor for "the american interest" in a predecessor he was a staff member for the national security study group that the u.s. commission on national security which is the commission and an aide to haig. he was at penn and has authered several books. welcome adam to get us started. [applause] >> i will not take up much time because i want to hear the discussion. i want to it express the magazine's gratitude for setting this out. we should do more of these co- sponsor ships in the future. what i was trying to do with the symposium -- there are 16 contributions. we have here seven or so present or on the phone. it is good that the representation i tried to evoke is a microcosm represented by the people we have. i am sorry jessica and and could not pull their weight on this one. -- jessica and ann. i think it will be represented pretty well. that is what i was trying to do, really. there's nothing cerebral or special about what i did. i went to get a group of experienced and intelligent people to do the best they could in sizing up the first year. not to get lost in a particular subject, but to stand back and look at the intersection of politics and policy on a large scale. on the one hand and with domestic politics and policy on the other. but everyone did all of that, but most people took a stab at the right the local level to do it. i think we got a pretty interesting group of essays. i didn't take a spoon or a knife to carve out a lot of overlap because there was not a large amount. various views, policies, attitudes all comes through. the personalities of the authors and i did not have to do much. i am grateful for that. we do these things from time to time in the american interests. i want to let you know one peculiarity. everyone involved with one exception is an american. i could have solicited views from people all over the world about what they thought obama's first year look like. that would have been ungainly and hard to control so i kept it just to americans. i went to mention t that about one year ago we put out an issue called "the global election"in a similar symposium. what is the upcoming election in the united states mean for you? we had a 25-27 short pieces from all over the world none of whom was an american national. now we are balanced. thank you for coming. i will turn this over to steve to get us under way. >> all that is left for me to stay -- say is we're going to start with 5 minute statements by each of the participants and you are free to sit or stand and walter you are up. i take note of c-span's preference but feel a lot to be controlled. walter, your first. >> it is great to be here at the intersection of two of the real interests in my life. i have been associated with the new america foundation really since it started. i very much enjoy being a member of the board and i am also on the executives editorial board of "the. american the" two of my obsessions have come together. -- "the american interest." have started a lbl -- blog pse i contributed was originally a blog post the villains from there. -- the piece i second -- piece i contributed. i wanted to talk about the intersection of history and politics both foreign and domestic. president obama really invited us to do this and maybe more than he knew one year ago. as you recall, there were a lot of comparisons of president obama and president lincoln. i was nervous when i started hearing all of that is one of the things you notice about president lincoln if you go back and look at his record is he did not sally into washington talking about the comparisons between lincoln and georgeashington. if anything he was trying to keep expectations low rather than high. i think if there is one thing that president obama has been learning in his first year in office is that it is really hard to be president of the united states. [laughter] really. it is a nightmare of a job. american power is about two contradictory things. on the one hand, we are a global, leading power and going for stability keeping the status pretty much quo. on the other hand, there is a dynamic, seating source of innovation and capitalist renewal -- dynamics seething. we heard the leading are still is -- the leading arsonists and are causing as much problems reading the internet than we are invading iraq. we are blowing up the status quo at the same time we're trying to defend it. the president of the united states is caught at the board tax of these conflicting pressures. -- the president is caught at the vortex. the biggest event since the issue came out is the conference in copenhagen where you saw

george w. bush and asked if he would take part in an effort similar to the good idea that he had around what has happened in haiti. obviously the administrations of george h. w. bush, the administration of bill clinton, the administration of georgeo 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 than one yearxp=ì(lc the president was angry in the awful -- in the

george bush actually. previously. 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 georgebush 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 these people, john ensign mccain, who are these people. but i never heard that. i heard it from judy woodruff say that. and i love judy woodruff, but i heard her use the

george bush did and with katrina. however, i have one more thing that has nothing to do with haiti. george bush is not president anymore. so why does obama keep trying to outdo so to speak what georgeh should have supposedly have done? he did not cause katrina. but if george bush had been president, he would have caused this earthquake. >> host: we'll leave it there. and touch on the budget issue she brought up. how can the united states pay for this? how much when you were at the state department -- how much of the state department's budget went to the western hemisphere in general? can you give us a ballpark figure? >> guest: it's not so much of the budget of the united states. but it's looking overall at the u.s. budget. last year the u.s. bilateral support to haiti was in the range of about $250, $275 million. that will probably -- certainly go up because of the cost of the -- of the immediate emergency support the united states is giving. but more importantly, when in 2004, aristide left the country and there was a change in government. there was a big effort to enlist the international community through the coordination of the world bank through a major donor's meeting. to pl

george bush did in katrina, however, i've got to say one thing that has nothing to do with haiti -- george bush is not present any more so why does -- president anymore so why does obama keep on trying to out do, so to speak, what george bush should have supposedly had done? he did not cause katrina, but if george bush had been president he would have caused the earthquake. host: we will leave it there. tectum the budget issue? how well the united states pay for this -- touch on the budget issue. how much of the state department's budget gone to the western hemisphere in general? guest: it is not much but budget of the united states but looking over all. last year u.s. by letter of support to haiti was in the range of 250 million, $275 million. that will probably certainly go up because of the cost of the immediate emergency support the united states is giving. but more importantly, when in 2004, aristide left the country and there was a change in government, there was a big effort to enlist the international community through the coordination of the world bank through a major donors meeting, to pledge more than a billion dollars in additional short-term support for haiti. this probably is what is going to be needed h

george bush and detainees were in office -- george bush and dick cheney 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 liquid bomber's threat from london. michael chertoff was already intent upon bringing down the kind of hyperventilations that occurred. i think that obama has continued to that. to some extent, terrorists succeed if they get the united states into a frenzy, even if they are not successful. terrorism is as much about the killing of people as it is about the terror and the destruction that it causes. the administration has to be careful to not overdo its response. if the president would have gotten on a plane and come back to washington from his vacation -- to some extent, that would have suggested that even though the attack in detroit was not successful, it would have been successful. i'm sure that they weighed what is the appropriate reaction? i think there definitely gauging what is the appropriate response. i think the public is well served by that. host: daniel on the independent line. caller: good morning. i understand that the journalist you have would prefer to avoid the political implications, but unfortunately it is impossible because it ends up shaping the policy. the reason that dick cheney, karl rove, and all the bush people, the reason they say all these outrageous things is because they know that today modern-day journalism will not call them out to avoid the conflict. our society, are functioning government, requires journalistic integrity and the ability to call things out there are ridiculous so we can improve an. guest: it is not something that i want to get engaged with. that is not my job. at the washington bureau of "the new york times" there are a lot of reporters. there's the political shop and the homeland security shop. and not a political reporter. -- i am not a political reporter. we are writing about the political aspects. it is not what my job is. host: how politics impact the policy of homeland security. guest: there's a question -- the first response from the administration was this half- hearted thing. they suggested they meant the system worked after the attack. and then the president's remarks were pretty subdued. when he was still on vacation, he said there was a systemic failure and the man should not have been allowed on the plane. there was a huge shift on what the president and the administration had said from one day to the next. how much of that was political? i think it's a valid question. how much was it that the president's people were sensing that he was appearing to be too subdued, and that they weren't being aggressive and critical and of? and how much was that they learned more and concluded it had been a huge failure? there's a good chance that politics played a part in the change of the tone of the president. it was at least a factor. yes, politics plays a part of everything in washington. it does not need to dominate discussions about protecting the united states against an attack. host: north carolina on the republican line. caller: what was said before that, the same policies are in effect between the bush administration and the current administration -- that is not true. they have changed the chain of command drastically when they took the cia and made it a secondary role rather than the primary role. and the fbi has moved up to the primary role. do you have anything to say about that? guest: there was a lot of changing of rules that occurred after september 11. now there is the director of national intelligence that the cia reports to. the fbi plays a much greater role in investigating domestic terrorists plots. there have been significant policy changes regarding the treatment of suspects by the obama administration. i do not know that there has been a change in exactly who is in charge of investigating and trying to prevent terror in the united states. as far as i'm aware, there have not been changes in the distribution of responsibilities so far. host: last phone call for eric lipton. oakland, calif. on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have listened, and i really believe that what he is trying to say is good in terms of the fact people need to understand the same individuals, whether their roles have changed or not are the same individuals who worked under dick cheney. president obama, for a year now, we have watched. he is not quick to jump to conclusions. he processes things. he looks for answers before he gives. he looks for what is going on before he comes out and gives an answer. it is a total change from what we had for the last eight years. when 9/11 happens, we were already in an uproar about bush winning the presidency. when that happened, republicans, democrats, or independents, we all came together as one nation. for the republicans to pounce on this when this is their dysfunctional system of government -- obama has not even had a chance to see if the system works. we now see that the system that dick cheney put into place does not work. host: i want to point out the "usa today" editorial is about the issue that you have b brought up. their view is that in today's partisan world, no opportunity is wasted. writing in opposition is former house speaker newt gingrich, who says it is profoundly wrong policy and that criticizing president obama's terror policies is not partisanship, it is citizenship. eric lipton, homeland security reporter for "the new york times", thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: when we come back, we'll turn to iran and what is happening in that country. we will talk to executive director kenneth timmerman, foundation for democracy in iran. >> president obama welcomes award winning teachers to the white house today as part of his educate to innovate campaign for excellence in the so-called stem fields, science, technology, engineering, and mass. it follows its usual daily economic meetings. this is after a two hour meeting yesterday with his national security team on the christmas day bombing attempt. more on that issue from the chief of staff for the national security council, speaking earlier on cbs "the early show." he says president obama will follow through on all intelligence leads. peter king of new york, the leading republican on the homeland security committee, spoke earlier on abc and cbs. he says there's a disconnect between the intensity of the president's rhetoric and what he proposes to do. he said that if the situation is as bad as the president said it was, someone will have to go. the interior ministry of the yemen it says that officials have arrested three suspected al-qaeda of militants. it is the latest move in yemen's efforts to crack down on al-qaeda. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> i'm always concerned about the potential unforeseen consequences of new regulations. regulations of any kind act as a tax. when you tax or regulate something, you tend to get less of it. >> this weekend, republican fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: kenneth timmerman is here to discuss what is happening in iran. secretary of state hillary clinton addressed the issue yesterday. here's what she said >>. >> we have avoided using the term deadline. we want to keep the door to dialogue open. we have also made it clear we cannot continue to wait. we cannot continue to stand by when the iranians talk about increasing their production of highly enriched uranium and additional facilities for nuclear power that very likely could be put to dual use. host: here is the headline in "the washington times." what is your reaction? guest: the iranians have been trying to play out the clock on this for many years. every opportunity that they did, they will continue to do that. their goal remains constant, and that is to develop nuclear weapons capability. whether or not they build nuclear weapons is another story. we know they want the capability. we know they have enough nuclear weapons material to construct approximately two bombs, if they choose to do so. we are just talking about whether or not, united states is prepared to live with a nuclear iran. every signal sent by washington is that we are prepared to deal with a nuclear iran. host: what about china saying yesterday that they will not consider sanctions on iran? guest: it is no surprise. the chinese have never indicated they would be favorable to sanctions. those who believe they would be are deluding themselves. the russians have been slightly more amenable. the only reason they have been amenable, according to my information, is because they got a wake up call this summer when the iranian regime apparently pulled a fast one on them in an attempt to smuggle missiles on the arctic sea to iran without the explicit approval of the russian government. this is why netanyahu went to moscow secretly in september. it was quite a controversial story. that appears to have changed mr. putin's thinking somewhat. he will go along with sanctions to a certain degree. he will not go along with helping any outside effort to topple the regime. host: secretary of state hillary clinton said they will move forward on sanctions if iran does not respond. ahmadinejad has said you can give us all the deadlines you want, but we do not care about deadlines. what is this administration talking about when it comes to tougher sanctions? guest: that is a good question peter yet i can tell you what the congress is doing. the administration does not like that. i can tell you what other outside groups are doing. this administration does not seem to like that either. host: what are congress and outside groups doing? guest: congress has passed two bills over the past six months, which i think are very positive. you have one that was championed by senator mccain and senator lieberman. it was signed into law by the president. it includes money to help victims of iranian censorship. in other words, to provide technology so protesters can get around censorship of the regime. this will enable the pro- democracy movement to be able to organize. that's a very positive thing. the administration does not like it, but the president signed into law. the proof is how the money is spent. my foundation applied in the bush administration to help the pro-democracy movement in iran. we were told exclusively that they did not want to do think tanks and studies. they wanted this money to go right into iran. we said we can help you do that. so we put in a proposal to do essentially was going on right now, which is internet human rights monitoring, to flood the country with tiny little video cameras and have secure internet portals where they can get the information out. the state department professionals got ahold of that and said it was way too provocative. so let's do think tanks and studies. the proof is in the pudding. host: about the unrest in iran, how does that tie into the negotiations over its nuclear ambitions and what moves the u.s. makes and other countries make? guest: it is interesting. i think ahmadinejad is playing a very canny game. this is somebody who thrills in his defiance of the outside world. there were probably 30 people killed in the latest demonstrations on december 26 and december 27. he does not care about that. the regime does not care about that. they used the demonstrations in a way to play out the clock. president obama came into office saying he would immediately open negotiations without preconditions. immediate from january 20 until october 21. that's a pretty stretched definition of the media in anybody's book. ahmadinejad benefited from that. widely administration did not move faster is a story i cannot tell you. host: about the student protesters that we were just showing the video of, does this weekend the president and the supreme leader? what is the status of both of them? guest: in tehran without any doubt whatsoever, we are seeing the most massive, organized, intense protest movements since the iranian resolutiorevolution. this is not localized in tehran. it is not one segment of the population. it is not just students for young people. it is all across the country. it is in key cities. the leadership of the islamic republic feels the pressure. they're trying to put on a tough face. what you have, which is an interesting development, a former intelligence officers who now live in germany and other places to identify some of these people guilty of shooting into the crowds, or they have been photographed knifing people. they have identified these people and put their home phone numbers on the internet. this has had a really powerful impact inside iran. there are witches inside the revolutionary guard -- there are wedges opening up inside the revolutionary guard. even inside the supporters of ahmadinejad, the so-called hardliners. there are wedges and things that could be exploited if the united states had an intelligent policy to get rid of this regime. host: what should that be? guest: there are several things. i just got back from a trip in israel. and when there for the first time in april. i went back eight months later. there was a pretty backedramatic development. the israelis were no longer talking about military action. they were no longer putting the emphasis on the next essential threat to israel of iran's nuclear weapons. they now say, things have changed since june. since the demonstrations, the failed election, the stolen election, things have changed. there's a real serious challenge to the regime from inside. in my book and elsewhere, i used the idea of the two clocks, the nuclear clock and the pro- democracy clock. for the first time, the pro- democracy clock is speeding up. they told me they believe there's a serious chance this regime could go down the three things were done. one, there are serious, international economic sanctions. they have to be serious. they have to hit the regime hard. host: how do you do that? guest: you could do it through iran. you could also doing it through a cooperation of willie nations. germany continues to sell $5 billion of high-tech of the goods to iran. that is a lifeline to go iranian regime. that's the thing that needs to be reduced. in the other bill that congress has passed, that the president does not want to sign, would impose sanctions on companies that sell refined petroleum products. iran, which is one of the world's biggest oil exporting countries, does not make all its gas products. the import about 40% of its refined petroleum products. this is a choke point for the iranian regime. , said let's impose sanctions on companies that are selling refined sellingto iran. that would have a serious impact on the regime. the first thing is economic sanctions. the second is some hope for the pro-democracy movement. that does not mean military action. start with moral support. the president of the united states using his bully pulpit, as georgeush did, to say we support the rights of the iranian people to freely elected government of their choosing. president obama has never said this. president obama waited so long after the protests in june to say anything about the harsh crackdown and murder of demonstrators in the streets that some of the subsequent demonstrations began to challenge him by name. you could hear the chants in the streets. obama, obama are you with us or against us? some support from the united states. delegitimizing their regime. the third things the thi is to s keep a military threat on the table. not a threat, but you have the demonstrating capability. they have conducted two long- range aggressive operations to demonstrate a capability they have never demonstrated before. that is, there airforce is capable of carrying out a strike that would hit land targets. host: ken timmerman is our guest with us this morning. theresa on the democratic line, go ahead. caller: i am basing my question on time i have sp

than what priz bush proposed in his last budget, and president obama has proposed more debt than not only president bush proposed for our country, but from george washington to george w. bush, president obama has propose the more debt than all of those presidents combined. of presidents one through 43, president obama has proposed more debt than all combined, double our debt in five years and triple it over ten. i have to take exception to the caller that republicans were as bad as the current congress and administration. host: time for a cup 8 couple more questions in the back here. caller: i'm, i'm chelsea cole from yin pack university. -- from yin pack university. what about the taxing of the banks for bailout funds? guest: the imposing of taxes on mutual funds or hedge funds or the big banks, you know, the banks won't pay those. they will collect those from people putting investing money into those funds, so it's going to end up diminishing returns. it is a hidden tax. it is easy to say we will tax the bankers. that is going to be passed on and collected from the individuals who are holding those bank accounts, and i think that's a mistake. i also think it's a mistake

george herbert walker bush. in my view, he was one of the masters of working multilateral diplomacy. when iraq invaded kuwait in 1990, it was george herbert walker bush and his team that put together a major multilateral coalition through the u.n. to use force against iraq. that was a great example of multilateral diplomacy. 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

