george george h.w. bush kind of reversed it and his last budget proposal for his last year that went up to congress. he had the deficit down. he taunt the deficit down. it was down to less than 3% of gdp which is a manageable level. it shot back up under georgee h.w. bush and bush never brought the growth id yop the concept reagan brought. growth has deposit to be the key. there's enough growth you can deal with the deficit problem. that is the reagan lesson certainly lost by the people who look down on reagan in his term. but lost on a lot of people including cheney, i believe, who basically became cavalier about deficit. i don't think that's very smart. to take deficit as the focus is is also not smart. >> i would agree with that. taken out of context which they came in to a time of a deficit was significantly lower than it is today. and he was saying basically what reagan did. growth is the important thing. you know, years ago, milton took the position because of the nature of the two parties one promising the other things and the other -- that what the republicans ought to do or the conservatives ought to do. this is back in the 'out of and '70s is get off this job of raising money to the could pass out gift and say we're not going worry

george george h.w. bush said in a statement, quote, he always fought for his principles. he was well-informed and well-reasoned. tom never got personal or burned bridges. former speaker of the house tom foley was 84. grncht for guys like us in the game far long time. we know there are land mines out there. you have to be careful about how you manage your way through these things. issues to deal with the abortion issue in the united states. guns, race, arab/israeli relations. they had their own right lanes they have to be aware of. and also, i guess, what a cartoonist can get away with in san francisco might be different than part of alabama. i think there are fewer conservatives in journalism period. i think that's reflected among cartoonist as well. it's just generally not a conservative thing. journalism tends to draw, i think, to be fair to say people who are more lib liberal. >> they say bad news is good for cartoonist. it gives us a lot of stuff. i would rather work harder and have less bad news and know we were going in a right direction. i think we're kind of -- we're not going in a right direction right now. i feel very -- i feel very like it's a calling for me to get my opinions out there. >>> this weekend on c-span, it's not all fun and games for editorial cartoonists. hear why. saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. on c-span2 booktv, gardener on the life of outlaw jesse james and the infamous gang. saturday evening at 7:45. and on c-span 3's american history tv, four decades after watergate, a look back at nixon and the saturday night massacre. sunday afternoon at 1:00. >>> now a senior member of the syrian opposition discusses the country's civil war, u.s. aid, and struggle between islamist and secular groups. he's a special representative to the united states for the national coalition of syrian revolution and opposition forces inspect is an hour and fifteen minutes. [inaudible conversations] and the scholar at the middle east institute. it's a particular pleasure to welcome him this morning, -- who is the representative -- coalition opposition. it's a short name most of russ using for it these days in the united states. he comes with an impeccable pedigree of support for democracy in syria, pedigree that include the imprisonment of friends, immigration to the united states to avoid his own imprisonment. getting his masters in ph.d. at city university of new york. becoming a visitor professor and now associate professor at the university of arkansas teaching middle east politic but also engagement in the damascus spring and each and every one of the many syrian efforts to transition the country from what has been a brutal and long listing dpik they -- dictatorship to something more worthy of the syrian citizens. it's with particular pleasure i welcome him. he'll speak for maybe 15 minutes, then we'll go q & a. >> good morning. thank you so much. thank you for the opportunity to address you about i think one of the most important political issue of the time. that is syria. and again, i'll try to take about 15 minutes to present some points and use these points for an opportunity to hear from you and engage in a discussion. the -- let me start by maybe introducing the syria coalition. some of you who are not familiar with it. and talk about challenges facing the coalition. highlighting maybe three specific challenges and conclude with the coalitions vision of how to end the conflict. it was second maybe wave of the organization by the syrian opposition to create a voice for the syrian revolution. to create an institution that can in fact speak for the syrians who change in syria. as for the name the coalition i.t. is made of several groups. some of them political group with long history like the muslim brotherhood others like the damascus declaration movement. it was the home grown movement from 2005 to 2008. most of the individuals were arrested, spent years in prison and eventually many of them had to leave the country after the revolution. and there were individual activists like myself but i think we decided to have a better connection with the inside as a situation was developing in syria. so we included groups like the local administrative counsel. a group created shortly before. the coalition went through now i would say the second and third phase. it had the first president a kind of charismatic figure who served the first term. then we have a second president who was elected last summer. and we went through an expansion of the coalition. the idea of the coalition was supposed to be kind like a log gistic body that could create an executive branch which would handle the challenges of the ref luges -- revolution and can, in fact, provide governing body for the area. in addition the coalition envisioned maybe improving the contact and the coordination -- known as the supreme military counsel, which was headed to general who would become the head of the moderate forces within the free syrian army. later on with the expansion, in fact the army would be represented in the expansion with 15-members. so again, this is just a brief history of the coalition in term of the structure and the vision -- of course the vision is similar to all of those previous creations. the opposition like the syrian national counsel and that is to move syria to the multiparty system from the state of -- to state ruled by law to ab inclusive three democratic syria. that's the simple. but in addition to that, i think it's a good idea and we were talking about some work that many of us have been doing in the meantime since the revolution began in march of 2011. that is we thought hard about issue of transsuggestion. how to deal with maintaining law and order in the post assad era. how to think about transitional. we have two projects. one of them i was personally involved in called the day after which provided a detailed vision in automatic of those areas. and all of those programs have been, in fact, endorsed, embraced by the coalition. now, just some specific changes facing the coalition and with how the coalition envision an toantd conflict. one of the first challenges facing the coalition is the cat fear in syria. this is something we were faced with with the syrian national counsel. many of us are in fact political activists, human rights activist and we find ourselves that is always spending a lot of times and energy dealing with the human situation. just if you haven't followed the latest figure on that, we have more than 2.5 million refugees syrian refugee since the beginning of the conflict. but the most syria's figure is the internally displaced syria. it passed the 5 million mark. as you could imagine with all of the assistance we're getting from the international community, from the neighboring countries, from syrian communities, everywhere those efforts not, in fact, been able to match the need of those. at one point, i think i heard a figure from the head at the u.n. saying only 11% of those needs have been addressed by all of this assistance. so this is continued to be a serious, serious challenge facing us. i know, for instance, the first money we received in the coalition. 3eu89% of that figure went for human assistance. that's always been a very, very urgent matter we have to face with. i could just give you the latest problem we have in the area. it's the welcome area of the -- same area which the regime used chemical weapons, i guess. you have about 19.8 million syrians trapped and continue have access to food or medicine. they have been appealing to us to the international commune toy do something. they have been reports about people eating leaves. there was this -- i saw somewhere that there was a religious kind of ruling that people could eat dogs and cats and, i mean, it's really terrible, terrible situation. one of the things we have been, you know, kind -- contacting the international community. the u.n., our friends, everybody is to allow immediate access to the areas. and i think this is something been going on for the last two or three weeks. that's challenge number one. challenge number two is the challenge of radicalization in syria and the rise of extremist groups. and maybe this aspect has much more attention in the media than what it is. it is a concern to us. it's a serious challenge. you know, to understand the conflict -- i think we need remind everyone. began peaceful. it lasted six to seven months. but what really lead to the militarization of the revolution was the fact that the regime never, never for a day, stopped killing of these peaceful protesters. first it was using snipers and assassination, and the regime tried to keep the tab, you know, below 20. on friday the figure would go up. it was the dpex of officers and soldiers from the army, young people had enough and they decided to carry out, you know, carry weapons and self-defense and defending their communities. that lead to the mill tarrization of the revolution. early -- were mostly the by-product of the syrian army. the syrian state. and so there were very much, again, supporting the idea of the revolution of a democratic. i think there was always a, you know, missed opportunity for the syrian revolution. the international community, especially did not step up their support of that modern force. and that is created a jobbing yum in which we started to see the inflow of extremists. they came from neighboring countries. they came from everywhere. and if you remember, again, last year, last -- a year ago there were a few of those extremists. but now they are growing in number. the reason for that, i think, has to do with the perception among many syrians that the international community has not really been supportive enough of the moderates. the continued brew tamty -- brutality of the regime. which is unbelievable. they played it from artillery to tanks to missiles to air force. and using these barrel bombs that is, you know, from world war ii to bomb civilian areas. that create that kind of extremism. a lot of people turn -- i think what lead to the further radicalization is some of the groups came. they were well organized. they were effective and attracted young syrians. that was a group -- now of course we have the more extremist group -- not to be confused. with the islamic state of iraq. and this group is definitely close to -- the threat is very serious. we take, you know, again, seriously. that's why we believe it can stop the trend, number one, to find quick political solution which would end the killing. and number two, to move on in to the creation and strengthening of the moderate forces within the free syrian army. the third challenge, i'll end here -- a has to do with providing gofns for deliberated areas. as you know, large part the coalition before that syrian national council could not provide serious service to the area. that created -- sometimes by the free syrian army to provide some security. inspect some cases it was provided by activists and the peaceful activist who started. they created local councils. local council vary in term of the experience, ability to reach to the communities from one area to another. but they are trying to fill that vacuum. in the coalition, we felt that the creation of an interim government, not to be confused with the transitional government that is geneva mentioned. is necessary. and we went through, in fact, first a nominating person for that job. and that didn't really work through. but lately, again, another person was nominated an activist by inside who was part of the damascus situation movement. was in prison, highly respected to form that interim government, which service-oriented small executive bodies. i don't want to say the word ministries. maybe ministry with a small m would work better. in order to go that. i think in the next meeting of the coalition it would be presented. we hope that these individuals would move to the deliberated area. these are tech karat able to provide basic services to deliberated areas. last point, i'll end here. we endoters area when the arab league and observers. we supported that when the u.s. spent observers. we supported that. the arab league solution was presented to the u.n. and veto by russia, unfortunately. but i think all the political continue to try present some form for transition. and that's with the communique of 2012 comes in. we believe at the time that geneva communique