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 believe in molly ivins, if you believe in independent journalism, subscribe to it. go online, tell them you love it. the observer is defined in many phases by molly sensibility or her view of morality in terms of -- please support it. she began hanging out with a friend who was kind of curious. how was he described? a new york intellectual. >> new york doctor intellectual. >> writer new york intellectual jew, and he hung out with musicians i believe. she began hanging out with a friend -- >> musicians and poets. >> a little bit out of the orbit for molly's usual crowd at the house. she found a soulmate in school and began hanging out with -- well it would become her lifelong friend. so she was influenced or she found his publication, she found is called "the texas observer" and it was -- he was a secret pleasure. and having said that she was reading in the houston chronicle and hearing a lot about at saint john's. and she delves into it because she felt she had been excluded. it was a treasure and she burst herself in and studied it. i think took a pleasure as a teenager doing something your parents would scream over. so she went deep in that direction. she was also influenced at saint john's by an english professor who was unbelievably sadistic or if they knew what he was doing a school, they wouldn't have had him at school. he believed in, shockingly, the right to free speech. and he supported kennedy in a presidential election. my god, he could quote from artist hemingway and robert frost, and believed in voting rights and community drives that might seem kind of nutty in context in houston, texas, in the late '50s, turley '60s. in her orbit, very again almost revolutionary. she was influenced by the teacher at saint john's who somehow or rather getting away with is shaping of young minds in reading "the texas observer." she was off to the races. she was still on a prescribed path for a while on her way to, and very prominent schools of higher education. her mother had gone to smith, and her grandmother had gone to smith as well. guess what, that's where molly was going to go. and she was going to go there not to really pursue the same things that gloria steinem had pursued as this. she was going to go, get a little shine at a social level. i think her father -- i'm speculating that i think maybe he saw her involved in somewhere with the arts, but not in any incident to her level. maybe should be an educator. is not anything that touched on anything remotely political or truly sociocultural. she washed ashore at smith after a little hiatus at scripps. she didn't like the scripps a whole lot, right? maybe i will read that little portion. it's kind of a funny thing. i don't. i would just read you a little bit about molly, you know, going off out into the world. when molly begins leaving texas, she found people inordinately fascinated with texas. lbj, nina, was on the radar of course. something awful had happened in texas, and dallas in 1963. molly as she went around, and i know many of you have experienced this. i still do to this day. people ask what the hell's going on down there? what is it about that former country called texas that still behaves as a rogue country. and i think because she's predisposed to laugh all the time and have fun, and right up until the day she died, she tried to have a little fun and some of her inscription. even about some of the awful things in texas. she told people always when she went off to college at scripps and then at smith that she was from east texas. geographically, we could argue about that, what i guess houston is east texas, sort of kind of. but i guess you when you hear is texas looming, right. but she likes anxious to east texas. here's why. this is what she would say. over the years she would insist again and again that she grown up in east texas, not houston really. and this is from molly. these are her words. i grew up in east texas. i play basketball all over east texas. weasley in a town called back. is a big joke that i'm going to play in bed. let me take him to east texas woman are some of me is when on the face of the earth. we used by any small towns. the guards were almost invariably named after flowers. there would be lely, rose and violet. the forwards were always jewels, ruby, perl or opal. but it was tranforty we have had two names like ruby joe orton pearl and had always worked pink plastic earth during the basque ball games and they would look good at the dance afterward. minas woman i ever met. [laughter] >> so i looked harder does it way nowhere texas is? i don't believe it exists at molly was having some fun. i actually did with that with our fact checking. maybe there is. i don't know, but she was developing a voice when she went off to college. people would ask her, on a serious vein, what happened in texas with president kennedy, and he was lyndon baines johnson. dominating news events as molly was going at into the world. people really did want to have her explain. and so she began trying to describe the place where she had grown up and had traveled around a little bit. she would tell stories about preachers that she heard on the radio when she would be on car trips with her dad across texas, and people and at smith and at scripps. she went to scriptural one and transferred back to the east coast. they were entranced. it was the beginning of molly, the storyteller, and molly, you'll come having a little fun with texas, with texas mythology. she learned that people would be on the edge of their chairs and their jaws will be dropping, my would. they were passing with plastic chair covers during the game and they were mean? did you heard these preachers on the radio saying send your money to the station in houston, texas. and people were doing it. been on and on and on. it really did seem like an exotic world for a lot of folks. she realized people love to hear the story. she and provide them a little bit, had a little fun with. did she do it in a mean-spirited way? i don't think ever. right through her take on both bill clinton and george w. bush to task, i would argue with you right now, wrestle with you, molly never did it with acid tipped dagger appeared her humor is different. i hate to use the word tauber, because that suggests an elevation, to some sense but it wasn't like what you hear on some of our cable news shows. molly didn't do that. she didn't stoop to conquer. she didn't besmirch her argument by, never did. didn't do it. she was quite opinionated. [laughter] >> but she didn't do it to hurt you. she wanted to knock you off your high horse. she did that repeatedly. but she like to say that she was from east texas and especially at smith, the reason i wanted to linger. smith was where molly in some sense became radicalized may be overtly using that 10-dollar word. she got there at a time when betty fernandez coming back to campus to talk about the feminist stake in gloria steinem was making a name for herself as an independent journalist, address women's rights and women's issue in america, and the way that

george bush. we had a sense of urgency and it's been lost in the past year. >> larry: hold on. one at a time. stephanie? >> are you kidding me? what george bush -- that was a sense of urgency? he sat in a classroom looking like he went in his pats for god's sake. it took him how many minutes to respond? he flew over hurricane katrina how many days after it happened? that's ridiculous. the president responded when he had the information. >> larry: let me get a break. when we come back -- one at a time. we'll be back in 60 seconds. >> larry: president obama had a message today for the muslim world and also for al qaeda. watch. >> we know that the vast majority of muslims reject al qae qae qaeda, but it is clear that al qaeda increasingly seeks to recruit individuals without known terrorist affiliations not just in the middle east by africa and other places to do their bidding. that's why i've directed my national security team to develop a strategy that addresses the unique challenges posed by lone recruits and why we must communicate clearly to muslims around the world that al qaeda offers nothing but a bankrupt vision of misery and death including the murder of fellow muslims. while the united states stand with those who seek justice and progress. to advance that progress we've sought new beginnings with muslim communities around the world. one of which we engage on the basis of mutual interest, mutual respect and work to fulfill the aspirations all people share. to get an education, work with dignity, to live in peace and security. that's what america believes in. that's the vision that is far more powerful than the hatred of these violent extremists. >> larry: we'll be back with our panel right after these words. (announcer) we understand. you want to grow internationally. >> larry: amanda camp ter, let's start with you. what does the president do about yemen? >> he has to get some kind of promise they will start producing members of al qaeda. reports earlier this week they arrested three people. we're going to need a heck of a lot more than that before we start sending troops in ourselves. >> larry: stephanie? >> well, you know, yeah, i mean, i think this points up, though, larry, why the bush administration had the wrong strategy on terrorism and have no grounds to criticize the president now. the worst security failure in our history happened on their watch, despite numerous warnings. then they let the people behind it go at tora bora, attack the wrong country in iraq. they have no credibility in his matter. are we going to bomb yemen now? we need a fight a top-smart war on terror and need intelligence sharing. >> i think stephanie would have gotten the president's memo on behaving like citizens right now when we're attacked with these kind of attacks, but if you do want to talk about somebody that should be blamed is secretary janet napolitano. she was asked what was the most surprising thing that you -- >> larry: one at a time. one at a time, girls. >> we never politicized this after the shoe bomber. the right is the one -- >> larry: let me get bay and marc in. hold it, hold it. let marc comment then bay. marc? >> i tend to support president obama on some of these tactics. the reality is the obama administration certainly dropped the ball here. there's no doubt about that. president obama was courageous enough today to step up and say, look, there were enormous intelligence gaps. we had enough information to stop this from happening and we failed. should someone lose their job? perhaps. president obama is doing something wise by being deliberative and not reactionary. my concern with president obama with regard to yemen and iran, iraq and afghanistan, if we continue to engage in militaristic policies that galvanize terrorists and engage in language that's anti-muslim rather than anti-terrorist, we're going to continue to radic radicalize and recruit more terrorists. >> larry: in a serngs bay, he's saying we create the terrorists. >> he makes an excellent point. go over there to iraq, have a war, aggravate people and it ends up creating more terrorists than we kill. at the same time, when there's an act of war against this country and our commander in chief does not respond to something more than soft words, we are in trouble. they will come after us again. it was barack obama who said we're not going to use war on terror anymore because it's so offensive to people. we will talk about individual extremists or man-caused disasters. excuse me. hopefully from christmas day now he understands we are at war with al qaeda and he best respond as commander in chief and not in seem kind of english professor trying to come up with different words to talk about it. >> larry: don't you agree, stephanie, these are perilous times? >> well, yeah. that's a completely false criticism of the president, that the right is making. 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 th

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 love them. the observers defined by many ways molly's sensibility or ethos or her view of morality of journalism. issued began hanging out with a friend it was kind of curious he was described in new york intellectual >> new york dr. intellectual. >> he was a new york intellectual jew would and he had hung out with musicians. she began hanging out with a friend -- musicians and poets. a little bit of the orbit for molly's usual crowd. but she found a soul mate in school and began hanging out with who would become her lifelong friend said she was influenced. she found this publication, literally that is how it happened she charmed the texas observer and it was a secret pleasure. it had things she wasn't used to reinsuring at st. john's, i used to work at the chronicle so i know about that, but she dustin because she felt it had been excluded. it was a treasure and she immersed herself in the study did and to cut pleasure as a teenager something her parents would scream of. so she went deep in that direction and was also influenced and st. john's by the way by an english professor who was on believably seditious. if they knew what he was doing at school they wouldn't have had him at school they would have sent him down to some barrier on land in louisiana and cordoned him off. he believed shockingly in the right to free speech and supported kennedy and the presidential election. my god, he can quote from robert mufasa and he believed in voting rights and community food drives that might seem kind of nutty in context in houston texas in the late 50's and early 60's. that was in her orbit revolutionary. she was influenced by the teacher at st. john's getting away with this kind of shaping of the young minds and then reading the texas observer and she was off to the races. she was still on a prescribed path for a while on her way to a very prominent school of higher education. her mother had gone to smith and her grandmother had gone to smith as well. i guess that is where molly was going to go and she was going not to pursue the same things of gloria steinem, she was going to go to get a little shy and be burnished the social level. i think her father, speculating now, maybe saw her involved in somewhere with the arts but not any incendiary level. maybe she would be an educator but not anything that touched on anything remotely political or truly sociocultural. she washed ashore after a little hiatus one at scripps. she didn't like scrips a whole lot, right? mabey i will read that little portion. it's kind of a funny thing. i will just read you a little bit about molly going off out into the world. when negative molly began leaving texas, she found people in your monthly fascinated with texas. lbj was on the radar of course, something awful had happened in texas and dallas in 1963 and molly as she went around -- i know many of you have experienced this. i still do to this day people ask what the hell is going on donner? what is it about the former country called texas that still behaves like a rogue nation, and molly found herself at a very young age trying to explain us. and i think she -- because she was predisposed to laugh all the time and half on the right up to the day she died she tried to have a little fun even about all of things in texas. she told people always when she went to college at scripps and smith and she was from east texas. geographically we can argue about that. the cows come home in texas. i think you here in texas know what they really means, right? what she liked saying because here's why. this is what she would say. over three years that she had grown up in east texas. i grew up in east texas to when i played basketball all over east texas. we used to play in a town called bid. it was a big joke, copley in bed. the texas woman of the meanest on the face of the earth. used to play on the small towns. but guards were invariably named after flowers. there would be willing, rose and fi let. ruby, parole or opel. but it was east texas everybody had to names like robie joe or parole and and they always wore pink curlers in their hair so they would look good afterwards. the meanest man i ever met so i looked hard. does anybody know where bed, texas texas? molly was having fun. i actually linker and with that when we were doing our fact checking. but she was developing a voice when she went off to college because people would asked her on a serious breach what happened in texas with president kennedy and who was lyndon baines johnson, dominating new defense as molly was out in the world and people really did want to have heard explain so she began trying to describe the place she'd grown up and travel a little bit and she would tell stories about creatures she heard on the radio when she would be on trips with her data across texas, and she went to scripps for one year and then transferred back to the east coast. they were entranced. it was the beginning of the storyteller, and the molly having a little fun with texas in the texas lithology she learned people were at the edge of their chairs and there shall were dropping. they were playing with plastic curlers in their hair during the game? and then you heard these preachers on the radio saying fish send your money to the station in houston, texas and people were doing it and on and on and on. it seemed like an exotic world. she implied, had a loaf on with it. did she do it in a mean-spirited way? i don't think ever. right through her taking on both bill clinton and george w. bush to task i would argue right now, wrestle with you molly never did it with him. her humor is different. it wasn't of the caliber because that suggests an elevation in some sense but it wasn't like what you hear on some of our cable news shows. molly didn't do that. she didn't stoop to conquer. she didn't do it. she was quite opinionated. [laughter] but she didn't do it to hurt you we. she wanted to knock you off of her high horse which she did repeatedly but she would like to say that she was from east texas and especially at smith and the reason i want to link above for a quick second and smith is where molly in some sense became radicalized without her overtly using the 10-dollar word. she got they're a time that he was coming back to the campus to talk about the feminine mystique and gloria steinem was making a name for herself as an independent journalist who could address women's rights and women's issues in america and a way that hadn't been done before. molly had the dis

of executive power over the course of american history, from george washington to george bush to show that the kind of decision that the bushdministration was forced to make in the wake of september 11th are clearly within the tradition of the exercise of executive power over the ages. and although john and i might devil -- disagrees on our assessment of franklin roosevelt's exercise of that executive power, the point is that it's a mistake to have a very narrow and bush-deranged and antibush tainted view of how we're handling the war on terror, and obviously i think the obama administration is finally grappling with the gravity of these decisions, particularly just to wind back to some of the things we talked about at the beginning of the show, with regard to indefinite detention. >> host: michelle malkin, author and blogger, michelle malkin.com in case you would like to see her work. has been our guest for the last three hours on book

george w. bush declared a war on terrism, lead us to a war in afghanistan, aq, used very harsh measures against rrorism. in 2004 i ink andy would agree with thi george bush s re-elected largely by ople who may have been concerned abt his other polici, but were worried abt terrorism. 2080 tery unlikely that barack oma would have been nominated by the demrats if he we not so against the r in iraq, able to benefit fr an anti-war sentent. so if 2 2001, if those attacks d not happened, oudecade would have been veryifferent. >> andy, why not the econo, this is pocketok, close to people's heart and we had incredible crash at the en of the decade. >> yes, the onomy t wasn't only 9/11, 9/11 was the defining moment. but this w a decade that stard out bad, and then went to ally worse in the 19 -- in 1999 64% said t country s -- the national economy was inood shape. by 2001 into was dowto 36%. in 2009 it's down to 11%. we had a decade where e american public did not ge income gains, real income gainfor much of the decade d then it ends with this ashingly bad great recession, sthe economy is right behind 9/11 and it coloured my of the things that we think about and s

george washington all the way through george bush. there's no way to blame president bush for this situation. the total debt has reached an almost unimaginable sum, almost $12 trillion. this week the senate will take up an increase in the debt ceiling, which is the total amount of legal u.s. debt. that increase will come on the heels of a $290 billion increase in the debt ceiling that was passed late last year and another increase that was passed early in 2009 to accommodate the stimulus bill. interest payments on this debt are expected to reach $800 billion, just interest alone. $8 billio00 billion per year byr 2019. clearly, we have not entered a new era of fiscal responsibility but, rather, quite the opposite. of course, the most expensive piece of legislation passed last year was the health care bill. the $2-plus trillion bill was hardly a work of fiscal responsibility or bipartisanship. it passed both bodies of congress a partisan vote. the legislation will create a massive new entitlement at a time when america cannot afford its existing entitlement programs. the bill is filled with deals for the special interests. president obama said they would be banned from doing business with his administration. last week the white house reached a deal with labor union leaders to exempt until 2018 unilateral health care plans from a -- union health care plans from a tax that will hit many other americans. the bill also violates several key pledges that president obama made about health care reform. first, the pledge that it would be deficit-neutral. richard foster, the chief actuary for the centers for medicare and medicaid services, estimates that under the reform legislation, national health spending will rise by $222 billion over the next ten years, and the congressality budget office tells us that the senate bill double-counts the savings from certain medicare reforms. it uses certain funds to extend the solvency of medicare by nine years while exphul using those exact same funds to offset the cost of the bill. according to the congressional budget office -- and i quote -- "to describe the full amount as both improving the government's ability to pay future medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and, thus, overstate the improvement of the government's fiscal situation." in short, this bill is not deficit-neutral. t-the president also pledged that middle-income families would not see their taxes raised. this is the second broken pledge. as the republicans have explained repeatedly, this bill is packed with taxes that will hit many middle-income americans, including seniors and the chronically ill. in fact the senate version contains a total of 12 new total taxes. the third broken pledge relates to costs. president obama said that his health care bill would reduce costs. it doesn't. costs for many families will actually increase, thanks to a litany of new federal requirements and mandates. this whole process has also shown that the president's professed commitment to transparency was nothing more than a campaign slogan. he promised at least seven times that the health care negotiations would be aired on c-span, as he put it, so the american people can see what the choices are. but that didn't happen. as speaker pelosi reminded you the president promised a lot of things on the campaign trail. those who weren't invited to the democrats' secret negotiations did not know the details of the respective health care bills until just before each of them came up for a vote. and we're talking about bills that are more than -- excuse me, more than 2,000 pages long and contain hundreds of hidden provisions. even before the health care legislation is concluded, the president is proposing yet another spending bill, a second stimulus package. the stimulus bill -- they call it a jobs bill now -- that recently passed the house of representatives would cost taxpayers $260 billion more in deficit spending. i do not believe that the way to create jobs is to expand the size and expenditures of the federal government. i believe we must encourage growth in the private sector, not by taking money out but by putting money back in. it's understandable and unfortunate that job creators may be nervous about economic conditions. the economy is still schicky. -- the economy is still shaky. and taxes loom on the horizon, the u.s. economy lost another 85,000 jobs in december. a former chief economist of the u.s. labor department urged the administration to press the reset button on economic policy. she urged the president not to raise taxes, scale back federal spending, focus on deficit reduction, and reject the new environmental regulations that will drive u.s. jobs overseas. i hope that in the coming year president obama will consider more sensible domestic policies so that we can rein in the out-of-control spending that has characterized his first year. this would truly be change we can believe in. i'd also like to discuss the tension between rhetoric and reality in the president's foreign and national security policies. throughout the campaign, president obama pledged that he would improve america's reputation abroad and repair supposedly-damaged alliances. in september 2007, candidate obama said -- quote -- "america's standing has suffered. our alliances have been compromised by bluster. our credibility has been compromised." he said. so what has been the president's strategy for boosting america's standing? well, he's gone on an apology tour of sorts, the fundamental consequences of which, in the worlds of charles krauthammer, has been to effect kwreufpl undermine any claim america might have to world leadership. not only have these efforts failed to yield positive results they have led the administration to shun several partners. president obama came into office hoping to negotiate a grand bargain over the iranian nuclear program, embraced a policy of engagement with the radical iranian theocracy. so far this policy has done nothing to stop iran from developing nuclear weapons and brutalizing its own people. but it did prevent the obama administration from offering robust support to the pro-democracy demonstrators who flooded the streets last summer to protest a stolen election. rather than embrace the protesters who were standing up for liberty and human rights, president obama initially said that he did not want to be seen as meddling in the iranian elections. by the way, those protesters are still out in the streets waging a courageous struggle for democracy in iran. despite all these u.s. efforts to engage iranian governmental officials, the negotiations over iran's nuclear program have gone nowhere and the iranian president recently declared that iran will continue resisting international demands until the united states abolishes its own nuclear arsenal. we must remember that iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. a government that murders peaceful student democracy advocates -- excuse me -- activists. event over the past year have shown that the iranian regime is not a good-faith negotiator. now is the time to maximize leverage over iran through targeted sanctions. meanwhile, we must not take any options off the table if we hope to prevent an iranian nuclear weapon. the president's iran strategy was based on the idea that u.s. engagement would produce real concessions. well, that didn't work with tehran and hasn't worked with other countries as well, including moscow. despite u.s. diplomatic efforts the russian government continues to withhold support for strong u.n. sanctions against iran. it continues to bully its democratic neighbors like georgia and poland and it continues to practice awe though tehran domestic policies. america's allies in eastern europe are getting nervous. president obama's cancellation of a planned missile defense system in poland and the czech republic and the manner in which it was executed gave the impression that the united states caved in to russian pressure. there are few regions in the world as volatile as the middle easement unfortunately the obama administration alienated our closest middle east ally -- israel -- by pushing it to adopt a comprehensive settlement freeze. as elliot abrams has written in the national review, the administration has managed to damage the u.s.-israel alliance, weaken palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas and produce massive policy failure. we want a just and lasting solution to the israeli-palestinian conflict, but demanding unilateral concessions from the israeli government is no way to achieve it. as for latin america, it was highly regrettable that the u.s. imposed sanctions on honduras since the removal of former honduran president manual zalias was a constitutional justified act of democracy. a close ally of the venezualan leader, hugo chavez, the obama administration appears ready to recognize the validity of the elections. they should denounce his extra constitutional behavior. with regard to venezuela, the president's policy of engaging hugo chavez proved a failure, writing the weekly standard, costa rica's former ambassador to the united states says -- and i quote -- "if obama believed his personal charm and assurances of goodwill would be sufficient to sway chavez and the castro brothers, he was mistaken. indeed, chavez responded to friendly u.s. overtures by continuing to suffocate venezualan tkrorbgs continuing to cooperate with iran and rush and continuing to harass neighboring democracies such as colombia where chavez funded vicious narco-terrorists. in an editorial last spring, "the washington post" noted -- quote -- "this may be the first time the united states has watched the systematic destruction of a latin american democracy in silence." end of quote. meanwhile, pending free trade agreements with u.s. allies in colombia, panama and south korea still have not been approved by this congress. that represents yet another foreign policy failure for the administration and i sincerely hope the president urges democratic leaders to take action on these agreements sometime this year, preferably soon. implementing these three trade agreements would provide a boost to the u.s. economy and would also strengthen the u.s. position in two important regions of the world. i also hope the president resists the temptation to support protectionist measures that will hurt our economy and damage our foreign relations. in his first year the president signed a stimulus package containing protectionist buy america provision, agreed to discontinue a u.s.-mexico trucking program and imposed a tariff on chinese tires. these policies were economically foolish and they damaged america's credibility as a promoter of trade liberalization. finally a word about the administration's antiterror policies and its decision to increase the number of u.s. troops in afghanistan. i'm pleased that president obama has maintained many of the policies that were formulated by president bush, including the use of military commissions to try suspected terrorists. however, i'm disappointed that the president has decided not to use the military commission to try khalid sheikh mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and several of his coconspirators. giving these terrorists a civilian trial in new york city will pose significant national security risks. among other things it will compromise u.s. intelligence-gathering methods. the administration has chosen to prosecute several other terrorists before a military commission. so why not khalid sheikh mohammed? why should the highest-ranking al qaeda leader captured since 9/11 be given a civilian trial while other al qaeda members are given military commission trials? the war against al qaeda is just that: a war. it is not a law enforcement matter. but announcing khalid sheikh mohammed and other senior al qaeda members will receive a civilian trial, the obama administration signaled terrorists belong in the u.s. criminal justice system. they do not. these men are enemy combatants waging war upon the united states. the terrorists scheduled to receive trials in new york city have been held in guantanamo bay detention facility. when the president took office, he promised that guantanamo would be closed within a year. well, it's now a year later and gitmo is still open, as it should be. there is good reason that president obama has not yet been able to fulfill his pledge. closing gitmo is a bad idea. the process of removing those detainees who are still being held at gitmo will create a series of logistical problems and security threats to the american people. last month six gitmo detainees were sent back to their home country of yemen. just a few days later a nigerian man with throeufrpbgz a yemen-based terrorist organization attempted to blow up flight 253. the bombing attempt highlights the deadly threat posed by al qaeda's yemen affiliate. the administration wisely halted the transfer of gitmo detainees to yemen, but it seems intent to try the flight 253 bomber -- attempted bomber, i should say -- as a criminal defendant rather than an enemy combatant. that's deeply misguided for the reasons i've listed as well as the unnecessary difficulties it raises for our intelligence gathering. in hearings just this morning before the homeland security committee and the judiciary committee, there was testimony about the decision made with regard to this attempted christmas day bomber. and it appears that it was made by the f.b.i. locally in detroit and some high justice official yet unnamed. without going through all the intelligence groups that are given the responsibility under our laws to inter gatt enemy -- interrogate enemy combatants to achieve whatever intelligence gathering they can achieve during the questioning process, the first goal in fighting terrorists is to get good intelligence on them, and you can't do that when you read them their miranda rights and tell them they don't have to say anything more and that you'll provide a lawyer for them. most important front in the war on terrorism, of course, remains the battle for afghanistan. several weeks ago the president announced that he would be deploying an additional 30,000 troops to finish the mission. i strongly support that decision, yet, i also worry that the president has set an artificial time line for withdrawing american forces and that that will impede our efforts. the president declared that withdrawal would begin no later than july of next year. i hope he's willing to embrace a more flexible time line. military decisions in afghanistan should be determined by conditions on the ground, not by the political climate in washington, d.c. mr. president, let me conclude by discussing briefly how domestic spending constrains u.s. global leadership. the u.s. commitment to afghanistan has been costly and it will continue to be costly, as has our effort in iraq. and that brings me to the connection between u.s. policies here at home and what we are required to do abroad. while domestic policy is not written to influence foreign policy, it affects what we can spend on defense and security. president obama recently acknowledged the relationship between u.s. economic strength and u.s. global leadership when he said -- and i quote -- "our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. it pays for our military. it underwrites our diplomacy." and that o'absolutely true. our leadership is contingent on our prosperity and our ability to pay for a robust national defense. but massive amounts of new spending, new taxes and european-style government programs will weaken the u.s. economy and make it more difficult for us to exercise global military leadership. just look what happened last year. while $1.2 trillion was pumped into the stimulus bill and the majority in this chamber passed a $2.5 trillion government takeover of health care, the defense budget was practically frozen. missile defense has been cut, and there's been a reduction in the number of interceptor in alaska that protect us from a potential north korean attack. so there has to be a balance in spending of scarce resources. there's a tipping point at which excessive social spending chokes economic growth and in turn weakens military power. european nations can get by with relatively low levels of defense spending and high social spending because for decades they have enjoyed the protection of america's security upl pwrel l.a. as mark -- umbrella. as mark stein writes sweden can be sweden because america is america. if we become more like europe, if entitlement programs begin to swallow our whole budget, will we still be able to afford the burdens of global military leadership? i submit that military decline is not an option for the united states. as former secretary of state madeleine albright put it, we are the indispensable nation. that's what american exceptionalism means. it means that because of our unique history, our unique power and the unique appeal of our founding principles, america plays a very special role in global affairs. i fear that many of the policies adopted over the past year will make it harder for america to continue playing this special role. and i hope that during the year ahead the administration will pursue a more sensible and responsible course, as the american people have said time and time again that they want it to do. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. burris: the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized. mr. burris:are we in morning business? the presiding officer: we are in morning business. mr. burris:thank you, mr. president. ever so often in the winding history of our country there is an entire generation that is raised to confront the challenges of the moment. ever so often there is a movement so powerful that it changes the course of history. and ever so often there is a visionary leader, a person with singular ideas who come along exactly the right time to harness the energy of a movement and capture the imagination of the generation. these are rare figures whose names are etched into our national conscienceness, whose memorials dot the landscape of our capital and whose words and actions help to redefine the very fabric of our nation. mr. president, dr. martin luther king jr. was just such a leader. he rose to prominence as a key figure of the civil rights movement, but he came to transcend both the movement and the generation that brought him to national prominence. earlier this week, we came together as a nation to celebrate and commemorate the life and work of dr. king. this message of equality and fairness for all inspired the transformative civil rights era and continues to resound throughout the united states even today. a legacy of dr. king is ones that lives on through the service and goodwill of americans and communities all across the country. and dr. martin luther king jr.'s day serves as an annual opportunity for people across the nation to give back and to volunteer to help those who are suffering. it was his generosity of spirit that defined dr. king's life and work. and by living out his sellless dedication to our fellow man, we can honor his vision and continue the work he left behind. mr. president, the fact that i stand before you today on the floor of the united states senate is proof of the endid youring legacy of -- enduring legacy of martin luther king. out of the chaos and violence of segregation, dr. king found the strength to speak of peace, hope, and righteousness. where many saw hate an resen resentment, dr. king saw an opportunity to build bridges, to seek out the humanity of those on both sides and to appeal to the compassion that lives in each of us. there were some who lashed out with clenched fists. but although he knew he would be met with hostility, dr. king came to the table time and time again with arms outstretched. half a century ago most people could barely conceive of a world in which someone like me could address the highest lawmaking body in our land. few people could have dreamed that a day with a man with a mother from kansas and a father from kenya would be sworn in as the 44th president of the united states of america. i never thought i would live to see the day that i would see mr. obama as president of the united states. but even 50 years ago when such america could barely dream of such a future, dr. king knew this day would come. his vision never faltered in spite of the dark days he witnessed and the tragic violence and eventually took his life. the march toward equality has been long. it began long before dr. king walked this earth and it will continue long after all of us are gone. so long as this great nation endures, dr. king's spirit will live on in our highest as aspirations. his voice rings through our history. although he did not live to see the promised land, his steadfast gaze still guide our every step and his booming voice sets the a cadence of our march. and we know he will be waiting for us when we get there. in the future a monument to dr. king will rise on the national mall, just a short distance from the great building here of the united states chambers. he will stand shoulder toll showld with other -- shoulder toll shoulder with our giants in our history, washington, jefferson, lincoln and king. it is fitting this great leader should be memorialized alongside other americans who helped to build a more perfect union. as we observe dr. king jr.'s day earlier this week and as we continue to build this monument, it is my hope that we will keep his spirit alive in our hearts. our colleagues here in the senate, as dr. king might say, let us keep our feet on the march and our hands on the arc of history. let us look to future with the same fierce urgency that he showed us for more than 40 years ago. let us compete -- complete this journey together, arm in arm, and make dr. martin luther king's dream a reality. mr. president, on another subject, i would like to address the matter that's impacting our hemisphere that is the country of haiti. in recent days we've all heard the tragic news and seen the shocking images of the earthquake that devastated the nation of haiti just last week. even today more than a week after the earthquake, the full measure of this catastrophe is difficult to ascertain. relief workers have only just begun to go out into the cities and towns that surround the haitian capital. and we're starting to get initial reports from the outlying areas. the central infrastructure has been destroyed by the earthquake. shelter, food, and water in short supply. and it's nearly impossible to get aid to the people who most need it. but it is the human toll of this natural disaster that is truly the most horrifying. estimates have soared to include numbers as high as 200,000 people who may have died. and as many as three million who may be injured or homeless. mr. president, my thoughts an prayers are with all -- and prayers are with all those whose lives have been touched by this terrible tragedy who have died or who have been injured and those who cannot yet get in touch with their loved ones. i know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would join me in pledging steadfast support for the people of haiti in this time of crises. haiti is one of the poorest nations on earth, so this earthquake only compounded the challenges its people continue to face every day. there are shocking disparities between haiti and all other nations within the western hemisphere. and this tragedy has only widened the gap and exposed these disparities for all to see. that's why it is -- it's gratifying that in the wake of great calamity america has answered the call again. here we are, americans answering the call, mr. president. i commend president obama for his focus and timely humanitarian response to this situation and i applaud the excellent work of the volunteers, rescue workers, and military personnel who have been rushed to provide aid. they continue to save lives an provide care for -- and provide care for those in need. and i will work with my colleagues here in the senate and with the administration to make sure these people have the tools an resources they -- and resources they need to be a part of the recovery. americans have already made a difference in the lives of many haitians. mr. president, we can and should do more. the humanitarian crisis of haiti is growing more desperately by the hour in spite of the best efforts by relief workers, aid is not arriving fast enough and thousands -- thousands of lives hang in the balance. that's why the american people have already responded in record numbers to -- to request for help. they realize that in many ways the haitian people are no different than ourselves. and while they're not our own country -- countrymen, they are our neighbors in the world community and today they require our assistance and our help. the american supreme shown an extraordinary -- extraordinary capacity. volunteers continue to stream in the disaster area. here in washington, we must do everything we can to encourage people to keep giving and to make sure we can get supplies and assistance to those who need it the most. we must pledge ourselves to this humanitarian cause to the belief that in the aftermath of the great tragedy, we can help restore hope to the people of that beleaguered country. amid the rubble, we can help the people of haiti to rebuild their lives and their country. we can play a constructive part in the rebirth of this island nation, to chart a new course as they emerge from these trials and hopefully regulate -- relegate the days of poverty to the past. so i ask my colleagues of this great body to join me in this pledge and to join the millions of americans who have already rallied to this cause. both individually and as a nation, we can make a difference. and in this situation, mr. president, we must make a difference because some of our brothers and sisters in that country of haiti are in dire needs of our assistance and help, which we have responded very aggressively and very favorably to help them. i thank, mr. president. i yieldhe absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. burris: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recogniz. mr. burris: i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. burris: i ask unanimous consent that the period of morning business be extended until 3:45 with senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each with the time equally divided between the two leaders or their designee. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. burris: i ask consent that this quorum call be equally divided. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. burris: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i come to the floor today to call attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in haiti and to the plight of the many haitian children who have been adopted by american families and are still waiting to be brought from the disaster to loving homes, to families that are waiting to welcome them. many have been waiting for a year, two years. many of the families in my state have actually gone to haiti and they have met these children. in the days immediately following the earthquake, the united states, number u.n., and other nations and organizations have moved to provide food and water, medicine and clothing as well as international aid workers to assist in these disaster areas. the people of this country, the people all over the world have been extraordinarily generous. currently, thousands of american civilians as well as members of our federal agencies and armed forces are in haiti lending their hand to help the haitian people. unfortunately, though, the united states is doing much to save lives in haiti. lives continue to be lost. and, unfortunately, some of the most helpless of haiti's people -- its children -- are among those in most need of our help. i'm focusing on this issue, this small but important piece of our aid relief, because i've had so many families come to me from my state who are clutching photos of children that they are waiting to bring home. minnesota has one of the highest rates of international adoptions in the country. part of that is because we've had a strong tradition of aid, of bringing people from somalia to our state and we've also had a strong tradition of reaching out for decades and adopting children from other countries. many of the families that i met with over the weekend have been able to confirm that their children are safe, and for that, they are so grateful. but they've also heard reports of off fan ages'sages that are not in the best shape, of not enough food and water. they know these children because so many have seen this before. and they know that these children weren't always getting adequate diets. on january 15 i wrote to secretary clinton and secretary napolitano urging them to use their authority under the immigration and nationality act to grant humanitarian parole to all u.s. families applying for entry to the u.s. on behalf of their prospective children during this period of emergency. i also spoke with secretary clinton and she was amazingly generous with her life and sympathetic and working on this issue. i'm thankful that on monday, january 18, secretary napolitano announced her authorization of the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are eligible for adoption in the united states. humanitarian parole is typically used sparingly in cases of compelling emergency, but as i note nad my lerks the magnitude of this disaster clearly warrants broader application of this policy. now there are details, and the details are important. how are these kids going to get to the united states so the paperwork can be processed here? there's been talk of a haven -- safe haven setup, but we haven't seen that happen. meanwhile, our families in minnesota are getting more desperate as they hear about the second quake today, as they hear about the problems from the people who are running the orphanages. this is what i'm talking about, mr. president. betsy, a minnesota resident, was widowed when her husband of 10 months was killed in the tragic i-35-w bridge collapse. they had talked about having children. so betsy decided to adopt some children. she signed up to adopt kids in haiti. she just recently returned from celebrating their second birthday -- twins. that's who i'm talking about when i talk about someone who is awaiting the arile of these children in her home. another family -- and we have their picture here -- that i met with over the weekend, g dale rg two children. they were in the final stages and hoping to bring their kids home. they were told they were in the next batch of adoptions when they last visited before the earthquake hit. what is striking about this family is that ginger still signs all of her e-mails with blessings and they are still incredibly positive despite having their kids in this orphanage. they're also stressing how they want us to help all families, not just theirs. when i met with them, another family was there who wasn't quite as far along with the process. they spent most of they are time talking about how this other family should have helped as well. -- should be helped as well. finally, dawn and lee sheldon. we have their photo as well. this is when they were in haiti. this is the two children they want to adopt that aren't with them yet. they're adopting two children and the conditions have been very bad at the particular orphanage where their two kids have been staying. this family has been glued to cnn, which has filmed at the orphanage, just looking to see these children's faces. while we talk legalities, mr. president, understandably -- but while we talk legalities, orphanagages are continuing to suffer lack of water, food, shelter. many orphanages have been totally or partially destroyed from the shocks in this quake. there are did he seed personnel still lying near the children, and aid agencies are unable to take away all of the dead. the hardship that these orphans face is extreme. we must act now to bring them out from the unsanitary and potentially traumatizing situations they find themselves in. i am grateful for the quick work of secretary napolitano and secretary clinton. they are on the scene. they are doing the work. but we have to do everything we can to bring these children home. these orphanages, the ones that have not been damaged that are still functioning need the the beds, sadly, for other children. these children -- these children -- have homes to go home to, homes that are welcoming them, homes that consider them their children. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor. i note note the absence of a qu. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from montana is recognized. mr. baucus: mr. president, i suggest that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presidofficer: whout objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask consent to execute the order of december 22, 2009, with respect to hj res. 45. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. under the previous order the committee on finance is discharged of h.j. res. 45 and the senate will proceed to the joint resolution which the clerk will report. the clerk: house joint resolution 45 increasing the strach trilimit on the public -- statutory limit on the public debt. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: setor from montana. mr. baucus: pursuant to the previous order on behalf of the majority leader, i have a bs up. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from montana, mr. baucus, for mr. reidro amendment 3299. mr. baucus: i ask that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, pursuant to the previous order, i send an amendment to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senator from montana, mr. baucus, proposes amendment 33mendont 3329. mr. baucus: i ask consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask consent that the following staff of mine be granted floor privileges during the consideration of the debt limit legislation, ian chemicallens, ivy english, zack peerson, greg sullivan and ashley sulky. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, ralph emmerson enjoined and i quote him, pay every debt as if god wrote the bill. today we'll debate whether the united states will continue to pay its bills. we will debate whether the united states will continue to pay the interest that it owes on the money that it has borrowed. the spending laws that created the current national debt are behind us. the only question that remains is whether the government will honor its obligation to pay the bill. we've gone to the restaurant, we've eaten the meal, the waiter has delivered the check, and now the only question is whether we will pay the check. to state the question is to answer it, we simply must do so. we must pay the check for the bill -- for the restaurant, for the meal that we've eaten. the legislation before us would increase the limit on the amount of money that the u.s. treasury can borrow. if congress does not enact this legislation, and soon, then the treasury will default on its debt for the first time in history. if congress does not enact this legislation, then the government would fail to pay benefits on a portion of social security recipients. the government would fail to pay benefits to a portion of the beneficiaries of all other federal programs. that would be unacceptable and plainly we must enact this legislation. when the federal budget runs a deficit, the united states treasury must borrow money to make up the difference or language around here, we call the shortfall. that shortfall results from laws enacted in the past. it spent money and it cut taxes. if we want to avoid the need to borrow, then congress and the president must enact laws that will cause the federal government to spend less money or raise more revenue in the future. simply preventing the treasury from borrowing more money is not the solution. if congress does not allow the treasury to borrow more money, then the treasury will not have the money to pay its bills. the treasury has no legal authority to prioritize spending and pay only the most important bills. they don't have that authority. if the bills are due, they're due. the treasury does not even have a way to determine which are the most important bills. if the debt ceiling is not raised, the treasury would have to pay bills on a first-come, first-served basis. now, some of these bills would be interest payments on previously borrowed money. if the treasury does not pay these interest payments, then the federal government would default on its financial obligations. that would be the first time in the history of the country. and if that were to happen, financial entities would be afraid to loan the treasury money. they would charge astronomically higher interest rates. this would only worsen our already high budget deficits. in some situations, financial entities would not loan us money at all. this could prevent the federal government from meeting all of its programmatic amendments. but the disastrous economic effects would go well beyond that. the price of treasury securities in the secondary markets would drop. this would cause an immense wealth loss for owners of assets in many other financial markets, and this in turn would cause untold damage in those markets and further worsen the recession. what's more, the value of the dollar would drop even further. this would increase inflation in the united states, and it could well end the dollar's role as reserve currency of the world. further exposing the american economy to global economic forces beyond our control. in addition to paying interest costs, the treasury pays many other important bills. among those bills are social security benefits. if congress does not raise the debt limit, then social security benefits would have to compete for funding on a first-come, first-served basis with all other federal payments. if social security payments did not come up for funding first, then they would not be paid. clearly, we should not let this happen either. the conclusion is simple. we must raise the debt ceiling. federal budget deficits are at record highs. now, why is that so? the reasons are simple. we have been and still are in the deepest recession since the great depression, and we have been in an unprecedented financial crisis. the current administration inherited both of those problems. how have these problems contributed to record deficits, someone might ask. well, first the recession directly affects the federal budget. the recession has caused revenues to fall to record lows. since 1970, the federal government has collected an average of 18% of the gross domestic product and tax revenues. that's since 1970. in 2009, however, revenues accounted for only 14.9% of g.d.p., a drop of more than 3%. meanwhile, the recession has required much greater amounts to be spent on unemployment benefits and on medicaid payments. second, congress has had to pass legislation to fight the recession. we need it to enact a large stimulus package to foster economic growth. the package that congress enacted provided stimulus and about $185 billion in fiscal year 2009, and it is estimated to provide stimulus of about about $400 billion in fiscal year 2010. this package has done some good. it's not perfect but it's done some good. it's helped. it helped prevent a deeper recession. it has significantly increased economic growth. regrettably, the package has not produced enough jobs yet. the finance committee and other committees will be looking at additional options to increase job growth as soon as we could turn to them. but let's be clear. if congress had not enacted the stimulus package, then the country would be in a depression instead of a recession. the stimulus package was the right thing to do. third, as a result of the national crisis, the bush administration asked for and long gave legal authority under the troubled asset relief program, otherwise known as tarp. tarp gave the president authority to help the national institutions as well as the struggling automotive industry to weather the financial storm. the bush administration was using these authorities before the obama administration took office. so the recession and the financial crisis created needs in a in turn led to high deficits and record borrowing. now, how do we reduce such commitments for the future? they are too high. we've got to stop. we have got to do something about all this. how do we avoid having to borrow such huge sums of money in the future? first, we have to fix our health care system. the current health care system has led to skyrocketing costs in medicare and medicaid. to recuse those -- reduce those costs for the long run, we need to pass comprehensive health care reform. that's the first step to get the excessive deficits under control, and that's exactly what we're doing. in late december, the senate passed health care reform, and according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, our health care reform bill reduced federal deficits by $132 billion in the first ten years. that is -- let me say it again. according to the c.b.o., this health care legislation will reduce federal deficits by by $132 billion in the first ten years. not increase, but reduce. that helps. the bill would reduce federal deficits by $650 billion to to $1.3 trillion the second ten years. that is, the second ten years, there is a much greater reduction in deficit spending, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, a reduction between $650 billion to $1.3 trillion reduction in federal deficits in the second ten years. and this deficit reduction is likely to continue in subsequent decades. second, after we do all that, after we do all that we could do to increase job growth, we need to start working on deficit reduction for the coming decade and also subsequent decades. because the economy was in deep -- was in a deep recession and the financial markets were frozen, the government borrowed a lot of money. once the recession is over, we have to reduce borrowing to a fiscally responsible level, and we should begin doing that as soon as we can. but in the meantime, we cannot allow the nation to default on its debt. we cannot allow benefits from programs like social security to be paid on a first-come, first-served basis. no one enjoys raising the debt limit, nobody. it's not something that's a lot of fun to do. no one enjoys paying debts either, but it is simply what we must do to honor our commitments. there were times when the senate has joined together in recognition that we have this obligation as a joint obligation. four times in the last 26 years, the senate has raised the debt limit by unanimous consent. let me repeat that. four times in the last 26 years, the senate has raised the debt limit by unanimous consent. the senate did so as recently as 1996 under a republican senate and a democratic president, and the senate did so by unanimous consent three times in the 1980's, twice under a democratic senate and republican president. it has been more than 17 years since the senate last divided strictly along party lines on a debt limit vote. we have raised the debt limit a dozen times since then. honoring the nation's obligations should not be a partisan matter, and usually it is not, and it has -- and it has until recently not been a practice of the minority in the senate to filibuster debt limit increases. under president george w. bush, the senate raised the debt limit four times with simple majorities, with fewer than 60 votes. the senate did so twice under president reagan as well. all but four sitting senators have voted for a debt limit increase at one time or another in their careers. among sitting senators who have served in more than one congress, only one senator has never voted for a debt limit increase. so i call upon my colleagues to rise to the occasion, let us pay our debts. let us honor our obligations. let us allow the debt limit to be raised. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: thank you, mr. president. i think most of the people watching this debate, studying how congress works and how the federal government works, knows that there is a statutory limit on the amount of debt that can be issued by the federal government. if the public doesn't know this, they are constantly reminded of it because from time to time we pass legislation that does what this leg