had some positive elements and then when mr. kerry met last may and they decided to hold a geneva con friday. we thought it's could present an opportunity to end the conflict. a couple of point and i'll stop here. from our point of view, number one, there is -- there should be, in fact, the clarity about the expected outcome of this process and for us is a transition to democracy. we're not going talk about power sharing. we're not going talk about rehabilitatings the asham regime. we are talking about democratic that's the essence of communique of georgia geneva. it talk about the transition of the -- including military security all those that existed and then leading in to democratic and transitional period and election. second point from our point of view, we believe that we need the support of key countries in the region. we want their endorsement. that's why during the meetings the leadership had in new york with the member of the international community including our friends. we insisted countries like turkey, saudi arabia, all of those countries would in fact support our going to georgia geneva. we wanted the u.n. eventually to provide some kind of a guarantee that they will be implementation of any arrangement. including maybe the need for some peace keeping forces. i think from all our point of view. we go with an understanding not a precondition. my last point. when we assad should not be part of the process. that's not a precondition. that's our understanding of the literal warning of the geneva communique. believe any political solution must begin with assad stepping down. i think this is how that could open the door for again syria moving in to a democracy. i'll stop here and be glad to take any questions. e the question on a conflict management guy's mind is if you went to georgia geneva. it if you got what you're asking for out of geneva, which is a democratic transition, would you be able to deliver on what you need to deliver on. do you have the kind of control of the situation that would enable you to be what the regime will certainly be looking for, which is an -- [inaudible conversations] >> this is definitely a difficult task ahead of us. knowing the structure of the free syrian army. ic what we're doing even before going to georgia geneva is to consolidate or restructure the free syrian a army a way that strengthen and create more of a professional institution that is believes in protecting the country rather than being loyal to one entity. i think the change would be the inability to control the extremist groups. like and the -- [inaudible] those groups don't plich it. we don't recognize it or work with them. i think all the effort should be between now and then is to weaken and isolate these groups nap is what in fact we have been doing in coordination. we believe that the -- it's difficult because those guys, i mean, have been in fact engaged now in a war against the free sir yab army. they have been assassinating leaders and taking over areas. in a way, we believe, you know, we don't believe that this is isolated from the regime. many of the individuals who are trained by the syrian regime to kill americans in iraq. it's the genesis of it. but i think it would require a regional effort, an international effort. i think even some of the army would require maybe the support and the pressure from, you know, the neighboring countries. and then if you it can happen. but it's not going to be 100% full control. i i think if we are able to control most. then you are able to deliver at least. and then, you know, the rest can be isolated. question? >> please stand up. the problem is the recording. if you could -- [inaudible] thank you. i should have noted that before. if people can go to the microphone who want to ask questions. please, introdrug-- introduce yourself, first. [inaudible] thank you. >> it's an easy one. it's a project called the day after. it's availableon line. if you search it you'll be able to find the whole document. but, again, a few words about it, it's a project that lasted eight or nine months with a -- from inside outside. divided in to working groups address areas like law and order, sec -- institutional design. social economic policy. and it's provides recommendation for now during the transition and after the transition. out of that project that in fact trying to implement the recommendations. i work for reuters news agency. concerning the conference, i think it was yesterday or the day before the syrian deputy prime minister said it was his understanding that the next peace conference would be the georgia geneva conference would be on november 23rd and 24th. i wondered if you had been informed that would be the date. and a couple of other questions about that. i think george from the syrian national counsel said recently that the counsel would not be going. i wondered if you think people from the coalition will attend the conference. and are the americans pressuring grow go? thank you. first part of the question is the 2th and the 25th. it okay. yeah. i think i saw something like this. no, i don't think that is been agreed upon. we haven't received the letter of invitation from the team yet. i think it should be the first step. one important component of the coalition said they would not take part in the georgia geneva based on their understanding of the balance of power on the ground and their field their there isn't enough support coming from our friends and supported in allies. and that is a perspective, i mean, you have to understand and respect. it may be an opportunity bring the question of the chemical weapons use, which i wanted to address and maybe say a few words about it. when assad used chemical weapons that killed more than 1400 people includ

every situation -- from george bush, to bill clinton to h.w. bush. >> to george washington. >> nothing new. why these allies are so disturbed by it. >> do you think they are doing it for show. >> yes. >> and i think president obama is in a position where he didn't want to hurt their allies in domestic policy so they have to think about ahead. yes we stopped that. the wows could not have reviewed the policy and stopped it and never knew about it because that means he didn't make any of the decisions. >> here's leader so and so wouldn't you sort of assume from that quote -- >> if you are a highly skilled leader who follows up how do we get the information. if you assume he's not reading the briefing, the president has not been reading his intelligence briefings. didn't read benghazi. he was golfing. >> i would be shocked if the president of the united states didn't read his morning briefing, really. >>> coming up, bob has good advice on what he thinks the president should do with obama care. hint, the rest of the table may not agree with his regular nations either.