george bush did was wrong. i'm not here to make a statement into the record that george bush got it all right, madam speaker. he got a lot of it right. a few things he didn't get quite as right. but what we have seen in the last 16 months and at least 12 of them have been under the obama presidency, we have seen the nationalization of a huge formerly private sector entities, entities that are making a profit and competing in the private sector, three large banks, freddie mac, fannie mae, a.i.g., general motors and chrysler and tarp and $787 billion worth of economic stimulus plan that looks like maybe only about a third of that has been spent at this point. but they still want another $150 billion or more in stimulus two. this is key nesian economics on steroids. i doubt he will make the statement from this well tomorrow night. i have heard him say that franklin roosevelt's new deal did work but the problem he did have was in the second half is he failed to spend enough money. if he would have spent a lot more money, the new deal would have been a good deal but f.d.r. got nervous about spending too much money but he pulled back and what he had was a recession within a depression that was brought about by the federal government not spending enough money. well, this wild program, these keynesian theory is on steroids driven by fralm. and every nickel and dime, every nationalization, every single move that was taken in the last months of the presidential campaign and in the last months of the bush presidency were all things that were approved and were approved by and supported by president obama. he voted for tarp. he spoke for tarp. he sat at the table in the white house and spoke in favor of tarp. that $700 billion that you can hardly say that is not president obama's responsibility what he spoke for when he negotiated for it, voted for it and took it over. and by the way that tarp was only -- i say only, madam speaker. the original tarp was $350 billion, half of what paulson asked for. the other had to be approved by the president elected later by a congress to be elected later, that's this congress, the pelosi congress, the reid senate and the obama presidency, all of this except 350 billion sm spending. it brings us to this point where the american people have seen that they thought they elected people that were responsible, that understood high finance and the whole big picture that a government has to do so well, that is this constitutional republic, this representative form of government, madam speaker. when we saw the tarp plan come through and the nationalization of a couple large banks and then a.i.g. and we watched some of those insider deals work out pretty good for those people on the independence, as we marched down this line, freddie mac and freddie mac. american people were getting nervous of the government takeover of private business. when they got to the takeover of the car company, that for sure wasn't george bush. that was all president obama. and when that happened, the american people's light bulb came on because they know cars. when the car czar turned out to be a 31-year-old fellow that never sold or made a car. we don't know if he actually fixed one or what he drove, but he was note qualified to be the car czar and that was the universal opinion. but the american people saw with that example that they didn't know what they were doing inside the white house echo chamber and got ever closer to the civil type of a revolt that took place and we saw it happen in virginia and then we saw it happen again in new jersey and then in massachusetts, a little over a week ago when scott brown was elected to the united states senate, the most improbable place. and when the exit polling was tabulated and they asked people why did you vote for scott brown, over 70% said, i did so because i want to kill the bill. i want to kill the socialized medicine bill. and madam speaker, that bill may be dead. an

george bush's policies will bebu involved willt who is the face of the republican party? do you talk about george w. bush and his policies? or more conservative lending rods like dick cheney and sarah palin? she did it when she labeled the health insurance companies' ads villain-- as villains. host: stay on your note about it also being a problem for republicans. some are invoking 1994 when there was a big republican sweep in the house as a possibility for this year. the difference is that they had newt gingrich who organized candidates. is there a leader who is organizing candidates around a message for republicans this year? guest: not yet. michael steele suggested the other day that there will be some type of document -- not a contract with america, but some type of document to define the republican party. is it him or john boehner or mitch mcconnell? is it john mccain who has a record number of twitter followers? is it sarah palin? they do not have one clear leader. for 2005 after senator tom-0 and senator kerry lost, then the democrats did not have a face either. it did not hurt them for 2006. host: daytona beach. caller: good morning. host: you have a big senate race coming up in florida. caller: yes, we do. independent intellectuals understand with regards to the history --the senate of the country began under the rule of law that no one is above the law. over the past 200 years society has evolved into different groups of people. the senate reflects them. when the majority get into power the bring forth their agenda here regardless of the law. instead of advocating for health care, although law and first get the amendment. most intellectuals i know -- that is where my interest is is looking more for the principles of people. i just view the senate as a reflection of people. over the past 200 years we have gone from believing in principles and freedom and capitalism into a bunch of collective different groups of people who want to fight over our little bread crumbs that are important to whatever specific. specific to me the congress and senate just reflect that. host: ed harkinit harkens back e discussion that we had about ira schapiro saying that the senate was at its best back in the 1960's and 1970's. that color reflects the same type of the crown -- the center of the break down concerning coalitions in society. guest: it is interesting to see frustration from some of the older members of the senate. the senate is older as far as its history and who is in it. senator chris dodd went to the senate floor before the holidays at to chastise the newer members for their behavior he did not name names, but most of the newer members are democrats. he could have referred to senator jim demint, a thorn in the side of democrats. al franken has also robbed people the wrong way. he went on and on about newer members and said they really need to understand what the chamber is all about. host: should you have done about retirements. but on the same page there's another "gop struggles to capitalize." you have some new polls out. what are they telling you? guest: there was a recent poll, how you identify yourself as a democrat has dipped considerably over the past year. republican members and polls are still struggling. the problem for house republicans is -- you don't have much power when you are in the minority in the house. republican leaders are trying to make the case that they can win back the house. we will either get close or make significant strides. a lot of these guys have been in power. they have been chairman. now they have very little power and it is frustrating to them. host: the newly times" has -- "the new york times" has the story about bart starr pack. his position on abortion does not reflect that. -- bart stupak. guest: what stupak did on the health care reform debate which is still ongoing was quite remarkable. i rare foreperson -- i think it was rare for a person not a committee chairman. he formed enough collisions where nancy pelosi knew that she needed to get as many votes as she could. without him and a lot of the people he got it would not have passed. stupak got his amendment on the floor. 240 democrats voted for his abortion amendment which is a lot more conservative than the senate language. it is interesting because nancy pelosi is very pro-choice. harry reid is pro-life in the senate. but the bill is kind of flipped. what stupak this remarkable, and he has gotten older. at first he said he would not vote for the healthcare bill unless he got an amendment. then when his amendment passed to says it will not vote for any health-care bill without the language that he put there. that was pretty remarkable. host: let me add a little more. here is a photograph of him. for now as he considers his return to washington he is canvassing his district. he is trying to pass the health care overhaul. he predicts the legislation will ultimately collapsed for reasons apart from abortion. he will be blamed anyway, he is sure. he says "i'm sure in the last guy that the president wants to see." tammy on the democrats' line, fla. caller: thank you for c-span. we have some good senators like nelson. that man is for the people. in a few weeks i will visit washington. lemieu's office when i called them -- at get any return phone calls or insight. faughalan is stepping them. that seed will be open. they say that our governor will run for senator. he is a good man and has done a lot for florida. -- that seat will be open when alan is stepping down. host: she is interested in financial reform legislation which is senator dodd's committee. a number of analysis pieces. here is one. . . he can just get down to legislating. he has a very good relationship with the ranking member, senator shelby. but the issue is, that consumer protection agency does not have -- will not have 60 votes and if it is going to pass the senate and think it could be something similar to the public option, where it they get it through the senate they will have to hash out the differences in conference. host: texas, richard, republican. caller: my comment is i feel if this republic is going to be saved, we just about have to repeal the 17th amendment just like real -- we repealed 18th prohibition amendment. the senate was designed to represent the state. it was not ever designed to represent popular -- that was the whole point. they did not want philadelphia, new york, boston people to run the country so that had a senate that was representing the state. and we've got some many senators who are not going back, and -- not doing that. it is creating a mess. it is given the governor's a mission of possible. just my opinion. host: let's show the front page of "the denver post." governor ritter is not going to be seeking reelection. the headline on the story -- guest: very interesting. can salazar, former senator from colorado -- ken salazar. there are rumors about attorney general but more focus on the interior. he ultimately accepted the job at interior. a very difficult decision for him. he made good inroads in the senate. alternately took that job and now democrats are trying to retain that seat. he is the big name coming up now that ritter is not going to seek reelection. he would be considered the favorite also -- as the denver mayor, could also step in -- and republicans, former congressman scott mcinnis and another former congressman could make a play. but richard was suffering from low approval ratings and many people thought that if he ran he would have lost. host: republicans are suggested -- suggest king -- suggesting they would capture state houses. guest: the reason why it is so significant is because of the senate. the state legislatures and governors races. i think you will see a lot more federal money or money that usually goes to federal campaign committees going to the states because it is so vital and people on both sides already have keep people watching the senses because it is so important. host: we got a lot of long time politics watchers the people -- explain why the census matters and by the government has a role in it? guest: when they send out a census and they are already starting for 2010, starting to get organized for that, basically the more people in district did -- different districts get more money. as populations grow and wayne, also congressional seats either get added to their districts get merged. it becomes fascinating for political watchers because in a certain state, a lot of the population drops, then you have a lot of match ups of democratic incumbent against democratic incumbent or republican incumbent against republican incumbent and a half to face off. as far as to who draws the line as far as who decides what states will do more and how the districts are going to be drawn, a lot go to state water -- legislatures and governors office. a lot have independent commissions, but as we saw with tom delay in 2004, working with the republican governor and texas legislature basically redrew the districts. it challenged by democrats legally. republicans won. because of that, republicans pick up seats in 2004 elections and had it not been redrawn that we democrats would have picked up -- host: talking about salazar. it is headlined -- this headline. in politicians speak, what does it translate to? guest: when we heard that he was joining the cabinet -- and we had sources saying that, we also asked him. we heard he was going to go to interior. he ducked and denied and ultimately went there. i think he is certainly weighing it. i wouldn't be surprised to see him get it. host: long beach, new york. you are here with bob cusack. guest: it is exasperated. i used to have a great deal of respect for the senate. i'm on the independent line. by nature i am conservative -- or its -- libertarian type person. i was watching or hatch giving a tour of the building and he went to the president's room with these marble statues and said this is where we come and meet with our lobbyists, and he realized what he said and he said, constituents. there and lies the problems. they did not send all the jobs overseas, a great manufacturing jobs -- they did this hand in glove, democrat and republican together. when they are working bipartisan i know we are in big trouble. we are about to get stomped because they are not acting in our interest. these closed-door meetings with the health care, are you people upset? are you going to flush home and say something about that? i'm sorry. host: you don't have to be sorry. that is why -- why as the meetings to be opened. we had a conversation on a program yesterday morning's so we have in fact it something about that. and giving for the caller? guest: there is some frustration. the obama administration promised major change. and not only the meetings, democrats and democrats about what will be on the final bill, but this white house is very pragmatic. they know how to count votes and they struck deals with lobbyists, with drug companies on the health care bill knowing if the drug industry was against them, it would be very difficult to get the bill through. but it thrust -- frustrates a lot of people. a lot of people on the left is asking, this is not the change we voted for. host: yesterday congressional leaders met at the white house. the speaker said sometimes there is an agreement but sometimes we approach the built differently. >> telephone call, avondale, arizona. jim on the democrats' line. caller: regardless the retirement situation -- it might be a blessing. i don't know who has the poll's of the regular voters out there -- republican, democrat, independent. most people are pretty of all discussed it with the congress and the senate. however the incumbent is, i feel sorry for him -- it seems like people will vote for whoever the opposition is regardless of affiliation. the entire of the stuff. the people don't represent us any more. they don't represent the people anymore. it even goes down into the local elections, communities where people are going to advance this discussed. host: another call about voter sentiment. guest: one of the things to remember is in these al-maliki times -- you look back six, eight, 10 years, the difference in the house and senate, did go up three, four, five seats -- really 2006 with this the biggest wave since 1994 and another wave in 2008. in these volatile times, failing economy, high unemployment, two wars -- now 2010, another wave is expected. the thing to think about is while incumbents in congress as an institution i never really popular, a lot of people like their local congressman. if you are going to beat your local congressman or senator you have to raise your money, so you can go on television, you have to have a good staff and a lot of people that run and launched these bids. if they don't have that, they are not going to win. host: you have a story in "of the hill." -- "the hill." why are committee chairmanships important? why should people follow the detailed down to this level? guest: because they will decide what is in the bills of jurisdiction. if you look at the health care bill, senate finance committee, chairman max baucus is more conservative than most democrats and he crafted a bill that even some democrats on his panel would not crazy about the end up voting for it. whoever heads the committee is usually the one crafting the bills and setting the agenda for the committee. generally working with house and senate leadership. whoever gets the gavel basically has a ton more power than the second ranking person. if committee chairman does not help the votes, -- you have seen jostling over the last year, a lot of committee chains -- chairs have changed. it also depends on elections as far as who gets the chairmanship's and what kind of ratios -- how many democrats, how many republicans. host: connecticut, charles, republican line. good morning. caller: mr. bob cusack was speaking before about republicans getting behind some faith that was obvious. i watched the senate a great deal on c-span. the one man who impresses me the most when he is speaking on the floor is tom coburn. i'm wondering what mr. cusack's viewpoint of tom coburn as a leader in the republican party. i will hang up. guest: he is definitely very popular among the republican base. he usually votes fairly conservative on almost all issues. he is a friend of actually the of the president, they have good working relationships but ideologically are very different. he did vote for the bailout, which raised some eyebrows but republicans are happy he is running again. he is now in his first term -- his second term, that will be it for him. in six years plus he will be leading the senate. it -- leaving the senate. but he also republicans the wrong way because he blocks their bills, whether appropriations or earmarks. he was a big backer of senator mccain because of his anti earmarked position. he is definitely a voice in the republican party but because he will basically be in his last term next year it will be interesting to see woody does in -- when he leaves. he is a doctor. in a go home. host: a question about the florida senate race -- as opposed to charlie crist, the governor. guest: there definitely were some splits in that we saw in the republican primary when it came down to mitt romney and john mccain, and there were some splits about who is on what side. and i believe -- i believe mccain contributed to rubio. but charlie crist is basically a mccain guy and because charlie crist back the stimulus, which mccain had not, that is something that really hampered him. rubio, who is just viewed as an up-and-coming star, newt gingrich had said a lot of good things about him over the years. really closing in but that image of charlie crist hugging obama and then charlie crist recently saying he really didn't back the stimulus has hurt his political standing. but charlie crist is still a very shrewd politician. anyone who counts and out could be foolish. host: washington, pennsylvania. paul on the republican line. caller: i would like to make a comment on the 2010 elections. i don't think there are going to be any presidential coattails. i certainly hope we can include arlen specter in that retirement party. i'm always amazed, mr. cusack, people like you, will have such a wealth of information -- i guess it is your job -- but it is good to hear people like you because we get to know a little bit more about what is going on besides watching c-span. lastly, i would like to say, i will harkened back to gerald ford's speech. i think the national nightmare was starting. i don't think it was over. and i would like to say something that i know this may not be very popular, but when the democrats decided to destroy richard nixon because he did something that democrats do all the time, we left ourselves open to all of what has happened since then. i will hang up and you can tell me what you think about what i have to say. host: thank you so much. let us start with his comments about senator specter. charlie cook in his political report put senator arlen specter's seat firmly in a tossup. guest: fascinating race. it started up where it look like when arlen specter was a republican he was going to face up against pat toomey in the republican primary and a lot of republicans privately said, well, we don't want pat toomey to run because he can't win general, and now are inspected changes parties and now, specter is battling congressman joe sestak in the race -- that race is looking to find joe sestak, he is a favored to win the primary -- host: who is favored to win? >> arlen specter. he is up in the polls but that may change because a lot of people are frustrating with arlen specter, both on the left and right. but the matchup of pat toomey and arlen specter, if it is that, is going to be fascinating. these guys went at it in 2004 and the republican primary. arlen specter barely beat pat toomey. these guys are not friendly toward one another. that could be a fascinating race. polls have shown pat toomey has made up some ground and recently he said he backed actually the nomination of sonia sotomayor, which is gonna surprise because he is a conservative and most conservatives rejected her. some people viewed that as a move to the middle. host: twitter -- guest: absolutely. if you are an incumbent, once you get here you are favored to stay here. freshmen are told, if it is your first term you of the bulls -- most the honorable you will ever be. -- the most vulnerable you will ever be. host: we will take a break. in the next segment we will talk about the economy and get two views. >> richard holbrooke is the u.s. special representative to afghanistan and pakistan. he will be visiting those countries next week and meeting with leaders. today he will talk about obama administration policy in 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enter the c c-span enter theam contest. $50,000 in prizes for middle and house -- high school students. just create a 5 to 8 minute video on one of our country's great strengths or a challenger country is facing. it must incorporate c-span programming and show varying points of view. winning entries will be shown on c-span. don't wait another minute. go to a student'scam.org. >>host: during our next segmente will be talked about the economy. we have two voices. kevin hassett, economic policy studies director at the american enterprise institute. lawrence mishel from economic policy institute. both are phd and spent a lot of time helping to influence the policy debate over economic issues. and once to start, so people know where you are coming from with the philosophical question for both of you. would you explain to people your view, given the state of our economy and the financial markets, your view of government spending in this time of recession and a corollary, are you concerned about the increase in the federal debt? let me start there and that will define where you are coming from. guest: i'm absolutely concerned about the increase in the federal debt. you should not run a surplus in a recession but even if you include stimulus and calculations government spending is 25% side -- exclude stimulus in cancellations government spending is 25% higher and it assumptive with the fix in the next few years and fix may be either tax increases or reductions in spending that might put a damper on the recovery. host: lawrence mishel? hawaii guest: i think the major problem in front of us is the fact we have very unemployment and it will stay high for some time. air response to a financial crisis and policies that were overly reliant on markets without enough government regulation. the fact that we have a very high fiscal deficit right now is almost totally do two things. when you have a huge recession, not enough taxpayers paying money and money we spend a session -- and the savaging of the revenue base by the bush administration in the last administration. so, we will get the deficit under control as we get jobs, and so the real problem right now is getting people jobs. host: let's turn to jobs. a question for both of you. what is the government's role in job formation? guest: might be right now, when you have a private sector that is totally -- my view right now, when you have a private sector totally dead and monetary policy at full blast and we still not getting very robust growth, not getting very good job growth and unemployment declining, you actually do need the government to step in and do more to help generate jobs. they can do that in very simple ways. some is providing fiscal relief to state and local governments, allowing them to preserve their jobs, preserve their purchasing and create jobs. we have infrastructure spending. the government can do direct job creation. he have to provide ample relief to the unemployed. so they are out there protected from recession but also spending. i think we can do a lot more to generate jobs in the next year doing that kind of program. host: kevin hassett? guest: i think everybody will be reattached to the work force because the private sector is growing. the public sector is already large. while the government can do things in the short run to help us out, may be building a bridge over here and in planning folks, the real problem is the government needs to think about what is going to do to create incentives for people to the jobs in the u.s.. there are a lot of policy changes i think are necessary for the job climate. i think the top two is one that maybe larry and i agree on, i think we need to change our unemployment insurance program so firms have an incentive to share jobs with people rather than laying them off. right now to get unemployment insurance, a sort of have to separate you from employment. if, on the other hand, i can reduce your hours 20% and your salary and have the government fill in some of the whole, maybe you could spread the pain out amongst more people and not actually separate people from the labor force. number two, we have to understand why it is people are not creating plants in the u.s. they're much. i think we have a lot of policies that are out of whack with the rest of the world. in particular, corporate tax. the second-highest on earth. in many states, the highest on earth. firms are rationally looking offshore where taxes are lower. those are the two big ones. host: d.c. corporate taxes and impediment to job creation? guest: that is not what is going on right now. it is insufficient demand. we have too much supply, way over capacity of firms to produce. many more people who want to work are not working. the problem is not the fact that there is not an incentive for people to produce. the problem is consumers have cut back because they lost a lot of wealth in the housing market and the stock market and employers, corporations are not investing because there are no consumers for their product or not sufficient. i don't see the corporate tax rate -- kevin cites the numbers but these and that the effective tax rates. we diminish the role of corporate taxation and our economy for very many decades, and i don't see that as a problem whatsoever. host: phone numbers, if you would like to join into the discussion -- host: the big story en "usa today," it affects of recessions been felt for generations in society. do you see this in this recession, and if so, how? guest: it is really an urgent policy issue that congress has to address and has been lax getting going. the fact is, if you take someone and separate them from the workforce for a while, that does permanent damage to their career, if you think about the kids coming out of college having a hard time, or folks who lost their job a year ago and have failed to find anything yet. if you separate from the labor force for a year or two, you are going to add a hard time getting back in. you are going to be the to do it, but it really does do serious damage. i think the fact we have not done something like create a work sharing program is really going to cause a lot of harm. i think it should be an urgent thing for congress to address beginning of next year, to think about what will we do -- long term unemployment was really not a problem like it is not going all the way back to the great depression. the great depression, you remember in movies and things they had, hoboes, people were just a different part of subsiding that exist in little bit but it might expand tragically now. long-term unemployment is something that needs to be addressed. guest: susan, i think that is a very important point, the fact that recession does permanent scarring to people and productive capacity. you hear a lot of concern about the debt, as if this is going to hurt our children and grandchildren and the fact is, not doing anything about jobs and getting out of recession is also going to be hurting the future a lot. we are not getting the investment, you do not get the innovation. it even has a substantial impact on children in school. school problems has much to do with -- at home and what their parents going through. parental stress, loss of income, higher poverty. the 10% unemployment rate that we now have and will be seeing will lead to 50% poverty rate for african-american children. this is going to substantially hurt their education progress, and this is going to start a generation of kids. guest: just to put it in perspective, i did a calculation a while ago that if we had taken the stimulus money -- i do not want to talk about what that the stimulus was smart for stupid. i think there were a lot of good things. but if you took the stimulus money and hired people -- people at the median wage you could've committed 20 million jobs. this is an urgent time. just giving people jobs is not a crazy thing to do. we could, once again, bill pass in national parks and so on. but i think affixing unemployment insurance and the government instead of trying to create jobs, juicing economy here and there, are giving refunds also security, i think instead of doing that the government should consider, such a big problem, creating jobs. host: our first call is from missouri. ron on the republican line. caller: i first have a comment and question and i would like your guests to attend to answer it. the biggest problem as i see with the economy in this country and what has happened to it is the lack of integrity through the entire population, from the oval office to the janitor cleaning up. everybody seems to want something for nothing and the work ethic is just about disappeared in this country. or the good work ethic. more to the point, one of the biggest problems in this society seems to be there are so many non-productive jobs getting fantastic pay. for instance, both the guests this morning on this program, it appears that they sit in an office and administrative over a group of people that is nothing but make policy decisions or review policy decisions as opposed to the way it was years -- a few years back where our best and brightest are actually doing something productive. both of you, i've heard this morning, proposed more government intervention. with the policies of congress and the administration right now, the future is such an unknown because you don't know what the taxes accord today, you don't know what the liabilities are going to be, it is impossible for any reasonable mind to figure out in the future what your costs are going today, whether or not you could possibly even hire someone. so everything going on, from extended unemployment to higher taxes for health care just makes jobs innovation or new jobs and impossibility for any of japan or businessman. host: thank you for your call? guest: i think ron raises import issues. first, let me say, i will speak for myself but larry is a very productive guy and, in fact, he brought this book over here that they produce every year which is the state of working america and folks run out to the stores to buy that every year when it comes out because it is filled with useful facts so he is producing a product people want, not just sitting in his office and thinking about policy. i honestly do think the caller is on to something, that while we can think about stuff the government can do better, we need to remember ultimately it is the private sector that will create jobs. we have to understand if the private-sector is not writing jobs, why it is. high tax rates are a big issue right now the government needs to do more to address those issues. guest: i take umbrage at the notion that a major problem facing america is that people are slackers. when we have 15 million people unemployed desperately looking for work, and private sector firms laying off and insufficient policies to generate jobs. right now there is something like six people unemployed for every job opening. so i think the idea of that there are a bunch of slackers out there is repugnant. i believe that kevin is a very productive person as well. host: of the point about uncertainty. guest: i think there is a lot of exaggeration. we have major problems that have not been attended to for 30 years. and we have major crises in front of us. of course there is going to be a lot of uncertainty and we have to do major changes. we have to address climate change. we have a health care system that is broken. we have a retirement system that needs fixing. there are many things that need changing, so we have to do that and i don't think that is the main impediment to job growth. host: ai tweets us -- guest: the real economic burden -- first, an act of a lot of people over 65 are working really hard right now, to -- actually a lot of people over 65 are working really hard right now, not just collecting government checks. of the government checks the collector things they earn over a lifetime contributing to social security and medicare. to think of them as a burden. we did not want to put people on an iceberg and float them out to sea. but the problem is those programs are not doing well financially in the long run and they need to be adjusted. congress keeps putting it off. i think the health bill does not really do a good job putting medicare and medicaid on sound footing in the future, and ultimately as we keep running up our debt, world investors will say, why should i buy this u.s. government stuff? they keep avoiding their big problems. the problem of aging is a big part. host: sandy is on the democrat'' line in stockton, california. caller: thank you for c-span. i'm wondering what both of you gentlemen think is the role that nafta, our current laws that allow employers to offshore living wage jobs that would be high paying jobs, out of the united states with a tax break given to them by we, the taxpayers, to ship our jobs overseas to country's mood don't have the same labor laws and safety laws and to also don't have to pay -- or don't have the increased cost of new products or health care costs, increasing the costs of their products. how do we as a country come to terms with the way that we have structured our business laws, trade laws. how does that impact where we are now? i believe it is damaged us. i sincerely believe that the ability for employers, multinationals, to seek out the country with the lowest cost in terms of production -- not that americans are not producing. we are producing at a stellar rate. we are producing more with less. host: @ thank you. at this point we will stop because we understand your question and we will start with lawrence mishel. guest: sandy, i think you are onto something that is important, and the large trade deficits we have had and the erosion of manufacturing has been a major blow to the middle class in this country, a major problem. i think there has been far too much indifference to this problem and i think it can be addressed. i think we need an industrial strategy to try to focus on making sure that we have a healthy manufacturing sector. we talk a lot about alternative energy and green jobs. we have to make sure we actually produced it in the united states and provide employment. based on these policies. and we have to have trade policies that stick up for the american worker. so, i did you are onto something. guest: i think that we can't shut off our borders to trade. the bonds are there are many products in sandy's like that she really enjoys -- maybe a car that was made abroad or a television. the fact is, right now our tax code encourages firms to locate activity offshore, just as sandy said. if i locate my profits overseas and sell back into the u.s., i have a much lower tax rate than if i eat produce it in the u.s. the problem is, if you say let's not let them do that and make sure they have to produce it in the u.s. to sell in the u.s., you run into the problem cutting up to you plan -- u.s. market thing to want to have the mayor, imports from other countries, and you run the risk of having a u.s. firm disappear altogether and foreign firms can take over the market because they have the tax advantage. the average oecd country pays a 10% lower tax rate than a u.s. manufacturing firms, and that 10% rate difference in a big deal and it is a cost for u.s. firms and something we have to address. right now as the economy starts to expand, if you are a firm that has a hot product you would almost be crazy to build a new plant in the u.s. and locate the activity here because of you located offshore your profits would be a lot higher and it is something we need to fix. host: dollar policy. could you both comment on your views on the administration's approach to dollar valuation? guest: i think if you have a big deficit, which is something caused by a lot of things, a lot of things larry and i agree -- the dollar will be weak. people were rigged that probably we will try to inflate our way out of the debt, and so on. i think the fact the dollar has been weak is not a surprise. host: would have been the pluses and minuses? guest: of the plus is it makes it easier for our products to compete and you see movement and the right direction. the minuses -- we put ourselves in a tough situation if we want to continue to borrow a lot of money from farmers because they give us money, they buy dollars to do it and get dollars back and of the dollars are worth a lot less, a much higher interest rate. that is going to be, i think, a big factor this year. president obama, i think, is promising behind-the-scenes that the state of the union will talk a lot about deficit reduction. i think if we don't make a serious, credible effort of long run deficit reduction, then of the weak dollar could really put a lot of strain on the fiscal situation. people would really demand higher interest rate to buy u.s. assets. guest: i think it is a good thing the dollar is weaker than a year ago and i think it needs to ask the fall in value further pared i think we have had a strong dollar policy that basically is serving the financial sector's ability to buy assets abroad cheaply, and at the expense of people who want to produce things to export, and at the expense of people suffering from greater import competition. i think you have to address forthrightly the manipulation of the exchange rate by the chinese, which is essentially helping them to grab a part of our manufacturing sector. host: our next call for our two guests, portsmouth, new hampshire, john on the independent line. caller: how is everyone today, all right? that's nice. i have a question. the and how long ago it was where we didn't have a deficit -- do you know how long ago it was when we didn't have a deficit, the country was running and positive question of guest: we were forecasting surpluses a little as about a decade ago and i think there was a surplus inherited by president bush when he took over the white house proposed cut in the annual budget. but as opposed to national debt? guest: the national debt has been going back almost to second world war, it could be that we have to go back to the revolutionary war. the was a time when chairman greenspan was giving speeches about his concern that the surplus was so large that we might retire the debt and people would not have treasuries to invest in. i think treasuries have been around as long as anyone can remember. guest: only because greenspan was trying to make the case for tax cuts for georgesh. there is no problem with the national debt. everyone who owns a home has a debt. there is nothing wrong with debt. it is a question of is it manageable, if you are borrowing money, would you using it for? it is true, we had a large annual surplus in the latter years of the clinton administration and at that figure away. host: john, what is your point answering the question? caller: do you think we can pull out of this debt somehow? guest: yes. host: john, we lost the transmission. guest: absolutely we can pull out of this. in fact, there is good literature on how to do it. one of the interesting things about the recent history of europe is that there have been a lot of countries that started as eastern bloc countries with a terrible fiscal situations who had to get the houses in order in order to join the eu. so they went through some pretty radical policy changes to fix the fiscal situation and generally found it could have a great deal of success if they followed the kind of reci