george w. or george h.w. bush was elected, there was the talk of what was called the republican lock. all of a sudden things switched. and they said no democrat would ever be elected in our lifetimes because of the electoral lock as it was referred to in the media. a few years later bill clinton was president. so in a two-party system in which both parties are prone to screw things up and find themselves unable in some cases or many cases to deliver on their promises or to perform as adequately as the people who have put them in office expect them to perform or just simply because people get tired of them, the other party's got a chance of coming back. i think the republican party's in a pretty good position. right now if you look at much of the punditry, the talk is of the surveys that show republicans got more blame for the crisis of the shutdown than did democrats and that this means republicans are in real trouble. history and, in fact, those who have looked at it think that by the fall of next year when the congressional off-year elections take place this is not going to be something that very many people are going to vote on. nate silver, for example, the former new york timesman who makes a habit of handicapping these races says he doubts very much it'll have much impact, and that's what history shows. also while is the a crisis in a sense, it's not the existential crisis that folks have talked about. the coverage of this one, of this shutdown and i think that bob is correct that the fault lines here make it in some ways more significant, but the shutdown itself was not significantly different than previous shutdowns other than the fact that the executive branch decided to make as much visible pain as they could for people, for average americans outside washington so they could argue rationally that this was a real crisis. the president argued that never before had this kind of situation occurred where one party tried to put something on to a continuing resolution of such, of such importance. in fact, the government shut down four times under ronald reagan, three times in a battle over the mx missile which as i recall was a fairly significant debate that took place in those days and once over the question of aid to the contras which was certainly as controversial as anything that we've talked about now. the champion president to suffer through shutdowns, of course, was jimmy carter. still holds the record for the longest and the most days during which the government was shut down, and the debates then were over the hyde amendment about abortion. if those were insignificant questions that these presidents were able to bring people to the table to solve, one wonders about the ability of this president to do the same. jim baker, the former keefe of staff to -- chief of staff to ronald reagan and later secretary of the state, secretary of the treasury, writes and talks about the fact that when reagan was president and these shutdowns occurred, he immediately called everyone together and got things moving again. that didn't happen during this one. and it's the kind of rhetorical crisis that could become real because, for example, in alan greenspan's new book he talks about the failings of economists coming up to the economic collapse of a few years ago was that perhaps they underestimated the importance of psychology and herd performance on the part of investors and others when it comes to economic decision picking and were looking too much at simply the economic facts. what we've had this time is certainly a white house that has argued that this is such an existential crisis that the entire world economy could collapse as a result of something that's happened many, many times before. as we approach the debt limit, the assumption if one reads the the daily newspapers or watches cbs or the other networks is that if, in fact, we don't extend the debt limit by whatever deadline the secretary of the treasury sets and that varies from week to week, that the world economy will collapse because we'll renege on our obligations. and the fact, of course, is that there's revenue coming in that that wouldn't necessarily happen unless the president decided to rearrange the bills he was going to pay so that when the house of representatives voted recently to pass, to pass legislation that would require from present revenues the payment of all international obligations of that sort, the president said if it got to his desk, he'd veto it because he wants that leverage, and he wants to scare the bejesus out of both voters in this country and people abroad. and if greenspan's right and if psychology matters, that could turn a political rhetorical crisis into a real economic crisis as people react not to the reality of what might happen, but to the political bantering and back and forth that takes place in this country. and it's interesting, i mean, i'd add one other thing. when we get into these kinds of battles, you know, "the new york times" some years ago when obamacare passed praised those dem can accurates who because -- democrats who because they believed so strongly in it they were willing to vote for it even though it probably meant they'd lose their seats as heroes, men and women of conscience. when republicans who believed as strongly that there was something wrong with it and that it would take the country wrong with it, the new york times said they were fools because they were risking their seats. and the fact is sometimes courage and heroes depend on where you stand and where you want the country to go, so the people that agree with you are heros, people that oppose you and disagree with you are fools. and that sort of characterization dominates things. it's interesting to me that once the partisanship ended, once the shutdown ended, within the last 4 hours six democratic -- 24 hours six democratic senators have said we need to delay obamacare for a year because it isn't working and because it's a disaster. those six democrats and all the other democrats in the senate a week ago said delaying obamacare for a year would destroy everything. but now when you remove the partisanship, they said, gosh, we've looked at this, and we'd better do something about it. most americans in the polls blame the republicans for the shutdown. today a national poll came out, 51% of americans want obamacare repealed. so the fight between these two sides is not going to end either over this or any of the other issues that are going to dominate american politics for the next decade. >> david, thank you for those remarks. and now i will turn to romina boccia of the heritage foundation. >> on october 16th, excuse me, congress did what it does also well, it didn't do anything. the deal that passed, it did end the government shutdown, the first one we had in over 17 years, but only by setting up another with the finish another battle in early january. the deal also suspended the debt ceiling without enacting any reforms to slow the growth in entitlement spending which as we all know is driving our spending and debt crises, and we won't know by how much the debt limit was lifted until february 8th because there is no actual dollar limit right now on the debt. effectively, there is no debt limit in place. next week the 29 members of the budget conference committee will hold