george bush's policies will bebu involved willt who is the face of the republican party? do you talk about george w. bush and his policies? or more conservative lending rods like dick cheney and sarah palin? she did it when she labeled the health insurance companies' ads villain-- as villains. host: stay on your note about it also being a problem for republicans. some are invoking 1994 when there was a big republican sweep in the house as a possibility for this year. the difference is that they had newt gingrich who organized candidates. is there a leader who is organizing candidates around a message for republicans this year? guest: not yet. michael steele suggested the other day that there will be some type of document -- not a contract with america, but some type of document to define the republican party. is it him or john boehner or mitch mcconnell? is it john mccain who has a record number of twitter followers? is it sarah palin? they do not have one clear leader. for 2005 after senator tom-0 and senator kerry lost, then the democrats did not have a face either. it did not hurt them for 2006. host: daytona beach. caller: good morning. host: you have a big senate race coming up in florida. caller: yes, we do. independent intellectuals understand with regards to the history --the senate of the country began under the rule of law that no one is above the law. over the past 200 years society has evolved into different groups of people. the senate reflects them. when the majority get into power the bring forth their agenda here regardless of the law. instead of advocating for health care, although law and first get the amendment. most intellectuals i know -- that is where my interest is is looking more for the principles of people. i just view the senate as a reflection of people. over the past 200 years we have gone from believing in principles and freedom and capitalism into a bunch of collective different groups of people who want to fight over our little bread crumbs that are important to whatever specific. specific to me the congress and senate just reflect that. host: ed harkinit harkens back e discussion that we had about ira schapiro saying that the senate was at its best back in the 1960's and 1970's. that color reflects the same type of the crown -- the center of the break down concerning coalitions in society. guest: it is interesting to see frustration from some of the older members of the senate. the senate is older as far as its history and who is in it. senator chris dodd went to the senate floor before the holidays at to chastise the newer members for their behavior he did not name names, but most of the newer members are democrats. he could have referred to senator jim demint, a thorn in the side of democrats. al franken has also robbed people the wrong way. he went on and on about newer members and said they really need to understand what the chamber is all about. host: should you have done about retirements. but on the same page there's another "gop struggles to capitalize." you have some new polls out. what are they telling you? guest: there was a recent poll, how you identify yourself as a democrat has dipped considerably over the past year. republican members and polls are still struggling. the problem for house republicans is -- @@@h republicans are trying to make the case that we can win back the house, just hang in there another year. we will either close or makes it didn't strike. but a lot of these people run the house on the republican side had been in power and had been committee chairman and now they have very little power and it is frustrating to them. host: the "new york times", i believe, has a very -- has a store about art stupak and his role in the discussion about the health care bill and the topic of abortion but his party does not reflect his opinion, which puts him in the minority of the majority. but i'm wondering about when they formed caucuses to affect legislation. did on the health care reform debate which is still ongoing was quite remarkable. i rare foreperson -- i think it was rare for a person not a committee chairman. he formed enough collisions where nancy pelosi knew that she needed to get as many votes as she could. without him and a lot of the people he got it would not have passed. stupak got his amendment on the floor. 240 democrats voted for his abortion amendment which is a lot more conservative than the senate language. it is interesting because nancy pelosi is very pro-choice. harry reid is pro-life in the senate. but the bill is kind of flipped. what stupak this remarkable, and he has gotten older. at first he said he would not vote for the healthcare bill unless he got an amendment. then when his amendment passed to says it will not vote for any health-care bill without the language that he put there. that was pretty remarkable. host: let me add a little more. here is a photograph of him. for now as he considers his return to washington he is canvassing his district. he is trying to pass the health care overhaul. he predicts the legislation will ultimately collapsed for reasons apart from abortion. he will be blamed anyway, he is sure. he says "i'm sure in the last guy that the president wants to see." tammy on the democrats' line, fla. caller: thank you for c-span. we have some good senators like nelson. that man is for the people. in a few weeks i will visit washington. lemieu's office when i called them -- at get any return phone calls or insight. faughalan is stepping them. that seed will be open. they say that our governor will run for senator. he is a good man and has done a lot for florida. -- that seat will be open when alan is stepping down. host: she is interested in financial reform legislation which is senator dodd's committee. a number of analysis pieces. here is one. . . it is coming over to the senate. one of the main sticking points with this big bill is a consumer protection agency for the financial sector. this is something that the white house has pushed very hard. the financial services committee chairman, barney frank, was struggling to get votes. now it is over in the senate. now it is over in the senate. he can just get down to legislating. legislating. he has a very good is, that consumer protection agency does not have -- will not have 60 votes and if it is going to pass the senate and think it could be something similar to the public option, where it they get it through the senate they will have to hash out the differences in conference. host: texas, richard, republican. caller: my comment is i feel if this republic is going to be saved, we just about have to repeal the 17th amendment just like real -- we repealed 18th prohibition amendment. prohibition amendment. the senate was designed to t the state. it was not ever designed to represent popular -- that was the whole point. they did not want philadelphia, new york, boston people to run the country so that had a senate that was representing the state. and we've got some many senators who are not going back, and -- not doing that. it is creating a mess. it is given the governor's a mission of possible. just my opinion. host: let's show the front page of "the denver post." governor ritter is not going to be seeking reelection. the headline on the story -- guest: very interesting. can salazar, former senator from colorado --@@@@@@":::: he altman the accepted the job, but it was a very difficult decision. he ultimately took the job and now democrats are trying to take that seat. he is the big name that is coming up now that ritter is not seeking reelection. the favorite also -- as the denver mayor, could also step in -- and republicans, former congressman scott mcinnis and another former congressman could make a play. but richard was suffering from low approval ratings and many people thought that if he ran he would have lost. host: republicans are suggested -- suggest king -- suggesting they would capture state houses. guest: the reason why it is so significant is because of the senate. the state legislatures and governors races. i think you will see a lot more federal money or money that usually goes to federal campaign committees going to the states because it is so vital and people on both sides already have keep people watching the senses because it is so important. host: we got a lot of long time politics watchers the people -- explain why the census matters and by the government has a role in it? guest: when they send out a census and they are already starting for 2010, starting to get organized for that, basically the more people in district did -- different districts get more money. as populations grow and wayne, also congressional seats either get added to their districts get merged. it becomes fascinating for political watchers because in a certain state, a lot of the population drops, then you have a lot of match ups of democratic incumbent against democratic incumbent or republican incumbent against republican incumbent and a half to face off. as far as to who draws the line as far as who decides what states will do more and how the districts are going to be drawn, a lot go to state water -- legislatures and governors office. a lot have independent commissions, but as we saw with tom delay in 2004, working with the republican governor and texas legislature basically redrew the districts. it challenged by democrats legally. republicans won. because of that, republicans pick up seats in 2004 elections and had it not been redrawn that we democrats would have picked up -- host: talking about salazar. it is headlined -- this headline. in politicians speak, what does it translate to? guest: when we heard that he was joining the cabinet -- and we had sources saying that, we also asked him. we heard he was going to go to interior. he ducked and denied and ultimately went there. i think he is certainly weighing it. i wouldn't be surprised to see him get it. host: long beach, new york. you are here with bob cusack. guest: it is exasperated. i used to have a great deal of respect for the senate. i'm on the independent line. by nature i am conservative -- or its -- libertarian type person. i was watching or hatch giving a tour of the building and he went to the president's room with these marble statues and said this is where we come and meet with our lobbyists, and he realized what he said and he said, constituents. there and lies the problems. they did not send all the jobs overseas, a great manufacturing jobs -- they did this hand in glove, democrat and republican together. when they are working bipartisan i know we are in big trouble. we are about to get stomped because they are not acting in our interest. these closed-door meetings with the health care, are you people upset? are you going to flush home and say something about that? i'm sorry. host: you don't have to be sorry. that is why -- why as the meetings to be opened. we had a conversation on a program yesterday morning's so we have in fact it something about that. and giving for the caller? guest: there is some frustration. the obama administration promised major change. and not only the meetings, democrats and democrats about what will be on the final bill, but this white house is very pragmatic. they know how to count votes and they struck deals with lobbyists, with drug companies on the health care bill knowing if the drug industry was against them, it would be very difficult to get the bill through. but it thrust -- frustrates a lot of people. a lot of people on the left is asking, this is not the change we voted for. host: yesterday congressional leaders met at the white house. the speaker said sometimes there is an agreement but sometimes we approach the built differently. differently. >> telephone -- next telephone call from avondale, ariz.. caller: i do not know who has the polls of the regular voters out there, republican, democrat, independent -- but it does not matter. i find that most people aren't overall disgusted with congress and the senate's. and whoever the incumbent is, i guess i saved i feel sorry for him, but it seems like everybody is going to vote for whoever the opposition is. regardless of party affiliation. they're just overwhelmingly tired of this stuff. these people do not represent us anymore. the vote along party lines. they do not represent the people anymore. i think it even goes down into the local elections in the communities, people are going to vent this discussed. host: another call about voter sentiment. it guest:, and one of the things to remember is that in these volatile times -- and it used to be if you looked back six, eight, 10 years, those elections, the differences in the house and senate, you would go up three or four or five seats, really, 2006 was the biggest wave since 1994. and we have seen another wave in 2008. and these volatile times and high unemployment, two wars going on, terrorist plots, also the elections are volatile. another wave is expected, but the other way and how big is remains to be determined. but the thing to think about is that while incumbents in congress as an institution are never really popular, a lot of people like their local congressman, and if you are going to be their local congressman or senator, you will have to raise money so you can go on television. the will have to have a good staff. . . people that run and launched these bids. if they don't have that, they are not going to win. host: you have a story in "of the hill." -- "the hill." why are committee chairmanships important? why should people follow the detailed down to this level? guest: because they will decide what is in the bills of what is in the bills of jurisdiction. look at the health care bill, senate finance committee, chairman max baucus is more conservative than most democrats and he crafted a bill that even some democrats on his panel would not crazy about the end up voting for it. whoever heads the committee is usually the one crafting the bills and setting the agenda for the committee. generally working with house and senate leadership. whoever gets the gavel basically has a ton more power than the second ranking person. if committee chairman does not help the votes, -- you have seen jostling over the last year, a lot of committee chains -- chairs have changed. it also depends on elections as far as who gets the chairmanship's and what kind of ratios -- how many democrats, how many republicans. host: connecticut, charles, republican line. good morning. caller: mr. bob cusack was speaking before about republicans getting behind some faith that was obvious. i watched the senate a great deal on c-span. the one man who impresses me the most when he is speaking on the floor is tom coburn. i'm wondering what mr. cusack's viewpoint of tom coburn as a leader in the republican party. i will hang up. guest: he is definitely very popular among the republican base. he usually votes fairly conservative on almost all issues. he is a friend of actually the of the president, they have good working relationships but ideologically are very different. he did vote for the bailout, which raised some eyebrows but republicans are happy he is running again. he is now in his first term -- his second term, that will be it for him. in six years plus he will be leading the senate. it -- leaving the senate. but he also republicans the wrong way because he blocks their bills, whether appropriations or earmarks. he was a big backer of senator mccain because of his anti earmarked position. he is definitely a voice in the republican party but because he will basically be in his last term next year it will be interesting to see woody does in -- when he leaves. he is a doctor. in a go home. host: a question about the florida senate race -- as opposed to charlie crist, the governor. guest: there definitely were some splits in that we saw in the republican primary when it came down to mitt romney and john mccain, and there were some splits about who is on what side. and i believe -- i believe mccain contributed to rubio. but charlie crist is basically a mccain guy and because charlie crist back the stimulus, which mccain had not, that is something that really hampered him. rubio, who is just viewed as an up-and-coming star, newt gingrich had said a lot of good things about him over the years. really closing in but that image of charlie crist hugging obama and then charlie crist recently saying he really didn't back the stimulus has hurt his political standing. but charlie crist is still a very shrewd politician. anyone who counts and out could be foolish. host: washington, pennsylvania. paul on the republican line. caller: i would like to make a comment on the 2010 elections. i don't think there are going to be any presidential coattails. i certainly hope we can include arlen specter in that retirement party. i'm always amazed, mr. cusack, people like you, will have such a wealth of information -- i guess it is your job -- but it is good to hear people like you because we get to know a little bit more about what is going on besides watching c-span. lastly, i would like to say, i will harkened back to gerald ford's speech. i think the national nightmare was starting. i don't think it was over. and i would like to say something that i know this may not be very popular, but when the democrats decided to destroy richard nixon because he did something that democrats do all the time, we left ourselves open to all of what has happened since then. i will hang up and you can tell me what you think about what i have to say. host: thank you so much. let us start with his comments about senator specter. charlie cook in his political report put senator arlen specter's seat firmly in a tossup. guest: fascinating race. it started up where it look like when arlen specter was a republican he was going to face up against pat toomey in the republican primary and a lot of republicans privately said, well, we don't want pat toomey to run because he can't win general, and now are inspected changes parties and now, specter is battling congressman joe sestak in the race -- that race is looking to find joe sestak, he is a favored to win the primary -- host: who is favored to win? >> arlen specter. he is up in the polls but that may change because a lot of people are frustrating with arlen specter, both on the left and right. but the matchup of pat toomey and arlen specter, if it is that, is going to be fascinating. these guys went at it in 2004 and the republican primary. arlen specter barely beat pat toomey. these guys are not friendly toward one another. that could be a fascinating race. polls have shown pat toomey has made up some ground and recently he said he backed actually the nomination of sonia sotomayor, which is gonna surprise because he is a conservative and most conservatives rejected her. some people viewed that as a move to the middle. host: twitter -- guest: absolutely. if you are an incumbent, once you get here you are favored to stay her >> we will be live at the white house as president obama talks about the flight to hundred 53 attempted bombing. that is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. the president will speak on that report at 3:00. 45 minutes after that, the homeland security secretary will answer questions. that will be live at 3:45. we will also open up phone lines to get your reaction. later in the program, and about 20 minutes, a discussion on u.s. policy toward afghanistan and pakistan with the special representative to those countries, richard holbrooke. he is speaking at the brookings institute this afternoon at 2:30. that is live on c-span to. 2. the special briefing is being held looking at at -- afghanistan of our cultural reconstruction. that news conference is set for four-o'clock 15 on c-span2. coming up as an event with juan carlos zarate, a former bush administration member. this is from yesterday from the washington center and academic seminars. >> congress and the obama presidency. this program is one that brings to washington undergraduate students from all over the united states. i have been associated with this program as a factory director for about 10 years. this is a program which is very dear to my heart. we have consistently had some of the best speakers available and certainly this is true of juan carlos zarate. there is a scene in the movie about the watergate in bashan, all the president's men, and there is a meeting in an underground garage where an informant with the code name of deep throat tells robert redford playing bob woodward that if he wants to find out who is responsible for the burglary at the democratic headquarters, you should follow the money. we have somebody here who has followed the money. he did so in his capacity as the deputy secretary of the treasury board took this was a job that involved one of the most complex tasks and the anti- terrorism effort. that is how these people get money, spend their money, and it takes a person with uncommon diligence and intelligence to be able to track this down, including the assets of saddam hussein. he went on from there or at the treasury department to the national security council on where he was responsible for a major part of the government's counterterrorism strategy involving international security threats, counter-narcotics, maritime security, a hostage taking, organized crime, his portfolio is a very broad one. not only has he followed the money, he followed a lot more than that. he will become professor zarate on the 16th of may when he becomes the faculty director for the washington center's but week-long program that will run into the 21st of may in washington. we will fit him for his cap and gown when the time comes. juan carlos zarate, welcome. [applause] >> thank you. i am looking forward to being a part of the team. i want to leave us much time for open discussion as possible because there have been so many important issues in the news, including the president's meeting yesterday with respect to the terrorism threat in how it is evolving. i want to talk for a bit to set the stage but also make sure that we have plenty of time for questions and answers. i have been quite privileged over the past eight years in the positions that i have help. in particular, the national security council over the past four years in the second term of the bush administration. i was responsible for the national security council's strategic lookit all trans- national threats. in that context, and in my role of the treachery department, terrorist financing and financial crime, i was able to see what was important internationally in terms of security. with the few minutes i have today, i would like to talk about that change in the international landscape. i think that france so many of the issues that we're facing today. it frames so many of the problems the constructs has and the political establishment and also affects the relationship between congress and the executives which is obviously a topic of the seminar this week. in many ways, 9/11 was not just the shock to the u.s. national security system but a momentous event in ushering in a new era of international security. one in which a new paradigm was introduced. individuals, networks, and sells operating from the darkest corners of the world could have a brand geode-political impact using the implements of mundanity -- modernity. it will continue to shape how we look at international security over the next decades and even the next century. this is an environment that is defined by factors that i think that are well-known by to put are important to put into context. increasing globalization where what happens in one country can ripple across the world and affect others, i think the recent financial crisis has only underscored the dimensions of the interconnectedness of the world. if there is a pull operation of information, good, bad, indifferent, conspiracy theories, troopsruths, information is widely distributed and available at any corner of the world. it is an area in which the means of destruction can be catastrophic and could be available to individuals and networks. i think the recent case of the bomber who attempted to ignite the device on the flight to detroit is a good example of individuals being able to use a relatively simple explosive devices to create catastrophic effects, even in failure, having major political ramifications. one can only imagine what would happen if terrorists or networks or to use weapons of mass destruction, and biological agents, radiological devices or even a nuclear device. those means of destruction are out there. the information about them is widely available and it will only disseminate further in the future. in addition, i think 9/11 is well demonstrated about what to do with the game and -- yemen is that no corner of the country can be ignored. the world is so interconnected and people can connect so easily with the western world, there is no corner of the world that can be ignored. that goes not only for terrorism were you have safe havens in places like the troubled regions of western pakistan, the lawless land up somalia, but also with issues like health were a pandemic and start in one corner of the world and rapidly spread to the entire world. we have a much different landscape given the nature of how interconnected the world is. in addition, we have a taxonomy of nation states of the world. some have great capacities, others are faltering, others bordering on being failed states and others being failed states. you have a full spectrum of countries that are in many ways on able to deal with some of the threats and issues. in some cases, either willfully blind or complicity in the threats. finally, there are issues of resources and demographics which i think become increasingly more important over the coming years, if not decades. there is the rushed for resources. you see this in china's attempts to acquire access to oil and other precious resources around the world. we see this in the question of water resources in the middle east. another key question in the context of the game in which has -- of yemen which has diminishing water supplies. a study was put up called the grain of the great powers. it talks about the aging western powers, in particular, western europe. questions of demographics with the effects on the economy,, national security, will continue to be important. i think that we are witnessing in new era in which albert national security is tied intimately with the international security environment around the world and in every corner of the world. in the financial crisis, for example, things that were not considered part of our national security previously. this has real world ramifications. i think the terrorism example is the easiest one to think about in this context. known actors can work in small groups or even as individuals. they can operate from any where in the world. these are areas and the world better not governed and areas where individual actors can in essence create geopolitical have it from these regions. to have this in the context of al qaeda but you have it in other groups that are important to watch which can have geopolitical impact. there is a kashmiri group that has been responsible for many attacks in india. there are many holidays where we lost holidays because of terrorist acts. we have to spend a lot of time dealing with the aftermath of the handiwork of some of these nefarious actors. the attack in mumbai is exactly what i am talking about. they took the city hostage for three days, and were able to do it with the regular weaponry and, with just 10 individuals, with some training and probably backing from authors, but able to in essence during q political havoc -- bring in geopolitical have ioc. they have the same with hezbollah, a group that the support and opposition to israel and has become a global terrorism group of the past 25 years. it is a group that is supported by iran and is trying to become more and more part of the social and political fabric of love and on. it is a group that has its own agenda. it is considered a state within a state. and then work of factors -- a network of factors. what is interesting about this is not that just you have these groups out there but what is important to watch in the future is how these groups and other loose affiliations and networks, drug trafficking groups, international organized crime, smuggling networks, all interact. there is some very important and revealing cases that demonstrate this. the dea recently unsealed an indictment in which they alleged that a number of individuals tied to al qaeda in north africa or responsible for drug-trafficking from south america through west africa into europe. what you have in that case is a demonstration of what kinney fault in this new environment where international networks cannot only adapt and the concerts to elaborate and work together. you have the drug that works out of south america tied to a rocky the groups in africa affecting security issues not just in that region but also in europe. you have the potential for disaster if you see the facilities of these groups and to work internationally. the nightmare scenario is some of these groups collectivizing for purposes of profit or radiology and use and struggle -- and use or smuggle a weapon of mass destruction. what we worried most about was al qaeda or other groups who expressed an interest in obtaining and using a weapon of mass destruction could get access to it through some of these unaffiliated networks where we know in the past, there has been eighdevices smuggled through central asia. this is a world in which these networks and individuals can relate to very easily and very effectively using mode density -- using modernity. this makes them incredibly potent. this also speaks to the information environment. the web 2.0 technologies of today, the ability to move money through cell phones, use a chat rooms or blogs, highlight where we are coming national security perspective. you see this in the terrorism context where you have individuals that are radicals that are connected to other groups by the internet. the use of communicative tools but we saw in the fort hood case where the perpetrator was communicating with eight american yemeni cleric. this is a different era in terms of information. it is also a different era and the context of how social context operate. not only the bad guys can use this but also other movements can use them like the green movement in iran. the use them to organize and plan moving forward. we saw the importance of facebook and several of these moments. one of the things that we saw on the national security council was a growing movement against terrorism using these technologies. there was one movement that was incredibly effective in using facebook to draw out a global protest campaign against the terrorist organization in colombia. but one individual was able to organize and rally people worldwide against kidnapping and other uses of violence against colombian citizens. that is an important demonstration of the power of this technology to actually impact local security issues and geopolitical security issues. one of the challenges for us and our national security complex is this new environment. the way the international security structures are established rely on a state to state, westphalia and model for how to deal with these issues. we dealt with the latter part of the 19th century and a state based model for international relations where countries and alliances and balances of power define how we were securing ourselves as well as dealing with some of these other ills. the problem with that model in this context is that aid is not nimble enough to handle the dynamics that impact geopolitical ways in the 21st century. one of the huge challenges for any administration or national security professionals moving forward is trying to figure out what this environment looks like, not only how to defend against these cataclysmic events but how to prevent use and implemented this new environment things like technology and facebook to align dynamics internationally and create greater security. there is the question of what to do with help with the green movement in iran estimate do want to help that. that is a good debate. there is a more fundamental question that if we did want to help and we wanted to use technology for have technology served as a lever, what would that look like? how would we use social networking? how would be used access zones for people and oppressive countries? how should we think about that is a national security issue, not to mention as global citizens? that becomes incredibly important. how do we think about the power after ngo's that have incredible resources in parts of the world where we may not have access? groups like the a foundation that is a conglomerate of ngo's that do humanitarian work in southeast asia and africa. how do we think about them and how should we work with them and how should we leverage the power without tainting them? these are all critical questions that have yet to be answered. finally, how do we, from a legal perspective, this gets into the role of congress, how to restructure legally how it is that the u.s. government deals with this environment? for example, under current law, the state department is restricted from messaging into the united states or to u.s. citizens. part of a broad set of rules to avoid the u.s. government from propaganda which is good. we live in a free and open society. we do not need the government propagandizing. that said, and the age of the internet, how does one define communications in the country and to american citizens and communications outside? what does that legal framework look like? and that has yet to be entered. those are the types of legal questions that need to emerge and. i think congress has a major hand in this. i think unfortunately, the history of congressional action on national security issues has largely been one of being reactive, after the fact. dealing with the last case scenario. the 9/11 commission dealt with the prior event. hearings usually have to do with the last thing that happened. congress by its nature is not a nimble and not necessarily outfitted to be looking around the corner for the next threat. there are certain things that we need to look at, like how we think about information, but there are other issues that congress needs to be engaged in. one example is something the was mentioned in an op ed in the "washington post." it is the need to talk openly between the executive branch and congress about a legal paradigm that deals with the problems of terrorism as we understand them in the 21st century. the major political debate, and some of it is rhetorical, is whether or not we are at war with terror. should the subject -- sow should the subset -- should the suspect in the detroit bombing be treated as a hostile enemy? we are neither fully and war and the classic sense of state-to- state, that with all the rules and structures that applied to that but neither are we fully in a criminal legal context. part of that has to do with the multiple feeder to mention of what we're talking about. people are shooting at each other in places like afghanistan, but it is hard to say those are criminal environments and solely? of criminals. at the same time, it is hard to argue with our european colleagues that this is a war paradox. many of our european colleagues think the fear of radicalization is in their streets. it is very hard with the baltic will theaters at play when we talk about the terrorism threat in the 21st century to say we are in one paradigm or the other. one of the things that we have felt collectively to do as an american society is decide how we are going to deal with this threat. and deal with it in a way that appears legitimate but is constitutionally a legitimate. much of the debate in the prior administration surrounded the military commissions act. there is a larger question of how to deal with known terrorists who are trained in connected to this international network but against whom we might not have sufficient evidence to present in a criminal or military context. what do you do about those threats? that remains an issue. you saw yesterday in the president's address when the president said that with respect to the detainees in guantanamo, given the conditions on the ground in yemen, that we would suspend any further expand -- extradition of them to that country. you cannot return known terrorists into an active theatre of battle or environment, especially when those individuals or present a threat. i recommend you look back at this and read it. if you look back to the president paz important speech at the national archives in may, he said it very explicitly that he and we will not release individuals who are a danger to the u.s. regardless of whether or not we have enough evidence and he admits quite openly that we are going to hold people against whom we are not able to bring charges either in a criminal context or a military context. we are talking about a preventative detention model under the u.s. legal system. this is under the obama administration which has talked about bringing the rule of law into the war on terror. this is incredibly important to have the consensus and the u.s. as to how we are coming to address this problem is moving forward. this is not just the problem of guantanamo. guantanamo is a system of this larger region a symptom of this larger issue. we need to deal with this moving forward. the problem is not going away. the president said yesterday we will need to continuously adapt to deal with the problem. i think congress and the administration have a responsibility to set forth a legal paradigm that explains this and that is constitutional and that is defensible, not just here at home but also abroad. that is something the president committed to in may. one other point with respect to how we deal with this new national security environment. i think we're not very good at figuring out how to use non- state actors and individuals from the good side to actually affect our national security interests. how do you deal long term with the problem of this radical ideology which purports to be based in islam that is radicalizing individuals and trying people to the battlefield? what do you do about this? one of the answers, i think, at least a core part of it, is the solution and the rejection of this ideology has to come from within communities themselves within the united states and also a broad. frankly and hopefully, many voices are starting to emerge that countered the ideology of al qaeda and the ideology of some of the violent ideologues that support their broader agenda. we do not hear much about it in the u.s. media but these are courageous voices in the muslim community beginning to emerge, many in the grass roots context, to start to oppose the al qaeda agenda. there is a group called sisters against violent extremism. they have gathered together sort of like the mothers against drunk driving movement here. they have had an important impact in places like india and pakistan where they are organizing chapters and rallies and starting to organize people. there are groups made up of ex jihadists who have seen the light and decided to counter their old ideologies. i think that is an incredibly important movement to watch to see how they can work internationally. these are things that are happening organically. one of the problems that we had when i was in government and i think we still have is figuring out how you harness these organic trance and networks -- trends and networks that influence our national security? how do you do it in a way that does not paint them? some individuals to not want to be associated with the u.s. government. it is not just a matter of funding them. what does that look like? how we create the conditions that helps? the challenge of the coming decade or even decades is recognizing the changes in the security environment but figuring out how we address the issues, defend ourselves against the most severe threats and then figuring out ways of positively affecting the environment to the very same dynamics. with that, i would be glad to take any questions that you have and continue the dialogue. [applause] [inaudible] >>>> my question is pertaining o the fort hood massacre a few months ago. sarah palin said that she would support profiling against muslims and the army if it meant saving lives. do you agree with that? >> i cannot think profiling is the answer so i do not agree with that. i think the reality is that the vast majority of muslim americans are incredible patriots loyal to the country, including those who serve in the military. i think we need to be very careful that we not allow incidents like the massacre in fort hood to create artificial provisions in our society. one of the strength of our society pointed to this that we have a society that this integrated, populations, cultures, ethnicities, from all over the world. there is one scholar who has said that the best counter to the radical ideology that the added states has is the reality of the american dream. the fact that you can come to this country, be considered an american, thrive, have your children do well, and be a part of the society. that is incredibly important. i would also say that there are a number of important and courageous muslim americans that work in the federal government and with whom i have worked for the past eight years and continue to work. one of my close friends worked with me at serious organizations and remains a close friend. there are several muslim americans that are an incredible part of this country. >> if we had profiled in the man at the fort hood massacre, it would have been prevented. >> i disagree. it is not a matter of profiling. it is a matter of judgment. one of the things that we need to do is refine our judgment on some of these issues. i testified to this to the senate. part of the problem i think was that people are not willing to make tough judgment calls about his service it -- his suspicious views, partly because he was a major in the military and a doctor. in many ways, he had the dual privileges of being an officer and a medical professional in the military. there may have been some desire not to appear offensive because of his religious views. i think we need to get over that. i think we still need to ask this -- ask difficult questions up about people who are saying dangerous things. that is very different from profiling. >> thank you. >> you mentioned earlier the idea of interconnection of terrorist organizations. what is the chance of these groups organizing enough to attack the u.s. and what is the government doing to combat this? >> i have spent a lot of time thinking of what happens beyond all keyed up. there will come a time and we are starting to see it or al qaeda is on the decline. that does not mean that the terrorism threat will disappear. al qaeda has represented the most strategic and direct threat to u.s. interests because they have had a global agenda and consider us the head of the snake. they have driven a global agenda against the u.s. using the most violent of themes. that does not mean they're not individual actors either inspired by that same ideologies or other ideologies that might want to do us harm. one concern of some analysts and is that at some point, the environmentalist movement which has some violent tendencies, groups that have attacked individuals are set fire to developments, that there is a potential violent tendency in groups like that to ultimately then disrupt the the national security. i am not sure that i buy that. it means that we need to look beyond the current paradigm of al qaeda itself. it continues to be a threat. what is beyond that? what is beyond that is the potential of small groups of individuals organizing and using potentially catastrophic means to attack u.s. interests either for ideological purposes or for profit. these are things that we need to constantly be thinking about and always be looking for. as a society, we must always be wary of the past threat and need to look to the near horizon for the next threat that may emerge. >> what exactly is the government doing? >> in the first instance, they are trying to destroy the links that al qaeda has. you have seen a lot of pressure along with the government of pakistan to destroyed the base of al qaeda. you heard the president talked about going after their presence in yemen. this in the previous administration going after groups that have ties to al qaeda. there are groups in west africa central africa that are tied to al qaeda and are working with allies to go after those groups. with respect to al qaeda, the strategy was and still is to destroy it al qaeda where it sits and wherever it takes root. with respect to international organizations and drug networks, we started to see the dea in cage much more globally. when i was at the national security council, they started a program to go after high value international marketers of weapons. it was because of the dea that the merchant of death that was responsible for shipping weapons all of the world was ultimately arrested in thailand. you have the government trying to figure out ways to disrupt these high value networks and individuals as a way of disrupting potential networks. but it is very difficult. >> thank you. >> you mentioned earlier that globalization has increased over the last 20 years. with this chinese hegemonic status has increased as a result of it. do you believe that china could become a u.s. arrival? do you believe that this could disrupt the balance of power in today's world? >> great question. the role of china is a critical question in the coming years. no doubt china will become an economic rival. they already are and will soon be the second largest economy in the world surpassing japan. in terms of the economic engine in china, all indications are that continued growth are expected. without a doubt, economically, there will be tension. there will be a race for resources are round the world. the start to see chinese companies trying to acquire access to resources and foreign companies that have access to mines in particular resources of interest. they're going to be rivalries. the key question is the maturation of chinese foreign policy. are they less insular and less concerned about threats to their own power in asia and more responsible in dealing with some of these very important international threats? here is one example. in the run-up to the beijing olympics, the chinese were worried about terrorist attacks to disrupt the games being a black mark on china's reputation. we worked very hard with them and disrupted a few attacks. one attack would have occurred on an airplane heading to china. those came out of western pakistan. they were tied to al qaeda and an islamic movement that we consider a terrorist organization. that said, china continues to see the threat of terrorism through their local landscape. they have yet to engage fully as a global partner on how these national threats affect global security. this also goes beyond the terrorist, -- terrorist context. their willingness to oppose sanctions to iran, to hurt their own commercial interests and to meet international security considerations. there is a full plate of international issues were chinese involvement would not only be helpful but wwould be beneficial to them. the question is when does that become national policy? >> thank you. >> i just wanted a bit of clarification. about the detaining of potential threat individuals. >> i think there are individuals and that are trained bout of kea will continue to be a threat and they should be -- trained by al qaeda that will continue to be a threat in should be detained. some have argued for a modification of the surveillance act. i am not sure what the right framework is but i do think there has to be a way of holding such an individual even if in the current context, we cannot have enough evidence to present in a criminal context but where an executive has made the determination that they are a risk. this is not just a pushed administration thing. this is something that president obama has recognized and something that we must have transparency on. something that has a regular review process to it. not just the danger of the individual but the environment in which that individual is. the president said they would not transfer ye individualmen to because the -- not transfer individuals to yemen because that environment is dangerous. i could not think it should be pervasive but it needs to exist. >> thank you. >> in the past few months, i have seen on news channels that certain military personnel have been put on trial for instance is that happened after they captured in battle. i for members -- i remember seeing how they put one military person on trial for assaulting a captured terrorist. some people have said this has been hindering our war. should we be focusing more on what is really going on? >> by what is going on, what do you mean? >> i understand that we should treat everybody equally and i do not condone what happened in guantanamo but some of these instances that may seem a bit smaller, do you agree with that but that these instances are taking away from what our focus should really be? >> i would recommend watching cbs news. i am frequently on air. did not listen to those other guys. -- to not listen to those other guys. holding people accountable for doing things that are illegal is important. we demonstrated that we are willing to do that. i think there is a problem when we oversimplify what has happened in the past. that is shorthand for the use of torture and the abuses at guantanamo. there is a bit of myth making that has happened over time. in guantanamo, most people would agree including the attorney general, it is actually a good prison. i was on the radio program the other day with a friend of mine that has a different view but when this announcement of the illinois facility being purchased to transfer individuals there, it was argued it was a bad idea. his concern had to do with the facility. he said the facility in illinois it will not have the same facilities. they have a library, a soccer field, internet access. these other facilities are ideal. guantanamo has such a bad reputation and it is a symbol for attention of individuals. i think part of it is a character of some of the very difficult problems we are dealing with and continue to deal with. i agree with you. we need to focus on the broader issues and hold people accountable for the things that they do that are illegal. i think we also need to be careful not to oversimplify or characterize things without facts. . . >> mishicot the center ourselves in terms of criticism of what the government does. it does not matter who is in power. criticism of the koerner administration as well as the previous administration. the thing i worry are for the long term, particularly with the intelligence community, to a certain extent it feels under siege, i think. the release of the cia memos, the special prosecutor kind of reinstated to review cases -- i think the cia in particular fields of it under siege. the reality is that we saw this violent and tragic incident in afghanistan, the cia is on the front lines every day, literally in the worst parts of the world, trying to do the most important work for our national security. i do not think people should be above criticism. i do not think any agency or a politician or head of a department should be above criticism at all. that is critical to our society and the way government works. but we need to be careful how we do that and what we may be saying or doing now may have a long-term effect in terms of our overall national security. >> ok, thank you. >> i am from columbia state university in columbus, georgia. as you know, pakistan is a nuclear power and the taliban and al qaeda have a very significant presence in pakistan right now. in the wake of the mumbai attacks and almost every other week, a terrorist incident happening in pakistan, it seems to be coming -- becoming unstable. do you know of any kind of plan that the u.s. has to secure those nuclear-weapons if the government were to fall? if they were to fall into the taliban or al qaeda, that would be a huge security threat. >> the volatility of pakistan is a critical national security issue. when we left office there was the belief, to do with us that were worried about counter- terrorism issues, that pakistan was going to be a core national security issue concern for this administration. you mentioned all the factors. you have got terrorist groups and individuals operating in country. you've got potentially radicalized individuals willing to help -- individuals or actors willing to help those actors. before 9/11 there was -- there were public talks about wmd issues. but after 9/11, which designated a number of individuals in that group. there's the threat of global terrorism meeting with sympathies within a nation state that also has nuclear protect -- capacities. pakistan is such an important country in the region for the stability of the region that it cannot be underscored enough how imported is that we help them remain stable. and there is a war under way in pakistan. there are bombings, it seems, almost every day. there was a horrific bombing of a volleyball game the other day near western pakistan. the pakistan taliban went after an entire town, in essence, for that town starting to cooperate with the government and form anti- taliban militia. there is a real war under way and part of the challenge we have had is to deal with the threat on the western front as opposed to worrying so much about india. >> i am from quebec university. -- quin pape university. how do we justify the amount of support and money given to israel despite the frequent security risks which their nations' actions as well as our general association with them give us? >> i would from it a little differently. i think israel is a key ally. it is a democracy in the middle east that we have supported not on the establishment of, the defense of israel for decades. the israelis are our friends, our allies. the work very closely with them. it is a dynamic society. there is a lot of innovation that comes out of israel, do not forget the minefields like medicine and other parts of technology. and it is an important society in the middle east. are -- i think our allegiance with israel is critical. i think we have got to deal with the fact that not only is israel under siege, but others feel threatened by the existence of israel. i think one of the challenges in the peace process is getting people to actually agree that israel has the right to exist. that is the problem with potential dealings with hamas. that is the reality of the chartered instruction with the state of israel. israel is a recognized nation state with the u.n. i'm not sure why we should feel any compunction or any problems with supporting israel. i think they are an important ally. >> i am from suffolk university. my question for you is, you mentioned ruth marcus is opinion column today in the washington post and the problems with our preventive detention model that we have today in the united states. my question for you is, what would you advise in fixing this legally to prevent the reemergence of former detainees from once again resuming to terroristic activity? >> two points, first, it needs to be recognized that the bush administration was trying to close oconomowoc. president bush himself said in 2006 that he wanted to close guantanamo, but you have to resolve the problem of how to deal with the dangerous individuals first. this administration is starting to talk about it now, the reality that the bush administration released over 500 individuals from guantanamo, some of whom were sent back to yemen and saudi arabia and some of whom have returned to the battlefield. there is a certain degree of recidivism with respect to the individuals sent back. we have to realize that there is a risk any time you send these known actors back to a home country, or into a theater. they could retire at -- return into battle, despite the best efforts of the u.s. or the host government. that is the first point. there may be a risk attached to any decision, they're for. secondly, with respect to preventive detention, as we were talking about earlier, i think we need to have an open debate about this with congressional hearings, perhaps a commission, to talk about what this new legal paradigm looks like. because right now, we are dealing in the meter fish nor fowl mode of a legal paradigm. -- neither fish nor fowl mode of a legal paradigm. a lot of political debate about the right handling of individuals, what is legitimate or not -- and i think at the end of the day, when the administration is not able to close guantanamo for its own deadline and even if they do close at guantanamo, we will be holding individuals who have not faced a trial and people will start getting confused about how it matches with the reddick imrick of -- with the rhetoric of the rule of law. people need to recall there is a lot of war paradigm that is legitimate that the supreme court has upheld to hold individuals indefinitely prisoners of war. we have our criminal legal paradigm, but we have got to find a way in this new environment where we are now battling a nation state, we are not battling individuals with uniform. their identities may be confused. and where we have multiple theaters of battle, as i described earlier, hot hitter's of battle as was urban environments. and -- hot cedars of battle as well as urban environment. you've got to mention that we are protecting people's civil rights and not holding people indefinitely that may be innocent. that is a tough balance to draw. over time, the bush administration tried to deal with it in somewhat of a defensive mode because of litigation under way, etc. i think this administration has an opportunity to set the tone and the debate as to how that works, but it requires congressional attention, which goes to the heart of your course this week. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you, all, thanks. live coverage of president obama presenting the findings of the declassified report of an attempted bombing on christmas day. the associated press writing the president obama pose a national security advisor said the people who read the report wilford -- will feel a certain job about olivine is warning signs. the president's remarks have been pushed to 4:30 p.m. eastern time. the white house briefing with jenna nepolitano will follow that at 5:15 p.m. we will have live coverage of both of those events and take your phone calls. also, when the report is released, you'll be able to read it at our website c-span.org. and at 4:15 p.m. on c-span2, live coverage of officials -- administration officials talking about agriculture in afghanistan. right now, part of a discussion on president obama's strategy and afghanistan. this portion is about 90 minutes. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> good morning, and thank you for coming. i'm happy to welcome you to the -- you are not hearing me? are you hearing me now? i am thomas mutiere. it is my pleasure to welcome you. we are here to discuss an important topic and we have an excellent panel. but before we do that, i would like to take a few minutes to talk about the middle east policy council. we are an independent nonprofit 501 c three educational organization -- 501-c3 educational organization and we have been trying to promote better understanding of the united states interest in the middle east. and we do that in three ways. the first is our quarterly journal called "middle east policy" which has been edited very ably by ann joyce for 25 years. the second is this capitol hill conference series. again, this is our 59th. we present four of them a year, discussing important topics and bringing in good panelists. and we always have the transcript of our capitol hill conference to serve as the first article in our quarterly journal, but even before that you will be able to hear the audio and see the video on our website, which is www.nepc.org. and our third program is a public outreach program which includes commentary for the media, but the most important element of it as our teacher workshop program, a program in which barbara troubles around the country and helps high school teachers, middle school teachers, elementary teachers learn how to teach about the middle east and islam better. she reaches about 1500 teachers per year and about 150,000 students a year with that program. so, i ask you to look at our website and read about our programs and think about subscribing to our journal. today, we are here to discuss afghanistan. obviously, the president has made his decision about the way forward. he needed in a very deliberate way, hearing a vice from people whose opinions differed. and instead of choosing a more narrowly focused counterterrorism strategy, he chose to surge additional forces to afghanistan and pursue a very ambitious counterinsurgency strategy. we have people here on the panel who agree with this and people who question it and disagree with it. certainly, there are issues concerning the partners that we have to work with in afghanistan and pakistan. and the train and the typography and -- the tomography and another issue is that we have already lost thousands in this war and we have spent billions and will probably spend another $1 trillion in this war. but we do need to find a way to protect people from the scourge of terrorism. we will ask the panel to discuss this today. i will introduce thiall four ofr panelists first. there is a more extensive bio for each one of them on the flip side of your invitation. i will just touch on the highlights of these people. first is bruce widelrydell who a senior fellow at the brookings institution and a former cia officer, who has also served at the department of defense and the national security council and has been a senior advisor to three american presidents on middle eastern questions and terrorism and political transition and conflict resolution. at the request of president obama, he chaired an interagency review to consider our policy toward afghanistan and pakistan this spring. in addition to this he is an author who is -- whose subject and the title is called the "search for al qaeda." and we also have peter burke, who i think is well known to many of you as a national security analyst and an expert on terror and al qaeda. he has many other positions as well, for example, at new york university center for law and security. and has worked for other media outlets as well cnn, discovery channel, and national geographic -- and also has been an adjunct professor at the kennedy school at harvard in the last year. his books are well known. one of them is called "holy war inc.: inside the secret world of bin laden." it has been translated into 80 languages. and the other one is "the osama bin laden i know," which came out in 2006. and our third speaker is frank anderson, my colleague and the president of the middle east policy council, who has spent 27 years in the united states government working on middle east issues, and many of those years in the middle east. he retired in 1995 as the chief of the near east and south asia division of the central intelligence agency. and since that time he has been providing consulting services to corporations on middle eastern issues. and finally, to my far right there is mark stedmasageman, the founder of sageman consulting. he has consulted for our government, many branches of our government, foreign governments, the new york police department'. he holds academic positions at the george washington year's end university of maryland. and he served in the central intelligence agency from 1984 to 1991, spending 1987 to 1989 in islamabad. where he ran the u.s. unilateral programs with afghan mujahideen. he is also an author. his last two books were "understanding terror networks" and "a leaderless jihad. without any further ado, i would like to ask bruce to come to the podium. >> thank you for that very generous and kind introduction. it is a pleasure to be here. i have had the privilege of speaking to this forum before and is always a great honor to be here, especially in the neck of the sun room like this. let me begin with a disclaimer. although i was the chairman of the president's strategic review of policy toward afghanistan and pakistan last winter and spring, he lived up to his commitment to me. it was temporary duty and i was freed in the beginning of april of 2009. i am not a spokesman for the u.s. government. please do not regard my remarks as in any way repres