their first meeting. the committee faces a deadline on december 13th to come up with recommendations to present to the full house and senate in a report. the first priority, of course, will be to figure out government funding past january 15th because on that day sequestration, the automatic budget cuts that were passed in 2011 as the tet limit was raised -- debt limit was raised by $2.1 trillion, by the way all of that borrowing happened in a year and a half but those cuts to be faced over ten years through 2021, the sequester would kick in again on that day. what's important to keep in mind as this budget conference committee starts negotiating is that we do have a dual crisis of spending and debt in this country. the congressional budget office projects that without any fiscal restraint the public debt will reach 100% of gross domestic product in less than one generation. by 2028. which poises the concerns of -- summarizes the concerns of businesses in the 12 federal reserve districts. businesses were reporting yet again that uncertainty in increases over health care premiums and the affordable care act's regulations were keeping them from hiring and especially hiring full-time workers. and concerns over the 2,000-page law that barely any lawmaker read before they voted on it, also known as obamacare, is affecting the american economy, americans in general, and what it does to change the size and scope of the federal government. these were at the core of the recent government shutdown. house republicans refused funding for the implementation of obamacare, and the president and senate decided to keep the government partially shut down until they were able to get funding for this law. but the stage was set for this challenge, for this funding challenge back in 2010 when president obama and his senate allies decided to hijack a budget process mechanism called reconciliation to ram through this law without popular or even bipartisan support. and if you look at the history of the united states, no equally major change in social policy -- not social security, not medicare, not even the civil rights act -- was able to be successful over the long term without any bipartisan support. but president obama and his allies decided to enact the health care law with just a 51-vote, purely partisan majority, and that's why we have this funding challenge now, because we have a majority of republicans in the house. they control the pursestrings, is and t within their constitutional rights to deny funding to a law that a they don't agree with. the founders of in this great nation wanted there to be broad consensus before laws or with passed -- passed. they neither wanted a single person, nor a single chamber of congress to be able to impose its will on the public, so they deliberately assigned a system with checks and balances that required agreement between the house, the senate and the president that can only be produced by compromise. but compromise was all but absent during this recent shutdown as president obama repeatedly and publicly refused even to negotiate. one of the checks in our system is that there's a two-part system to laws, first as enacting the law and second is funding the law in each and every year. and congress can overturn laws, they can stop funding laws. that's part of our constitutional system, and it's not new, and it's what happened in this time which is why we had a government shutdown. now, the house made several attempts at trying to force compromise, trying to front the entire government but not obamacare or certain provisions like delaying the individual mandate which we heard the administration is now even considering delaying it for six weeks as the exchanges, especially the web exchanges have proven to be completely unworkable. even so, the administration was arguably using the shutdown as leverage to push -- pressure the house republicans into funding this law because even attempts to reopen parts of the government were almost all rejected. and i quote here from "the wall street journal" a senior administration official said we are winning. it does not matter to us how long this shutdown lasts, because what matters is the end result. so the house gave in on october 16th and voted to fund obamacare to reopen the goth, -- the government, and they also suspended the debt ceiling through february 7th. in the meantime, our deficits are more than half a trillion dollars, and before the end of the decade they will rise back up to trillion dollar levels. the congressional budget office projects that even with very modest increases in interest rates what the federal government pays to service its debt will double in less than five years and triple before the end of the decade. there's broad bipartisan agreement that entitlement spending is at the core of this spending and debt challenge that we face as a country. this is true from the president's own fiscal commission which he ignored to just about every economist out there. the sooner lawmakers come to terms with our fiscal reality and start the process of reforming programs like social security, medicare and medicaid, the more deliberate and thoughtful those reforms can be. by judging how far apart the house and senate budget proposals were, however, i think it seems very likely that washington will continue this groundhog day cycle of passing 11th hour deals that fail to fix the problem, and we'll continue to have the discussion likely again next year. thank you. >> we will now turn to dimiti simes, the held of the center for the national interest. >> i was in russia about a month ago in september on a panel with president vladimir putin. he was supposed to be one of the panelists, but he quickly kind of appointed himself the moderator. and i began asking as a panelist questions, and he addressed one question to me. he asked what is going to happen with the u.s. debt situation? is it going to be something that the u.s. government will allow to go out of control if -- control? and i kind of gave him assurances that this would not happen, that we would have several rocky weeks, perhaps several rocky months, and we are not quite out of the woods yet but that -- [inaudible] would be result. and putin looked, and the audience there were about 200 people including his former finance minister, and he addressed him by first name, alexei, what do we have now in u.s. currency? what part of our currency reserves is in the u.s. dollars? and he said, well, about 50%. and putin looked at him, looked at everybody in the room, and he said, well, alexei, you're out of date. we have already reduced it to 40%. and then at the small dinner, putin came back to the same topic again, and he said you all need to understand that we wish the united states well, because if the american economy doesn't do well, it affects us. but he also said when we witness what is happening in washington, we have to draw our conclusions. and it was fairly clear to me that he was not just talking about conclusions in terms of what percentage of russian currency reserves would be in u.s. dollars, that it would be broader conclusions about the nature and the quality of u.s. global leadership. recently, in bali at a summit which president obama decided not to attend putin was very magnanimous, and he said, well, it's fully understandable that president obama is not there under the circumstances. if i was in a similar situation, i probably would not come also. you know what? such nag anymorety is deadly. -- magnanimity is deadly. [laughter] the chinese were also quite outspoken, and they were not holding their punches. they were making quite clear tata they regret president obama's absence, and they saw it not only as a problem, but also an opportunity to remind everybody at a bali -- at bali that china was a rising superpower. and what america, for whichever reason, could not offer world economic leadership, china was there and willing to provide it. the singaporeafs who normally are not only among the staunchest american allies, but are very reluctant to criticize the united states became also outspoken. we have a piece today online about -- [inaudible] who is a very outspoken, very prolific and talented chinese academic. their former ambassador to the united nations, and he is very critical of how the united states and more specifically the administration handleds the current crisis -- handles the current crisis. >> [inaudible] >> yes. that is not unusual. he's an outspoken intellectual. what was unusual, that senior members of the singaporean government were using almost exactly the same language, raising questions about the quality of u.s. leadership. this is all very disturbing and it kind of substantiates what president obama is saying about the seriousness of this crisis, of the shutdown for american global positions. except it is not quite that simple. if you would be watching bbc today as i was doing this morning, you would know that the big story in europe is alleged u.s. spying on chancellor merkel and before that, of course, u.s. alleged spying on french citizens, and before that i guess confirmed spying on the european union, offices in brussels and in -- [inaudible] and so it goes. there are a lot of explanations coming from the obama administration, there are a lot of denials. i certainly have no access to classified information and have no idea what exactly is true. but i know one thing for sure, it really smells. it smells in a very major way affecting a fundamental image of the united states in the world. and there is no, there is no escape from that. there is also no escape from us, the united states, not really looking serious in the way this administration approaches foreign policy. red lines in syria a is a perfect example. i couldn't understand for a second why president obama declared very early during the syrian uprising that president assad had to go. i don't understand why he had to say that. president assad, of course, is a nasty eye rant, but he was not -- tyrant, but he was not known in the united states. we were not aware, at least the administration never made public any evidence that president assad was acting against the united states. to the best of my knowledge, we had diplomatic relations with assad. we had senator kerry, our current secretary of state, coming to damascus and being quite friendly to him. so the question was why is that assuming syria was an independent country, not an american colony, why would the president of the united states be saying assad had to go unless we had a specific plan to remove him? and that, of course, quite similar to -- [inaudible] in the case of egypt and ore countries where he was -- other countries where he was saying mubarak had to go who was our reliable ally, and we came to a situation in egypt when mubarak's former associates are in power again, and the administration doesn't seem to be quite unhappy with that. but in the case of syria, it had very serious implications, this red line, that it was even before chemical weapons, the red line was that assad had to go. and, obviously, you would not expect the syrian opposition to negotiate seriously with assad if the president of the united states had announced that he had to go. we had an event in this very room with a very senior syrian parliamentarian close to the government, and he was telling us how turkey decided to support the syrian uprising. well, they decided to do it after obama spoke and said that assad had to go. because today decided that -- they decided that words from washington, statements by the president of the united states had meaning. and the united states would do something. [inaudible] and then we got these red lines about chemical weapons. and chemical weapons are pretty terrible. i think that anyone would agree with that. i have only one question, if other side is in a civil war and happens to be al-qaeda, would you tell, would you tell the relatives of those who were murdered on september 11th, would you tell them that the way their relatives were murdered somehow was morally superior to using chemical weapons? i think it would be a rather offensive statement for anyone to make. but the president have established those red lines. and then, of course, assad has crossed those red lines, or at least the administration claims so. and what have we done? we have done virtually nothing. and then, of course, we now have this remarkable initiative to retrieve the syrian chemical weapons which we're pushing together with russia. well, some would say better late than never. but i am trying to understand what is going on. we were told by the obama administration that the president did not have to have a separate summit with putin because there was nothing to discuss. and then, of course, we're told that they had a brief encounter in st. petersburg during the g20, and it was not we were told at that time a very meaningful encounter. and what they hear from officials both in washington and moscow, indeed, it was not a very involved conversation. and then suddenly we're kind of confronted with a situation when the administration claims that this idea of syrian chemical weapons was what the administration wanted all along, and it almost is like a diplomatic victory. well, you know, if that's what the administration wanted to do all along, why wouldn't the president go to a summit with president putin in moscow? he would have to take some criticism because of the snowden affair which, in my view, the administration has also mishandled. putin's russian -- [inaudible] in the corner criticizing him publicly the moment snowden literally landed in moscow without trying to have some private discussion between the two presidents of how to get it resolved, preferably on american terms. but, so the president decided not to go to moscow, not to have negotiation with putin. if getting syrian chemical weapons was a priority, the president had to go there. and you know what? then we would not have this humiliation in london with the british parliament acting against their own prime minister. we would not have this situation in washington when obama would have to discover that his own congress would not support him on the intervention in syria. the bottom line is, the bottom line is this administration doesn't seem to have a serious foreign policy. it doesn't make foreign policy a priority. i don't understand why the president did not go to bali to the summit. if he decided not to negotiate with the republicans -- [inaudible] putin himself above the -- [inaudible] and eventually suggesting that it is up to the congress to work out their