george w. bush or bill clinton or even his father -- not bill clinton's father, but george bush's father. stake in that. and obviously we will continue to have a stake in that in dealing with the tremendous devastation. >> following up on chuck's question, does the white house support either senator lugar are possible also to let haitians of the u.s. spot -- overstay their bases by 18 months or expansion to let the command? >> talking about tps. >> tps. >> i would directlyxd youç to e department, security that might have more information on that today. >> where did the negotiations stand on abortion. >> i did not know if that is a topic that working on now but i know, as i said earlier, i think that 1:30 p.m. they convened again to go through the differences. >> what about the insurance exchange proposal? >> i did not know if theyç have come to an agreement on that as well or not. i think they have been there in late last night and again today and as soon as we have stuff that is locked in we will let you know. >> we would not have to ask you -- but we are on c-span. >> can we pool its?

george bush was in power? they lied to the country, sending troops to iraq, saying they had a weapon of mass destruction. why did they not ask questions to george bush? he lied to the country. when he attacked obama and the congress, why did they not put the health care program muncie's ban? i hope that everyone had a fair minded thing to tell the republicans. host: i encourage you and others to go to our website. we have letters that have been written by the management over the years, while republicans were in charge, asking for transparency and openness into discussions in there. 1994, when republicans were in control, letters were sent to the supreme court. you can see it all on our web site. louisiana, republican line. caller: i think that there is way too much secrecy in the government now. it was shown when they were making all of these deals behind closed doors. also, the first thing that president obama did, when he got into office, was seel all of his records. i do not know why anyone would want to seal their records. unless they had something to hide. i am not too smart. and i would like the democrats to keep calling in about things to exp

george bush. representative r - well that scares democrats but not scary to independent voters or squishy republicans because now the focus is on president obama and i think they'll try to mike it about george bush. with each day of the calendar it gets harder. while there's still animosity among democrats independents are much more about mood if they were strong ideology they would be republicans or democrats but they're independent so the mood right now is for change. . guest: we have a long way to go. but it is certainly a heavily, heavily democratic district, and the odds are it will go back to democrats. host: fresno, california, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. happy new year. i guess i am a squishy and moody and not sure and fringe because i'm an independent. guest: i did not say that the voters were fringe, but the candidates were. host: senator feinstein -- caller: senator feinstein is going to lose. host: senator boxer is up for reelection this year, but senator feinstein. caller: all of them are tied together, so who ever is, for re-election is going to lose. but charlie and stu, please stop trying -- tying teabaggers the republican party. independents are going to be independents, democrats are going to democrats, republicans are going to be republicans. guest: first of all, we are not tying -- guest: i think most of the key backe -- teabaggers are republicans. i do not think a lot of them are pure independents are not more aligned with republicans and democrats. guest: i don't think it is something new. i don't think we are creating that. there is a lot of discussion about where these people come from, and they are generally anti-big government, anti-obama, anti-tax, certainly. might there be some libertarians or, sometimes when you talk about the political spectrum, he get very far right or left, and there are some people like that who are rather anti- establishment and might be attracted to the protests. sure. but generally the tea party movement has been characterized as more conservative and more republican. and charlie is right. it is an important part of the republican coalition. to the extent that it defines the republican party, that would be a problem. host: an open seat, senator judd gregg not seeking reelection. what is going to happen? guest: the key action is on the republican side. to the republicans nominate a true blue, traditional hard-core conservative, or do they go with the state attorney general, who is certainly moving to the right position herself as more conservative, but stylistically despite considered -- stylistically is considered less of a movement conservative. i think that is one case where what happens in the republican primary really will be very important in terms of what happens in the general election. host: we will look at some other races to watch in the 2010 midterm election. francis from indiana. good morning, on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. i'm almost 73, and i'm a political junkie. i would like to know what our -- the story of eses and diebold -- is a little housewife is exposing this on her website. host: turn this into a question for our guests. caller: why did we privatize or vote? -- oru -- our vote? all the votes in ohio in 2004 were shifted and the tallies were changed. host: the 2000 election is fresh anthony peoples mines. -- fresh in many people's min ds. guest: i don't believe a 99.9% of these election fraud stories. believe that ohio and 2004 -- i don't believe that ohio in 2004 was not entirely straight up. i do not think i've seen a legitimate case of election fraud in federal case in my entire career. i think you are more likely to have a sheriff's race someplace benningha than to have a house f tora waste. people get off on conspiracy theories. there are those who convince themselves that there is a great conspiracy out there. but you will find very few people who are professionals who watch elections for a living to put any stock in any of this stuff. host: eugene, oregon. there is a senate race out there. ron wyden seeking reelection. republicans waline. caller: i hear a lot of political talk about one party or another, and you are reading numbers about the disenfranchised. i'm a working guy, have been laid off, and what everyone of us is talking about, what everyone is saying, what does not seem to be getting hurt on the political level is that there is no real change. the change we're talking what is jobs coming back, seeing the people here are actually having their lifestyles getting better, not worse, with health care that is affordable, not just an option, but something real and affordable so that we are now trapped in ones we don't like. guest: this is a problem the president has. the congress has been doing a lot of different things, but the results have not been there. people do not see the results. if the economy were improving, even if the president had not done anything, he would get credit for it. and that is the change, the change for how people feel, that they're happy with the way their lives are improving. this is the problems of the democrats' base. it is not enough for president -- this is the problem that the democrats face. it is not enough for the president to another speech about change. it is results. as long as the news is that when people open the newspaper or turn on the tv, whether it is afghanistan or the economy or to have personal instances of running into health care problems, insurance problems, they will not feel there is change, who was up there. -- no matter who is up there. host: there is always something under the radar screen. i want to ask you about what you think is an under-the-radar race. louisville, kentucky. caller: i have a comet that and a question to go with it. i'm one of those people who has paid off the mortgage and i'm not entitled to any of the handouts that the governor is making to those people who did not bother to pay mortgage payments or credit cards. so i feel like an idiot. my question really is, i'm watching what is going on in this country, and i have a sense of history, and i understand cats the definition of communism is a redistribution of wealth, control all facets of our lives, and i see that coming down the pike with medical care and loan modifications that amount to 900,000-plus per modification that the federal government has made, and spend $47 billion to do it. that is a redistribution of wealth. i don't know who it is going to br. contracts are now going based on race. you guys are supposed to know what is up. i am connecting the dots, and i am seeing redistribution happened right before my very eyes. but i've seen what this party has promised basically for a century, which was never worked anywhere and couple why we would want to try it is gone needed -- and why we would want to try it is beyond me. . the national workers socialist party. what are the other. i'm not sure which. guest: well, the thing is, i am not sure i ever met -- bernie sanders used to call themselves socialists, but i'm not sure i ever met a candidate -- used to call himself a socialist, but i'm not sure i have met and who calls himself pick communist or socialist. the government has taken a reach into the private sector and more than we have seen in most of our lifetimes. it was in response to the fall of lehman brothers and the credit markets using ups and the stock market crashing -- its credit market seizing up and the stock market crashing in 2008. extraordinary steps were taken by a republican president and republican-appointed chairman of the federal reserve and it continued in a democratic administration with an extraordinary economic catastrophe. i think there's a lot to fault president bush on, but his acting -- his backing -- it was probably one of his finest hours. he continues to tell me whether the governor is going to stay in that race. he is under significant pressure regarding running for elective your. -- regarding all running for election again. we were trying to wait for the governor to make the decision. he is under considerable pressure. they are trying to woo weight. it will be a difficult race for him. host: under the radar screen-is that the case. guest: we do our ratings of the time. i do not believe in least in the senate races, we have done that in our senate races. i do not really have one. with so much pulling taking place, particularly in these senate races, it is kind of harder to have those surprises than it used to be. host: you get the final word. guest: you have to look at some of these house races that are in the early stages that may be a surprise. i would not pick a senate race. i think most people out, many reporters and journalists, it is incomprehensible for some to take on the senate race. people have mischaracterized him. i remember when he was running for the u.s. health he was much more comfortable at. that is a race that i would definitely watch host. host: thanks for joining us this hour. we will be back in a moment. here is a look at some of the topics and the guests that are shaping up this sunday morning conversation. here is c-span radio. >> we will be discussing a certain topic on all of our sunday shows. here are some of the death. former homeland security secretary and some cia personnel. share of the house homeland security intelligence subcommittee is another guest. the get on fox news sunday include a missouri republican said the fed -- senator. on face the nation from cbs, you will hear the host with a reporter. on cn and the state of the union will have a missouri democratic senator and a south carolina republican. you can listen to all five on c- span radio. we are available on the web. you can follow us on facebook and better. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are wondering if yemen is the new front on terrorism. we will show you an excerpt on the internet address that he did back in hawaii. the president is back from hawaii tomorrow. some new developments over the weekend of the state department and nothing that there will be shutting down in one area. here is what the president said earlier. >> we must never forget what always carries us through times of trial. instead of giving in to fear, but as we knew that timeless american spirit of resolve and confidence and optimism. instead of succumbing to partisanship and division, let us use some unity that this moment demint. we must do what must be done to keep our country. host: the president was responding to some including -- there are some comments of him calling in into the partisan attacks. he said the president does not consider -- and a person write about how women must be saved. he says the problems are many and summer spreading beyond its borders. yemen has a population of about 23 million. 75% of its revenue comes from oil resources. the average per-capita income is less than $900 per year. nearly half of the population earns a certain figure per day. we have a caller. caller: i think what we're hearing about yemen is crazy. a guy get escorted on the plane and we are supposed to go through all of these checkpoints and show id. and yet the fbi lied to everybody's saying it never happened. host: we have someone on the democrats' line from miami. good morning. caller: i would in the region a few years ago. the poverty that there was overlooked by the multinationals. i can't help but to think that we are not getting all the information on him. people are beautiful there. in the presence of poverty, it is hard to see how people can have a different world view of the united states. along those lines, this is how "the new york times" describes it. we have someone joining us from louisiana. caller: sank god that people are starting to wake up. -- thank god that people are starting to wake up. people need to look into going on. nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. you also want to check out the pipeline of imf loans. many are about to be lost because of the uprising in yemen. with that $5 billion in jeopardy. that is why we are going in on this. this attack if promoting beer. it is a false light. we going to war because somebody had a firecracker that i can hardly believe this. this was not on the radar screen until $5 billion came up being ejected. >> thanks. there have been a couple of developments over nine. and january 28, prime minister gordon brown was looking to discuss how to counter the radicalization. the british government saying that prime minister brown and president obama agreed to a counter police terrorism unit -- counterterrorism police unit in one area. both countries announcing the shutting down indefinitely u.s. and british embassies in that country. we have a caller from maryland. caller: america have to be careful about this gentleman that tried to blow up the airplane with a firecracker. because he is a muslim does not affect all muslims guilty of the spirit of 2 billion muslims in this world a common all colors. we need to try to respect the best people. that was the mistake president bush made when he declared the situation of 911 about a war on muslim terrorists. we have to try to deal with these things as criminal offenses rather than implicating a whole group of people. suppose a christian goes out and blows something. are all questions guilty? host: we are taking at one of the photographs this morning in the paper. the new york times reporting that u.s. financial assistance will double in 2010. general petraeus who was in yemen on friday was meeting with a u.s. security team. they are trying to determine what happened on the christmas day attempted bombing. next if he is joining us from florida. he is all the democrats line. caller: good morning. this is really sad. we are supposed to have a great national security of the united states and it is supposed to be the greatest in the world. tuesday what has happened about this gentleman, it is sad. if we do not stand up and take action and be held refundable for our blunders, this nation is going to fall. it is a sad, disgusting thing that everybody wants to communicate in be a hero. there are no heroes. i am an ex-marine. we believe a hero is a dead body. you need to take charge. you need to cut these people off. nobody comes into this country from those nations unless they are fully screened. host: thanks for the call. here is a map that looks at some of the most recent activity including some of the terrorist activity. we have one person joining us from annapolis. caller: i think yemen is the new front terrorism. i am and will slump. -- muslim. i came to the united states about five years ago. all of us are not terrorists. one thing that i have seen that the media was not paying a lot of attention to is the amount of damage this terrorist is causing to our group. i am from seoul malia bridgett somalia. -- i am from somalia. over 40 students were killed. issues have not been raised by the media. got about two minutes of coverage. the media should labettlook at s more. host: thank you. our conversation as on-line on a porch with your page as well as -- is online as well aon our twr page as well as on the phone lines. we have another caller. we lost the caller. thank you for calling. you can join the conversation on our twitter page. we will come back and take a look at a book in our relations with the country cuba. we are back in a moment. ♪ ♪ >> after a while, it will leasing's and that you do not own it. you are trespassing. that hurts. my possessions are in a storage bin. >> this week on q&a, on american casino, there award winning documentary on the impact of sub-prime mortgages on minorities. that is tonight at 8:00. fox news contributor is our guest today on book tv. she is taking your calls, emails, and tweets. that is live today at 9:00 a.m. on book tv. host: we welcome the author of the book "cuba wars." you say the united states and cuba remain in a war that will likely persist. he said the election of barack obama has created new possibilities, but these events have not measured in a new beginning of our relations with cuba. guest: what you have seen over time the forces for continuity remain extremely strong. one part of this is the cuban government itself. more than 51 years have passed since he first took power. he extended power to his brother but wall castraul castro. overtime, the policy has yielded much in a result. be used to have a substantial amount of political support. what you see right now are changes in the nuances of the cuban relationship but not over a certain amount of time. host: georgesh was the 10th u.s. president to spar with fidel castro. guest: fidel castro took power when he was 32 years old in 1959. one of the great stories of cuban politics over the last century is his capacity to send an external and internal challenges within his role. in 2006, he was struck with a very severe stomach ailment. somehow he has managed to recover. he stepped down as president of cuba. he no longer runs the country. his brother has taken on the position. he has been seen photographed with other leaders. neighbors have seen him walking the street. at 83 years old, he has persisted into the new decade. host: he is working at brown university. you say cuba and emerging opposition leaders come from a mixed background. disenchanted party officials that broke with the government, activists guided by a religious faith, people motivated by democratic desires, and opportunists who want to play a role in whatever comes next. guest: that is right. you see an emergent civil society from va

george bush. he supports the war in iraq. he supported bush's veto of embryonic stem cell research antaeus gives a woman's right to choose. michael steele, he likes puppies but he loves georgeh. [laughter] . . of voters expecting it. maybe we didn't put the footnotes in or have them when we were testing or what they were. people say that doesn't tell me where i can read more about that. it just looks substantive. it deals with that skepticism and cynicism with voters. next is an example of the most powerful ad is the simplest and. the two rules this follows are tell a story and the candidate is not the hero. you will also your i approve this message. i wish some of these senators say vote for mccain, the part about including i approve this message. it eats up three seconds, 12% of your at is devoted to the disclaimer that voters think is silly. why are you saying you approve the ad you are in. most of the time they're saying it in an ad they are clearly in. unless someone is saying -- holding a gun to their head, easily eliminates the time -- a whole substantive point. we also see that approval statement as an opportunity to make another point. i have done and that are sill

his friend george bush in many private meetings they had in camp david and the white house and in the crawford, texas, ranch but also in the many private notes that tony blair wrote to george bushdid he give him assurances a come what may, whatever happens the u.n., britain will go along and participate with the u.s. in an invasion of iraq. that has not been answered by tony blair. and the other thing what do you think of the legal advice? most government lawyers and the

george bush. representative r - well that scares democrats but not scary to independent voters or squishy republicans because now the focus is on president obama and i think they'll try to mike it about george bush with each day of the calendar it gets harder. while there's still animosity among democrats independents are much more about mood if they were strong ideology they would be republicans or democrats but they're independent so the mood right now is for change. . that gal could win in that heavily democratic, heavily african-american district. i think probably if i had to say realistically, that's the other end of the state where i'm from, the only realistic chance he has is if there are effectively two democrats in the general election. you know, one democratic nominee and another running as an independent. but as disorganized, con have a looted, byzantine as the democratic party typically is in orleans parish and where it's driven more by factions than by anything else, you know, it's entirely possible that that seat could stay in republican hands only because there are a couple of democrats that would be in the race. but, you know, we're not there yet. we have a long way to go but it'