difficulties, i think if foreign policy would be a priority for the president, a responsible thing to do would be for him to go to bali and to assure the other leaders that this crisis would be resolved and that america remains the only superpower. a serious superpower. i was really offended by the president talking about american exceptionalism only several weeks ago in a situation when the administration clearly does not think that if you are talking about being exceptional, you at the minimum have to act responsibly. because otherwise those words have no meaning. when senator obama in 2008 began winning one primary after another, the future first lady, michelle obama, said that this was the first time he was proud of america. when she was questioned about the statement which was pretty remarkable for the spouse of a presidential contender, particularly who was already a sitting u.s. senator, she said, no, she was misquoted. what she really had said, she explained, was that a this was the first time she was really proud of america. well, perhaps, perhaps it's a very important distinction. i don't necessarily agree. but what i do see is that for the first time since i came to the united states 40 years ago, i see that a lot of persons are becoming really ashamed of their country. or rather, to be more specific, about the way this country's being governed. i do not for a second approve the techniques of house republicans. they have to be mature adults. they have to engage in a serious, sober calculation. and they have to understand that what they were doing, that what they were doing was an exercise in futility. but i think that the paramount responsibility for the u.s. foreign policy and for the u.s. fiscal solvency, this is a responsibility of the president of the united states. and they have to say that -- and i have to say that his performance during this crisis and before this crisis was unexceptional at best. >> well, we -- on that note, i think we have a good basis for stimulating question and answer session here. and i will forgo the opportunity to ask right away and let the audience fire away. who's going to be first? >> nobody else -- [inaudible] two and a half presidents, nixon, ford and reagan. and -- [inaudible] national interest. politically, and i think dimitri already addressed this to a certain extent, i would be curious how the rest of the panel feels. didn't this shutdown defeat the very purpose that some of the leaders of it said it was? that is, didn't it distract from the discussion of a defective medical health policy and make the gop, the issue, the heavy? and the shutdown which the people didn't feel was the paramount issue -- [inaudible] for that reason now that it's over and it's going to go away, i think things are going to refocus on health. but didn't this just postpone what they claimed they were trying to do, and that was to launch a serious discussion on the issue of the health program on which the american people are largely on their styled, and they actually used reverse judo, they nipped the american people -- flipped the american people to where the american people were opposed to them in congress. i happened to be at the american spectator's annual dinner where ted cruz was speaking last night, and he's already starting with the sort of german post-world war i stab in the back, if only a few more of my colleagues in the senate would have gone with me, we would have prevailed. so there seems to be a destructive streak within the gop, although judging from the audience reaction which was not that big for cruz last night, i think there's a sane shakedown taking place. just curious how the members of the panel feel. >> david. >> the answer to your question is yes and no. yes, the subject got changed to the shutdown, but, no, in spite of all the difficulties with the cruz approach which was an approach based on no real expectation of winning though he claimed that he was going to win, he had no end game, but the discussion itself as the recent polls show did increase hostility to obamacare. the challenge that he faced because there was no end game was does the, does the immediate reaction to the shutdown which was blamed on him -- and, remember, the only two shutdowns that have been, that have created this kind of hostility have been the '90 shutdown with gingrich where it was blamed on him and this one where it was blamed on the republicans. the others were just taken as part of the game, part of what we do because the two bodies, the executive and legislative branch have different means of exerting leverage. so the question is in the long run if it was to hurt, does that go away? the betting is that it probably does go away. what cruz did do is set the table for the -- and it's not just cruz, but others as well -- set the table for the 2014 off-year elections. they may not vote on the shutdown, but they may well be t voting on obamacare, taxes and jobs. and in that seasons he probably -- in that sense he probably made the republican position stronger. think about this division within the party. he, if you personify the two sides, mitch mcconnell and ted cruz, mcconnell saying you're splitting the party, if you're in peoria, what did you see? you saw these two republicans arguing about who hated obamacare most. you didn't get into all these details, you didn't understand it. and then you looked at the fella next to you and said, well, i don't want like it much either. so i don't think in the long run it hurts unless it becomes a personal civil war, and the comment that senator cruise -- cruz made yesterday and some of the comments senator mcconnell's allies are making are dangerous can. these guys do have to pretend that they get along and that they're part of the same party if they expect to get what they need to actually change policy. and as the mcconnell forces were saying, that would be votes. that would be control of the senate or at least close enough to control the senate so they can get a couple of democratic senators to go with them. if they do that, then they accomplish something. if they don't do that, they accomplish nothing. >> one of the questions that i had maybe for david and bob was that it was dick cheney who said deficits don't matter. and the republican party has two wings on economics, one is the calvin coolidge/herbert hoover, pretty dour, grim focus on reducing deficits and cutting spending, and the other one is more on optimistic message of reagan and focusing on economic growth as the way to prosperity and the way to cutting the deficit. and the argument today which seems to be being ceded to the democratic party is that growth is the optimistic path, and republican party really viably sell deficit cutting? is that a positive message to deliver to the american public, or are today making a mistake? should they be focusing more on cutting taxes and increasing growth as a way to reduce unemployment? bob? >> well, i think that growth is the key in political terms. when you go back to the republican party, the famous article in the national observer in which he talked about the two santa claus theory, the democratic santa claus wants to give you all these goodies at christmas, and the republican santa claus ought to be giving you tax cuts to generate growth and to use that a idiom in the political arena. the problem, he says, that the republicans had been the tax collectors for the democratic good keys -- goodies, so the republicans became scrooge. and it was reagan who basically turned that around. he didn't turn that around because he didn't care about deficits, and i'm going to say just a little bit about that in a moment. he turned it around because he cared about what his priorities were. he wanted to get the country moving again, and his fed chairman was squeezing the heck out of the economy because of the inflation problem, ask and he needed to general -- and he needed to generate some growth, and that was his tax plan n. '76 he didn't run on my kind of significant tax-cutting plan, he was the original kind of republican that we're talking about. but when you think about what reagan accomplished there and how george herbert walker bush kind of reversed it, his last budget proposal for his last year that went up to congress, he had that deficit down. we talk about the reagan deficits. that deficit was down to less than 3% of gdp which is a manageable level. and then it went and shot back up under george herbert walker bush. and george herbert walker bush never bought the growth idiom, the growth concept that reagan brought. so growth has got to be the key. and with enough growth you can deal with the deficit problem. and that's, that's the reagan lesson that is certainly lost by the people who look down on reagan in historical terms, but lost on a lot of people including dick cheney, i believe, who basically became cavalier about deficits. i don't think that's very smart. but to take deficit as your focus is also not politically smart. >> david? >> oh, i would agree with that. in a sense, of course, cheney's comments were taken out of context because they came at a time when the deficit was signif

george bush by 50 to 32%. an 18-point lead for dukakis over george h.w. bush. others had the duke up by similar margins.ay be a blowout. you start thinking about the first 100 days. it only took about 30 days for bush to claw back into contention and then in early september, the bush campaign brought down the hammer. >> bush and dukakis on crime. bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers. dukakis, not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. one was willie horton who murdered a boy in a robbery stabbing him 19 times. despite a life sentence, horton received ten weekend passes from prison. horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. weekend prison passes, dukakis on crime. >> that ad aired on cable in two new england markets, but received massive national media coverage amplifying bush's message and elevating crime. context is important here. generation ago, in 1988, violent crime rates were soaring. there was an intense public clamoring for the death penalty, something dukakis

george h.w. bush made similar reforms. democrats obstructed president george w.ush's debt ceiling request because they wanted to prevents him from passing what was then known as the bush tax cuts. so this is a natural time to have both parties negotiating. that's why the president's position not to negotiation is indefensible. there is one thing both side agree on. default would be devastating. so let's take it off the table. the president gets enough revenue into the federal treasury to pay our interest payment. which is why you had republicans after the 2011 debt ceiling showdown. the president paid that payment and allows the executive branch to pay other payments. so that's what the response is. martha: we have to pay these bills because of the full faith and credit act. but it does leave the treasury discretion on that. this does feel like a perfect opportunity to have a discussion about spending. do you think the president will ultimately be willing to do that? >> if that's true why did ronald reagan say there was the prospect of defail if they didn't raise

george w. bush first introduced the no child left behind initiative. one of its biggest champions at the time was education scholar diane ravech who served as the assistant secretary of education under president george h.wind, became a chief critic of no child left behind, particularly its emphasis on testing, arguing it did little to improve public education. in her new book, "reign of error," she takes on school privatization. she writes, "public education is a basic responsibility. we must not be persuaded by a false crisis naryive to private it. it is time for parents, educator, and other concerned citizens to join together to strengthen our public schools and preserve them for future generations. the future of our democracy depends on it." and diane ravech joins me now. i am so pleased to have you here. i spent a lot of time with the book over the course of the past week. talk to me about why public, truly public education matters. >> public education is one of the public services that our society provides. we have police, fire, protection, public parks, public schools. it's one of the basic things a democracy does. the high performing nations of the world don't have vouchers, they have professiona

george h.w. bush being sworn in as president. i spent the day with georgeand barbara bush's old friends watching the inaugural parade and that evening they had a celebration as i think it was a holiday in. they had a buffet table and a centerpiece with a capital on it and there was a little placard on the capital dome that somebody put on and they had written one word, hours. it was this notion that the republicans were taking over in washington. what happened was this remarkable resurgence and what turned out to be temporary but resurgence of the democrats in texas. when mark white won the governorship in the whole series of new democrat officeholders were brought in and richard was one and richard hightower was another. this was a vet erie engineered lie in part lloyd bentsen and his operation to have put together a get out the vote operation that was below the radar of the republicans. i was talking regularly with the pollster for governor clemons who won the weekend before the election had governor clemons comfortably ahead and on election day when i ca

george h.w. bush, brigadier general jimmy doolittle, general curtis la may, senator john mccain, senator george mcgovern, jimmy stewart, and admiral jim stock dale to name a few. the march air force reserve base of the t the c-17-a's air mobility wing is adjacent to the location of the memorial at the museum. visitors are able to witness active operational air units, providing support to our troops around the world, which is an appropriate setting that honors the many aviators who have distinguished themselves by deeds performed in aerial flight. aid like to thank those who worked tirelessly to ensure this mom morial was built and properly designated to honor the distinguished aviators that have served this great nation. in particular i'd like to recognize jim, late wife, trish, distinguished flying cross society's president, chuck sweeney, and the society's historian, dr. barry lamann, who was instrumental in this effort. again i hope you'll join me in supporting the designation of the national distinguished flying cross memorial at march field air museum and h.r. 330. thank you. i yield back the balan