i think kathleen is right. the president saying that he's holding his agencies accountable and he's holding himself accountable is right. but also he's got to do and i think he's starting to get there, do a better job of making sure that the american people understand everything that he's doing. up until last week, i think people thought that the president and his administration was just sitting on their hands and letting this environmental disaster happen. and he's getting ahead of it, i think, to letting people know that he's been, you know, on the ball from the very beginning. >> woodruff: michael beschloss, what's your take on how the president has done some. >> in terms of substance, the oil is still spilling into the gulf. the way people are going to look at this two years from now is how fast was this stopped? how much did he go after the people responsible? and also how much did he help the people, you know, people who are fishing in the gulf and others, people involved in tourism, who were suffering fr

with a former adviser to kathleen sibelius. from the nation's capital, this is "washington journal." . . a bill on small business lending. and on the senate floor, an extension of tax breaks and unemployment benefits. live coverage of all of these events and more on a very active day in the nation's capital. and to that speech by the president tonight. your thoughts on what he should say to america. jackie calms writes it up in "the new york times." she writes that -- the first call this morning on what the president should say tonight. joe, you are on the line from georgia. republican. caller: thank you very much. love c-span. i think the president ought to say we need energy independence. just because would happen with bp, bp said they will be held responsible. they should be responsive. increase our energy supply. a great thing that happened yesterday. tom grays was sworn in for my district. a good friend of mine. he talked about cutting spending. the thing president obama tonight needs to talk about even with by pithos a re

effort, consistent with the food safety working group the president established with myself and kathleen to bilious at health and human services. we have 50 recommendations and are working our way through those. some of them have been historic. we will continue to work at identifying pathogens and increased testing and figure out ways we can do a better job than we have done. >> why shouldn't food safety be concentrated in one agency like the food and drug administration? >> there's nothing right or wrong, the key is to have a system that works. the key is a major the system is consistent. what we had was a process where the agencies did not necessarily communicate effectively with each other and it did not have uniform incident command structure where recalls and information could get out in a timely way. we are trying to use a new social marketing strategy and techniques to get messages to consumers as quickly as possible. that doesn't require a single agency, but it requires better coordination. it has been 70 years since has been a significant improvement to the regulatory structure,

first, we have one of the best secretaries of health and human services we have ever had in kathleenbelius. please give her a round of applause. [applause] i want to thank governor o'malley for joining us here today. and for his political efforts. i want to acknowledge our wonderful senior center for the great state of maryland. byron mikulski is here. [applause] ben cardin could not be here, but he is wonderful, too, so give him a round of applause. [laughter] [applause] and we have u.s. representative chris van hollen here, and u.s. representative don edwards. [applause] and i want you to know that they have fought hard on behalf of seniors and on behalf of this health care bill. and i could not be happier to be joined by them. i want to thank fran for joining her -- sharing her story with us. and i want to thank everyone who has joined us at the senior center. there are a lot of people listening and watching across america, so i appreciate you as well. i am looking forward to taking questions, but first, i want to say few brief words about the bill we pass a couple months back and

anything you want to add there, kathleen?i think the president did a great job answering that question. is there -- let's take the next one from the audience. sir, in the back. >> my name is pat connover (phonetic, i'm 69 years old, and i have heart disease, high blood pressure, and incurable fast- growing prostate cancer. i have a couple of other chronic as a transgender person. and in addition, i'm allergic to some of the drugs that would most be used to treat my conditions. i'm actually doing the wise things for myself and i'm still productive in several ways. one of the big reasons for my sustained good health is my primary care physician, dr. gail povard in addition to being a good doctor, she is an outstanding advocate in coordinating for my sometimes complex care. i believe significantly more money can be saved in medicare by directing more resources to primary physicians for coordination and patient advocacy, and less to the complex organizational programs that have the same purpose. instead of buying expensive footba

there with the president will be kathleen sebelius. >> we have three new c-span books for you, "abraham lincoln, " "the supreme court, " and " who is buried in grant's tomb?" each is a great gift for father's day. host: our guest is julie hersh field davis of the associated press, talking about some documents talking about a later occasion. who did the documenting and how much has been released? guest: the bill clinton presidential library in arkansas released 46,000 pages of documents from the land taken's -- elena kagan's time as deputy counsel. those will probably have some of the more potentially controversial documents that are actually written by her. a lot of these are written to her. this is just the first batch. host: what has been the most interesting thing so far? guest: you can really see how she worked in the policy process and was a pragmatist. it is clear that she worked for a democratic president and work on those things, but she also found ways to deal with abortion, welfare, some on the more hot-button issues. that is what bill clinton tried to do, so it is not surpris

host: kathleen saying we will stay as long as there are no contracts.he war would end tomorrow if the draft was started. guest: certainly there is a lot of what there is called waste, fraud, and abuse in the contracting system, but i would say most of it is in country with the corruption that exist throughout the country. the draft -- i came into the army in the draft, and i would say that like any think it is a trade-off. what you get with the draft is a broad support for participation in the army and all the services because of the draft. what you also get is a lot of unwilling participants who were not happy to be there. that has a bad effect on morale. all volunteer army is a much better army because everyone is there because they want to be there. i do not think you will ever see the draft come back in the way it was. you may see national service, but that is another topic for another day. host: david joining us from indiana on the republican line. caller: i was wondering, the list gm issue. what kind of players will we have in afghanistan mining t

kathleen, georgia, good morning. caller: my feelings are that president obama has not shown enough outrage. i want to give great praise to the governor of louisiana. he was calling for booms and booms. where is the stockpile of blooms for the oil wells in the gulf of mexico? we cannot even control one. we get another one in the ocean will be gone. why would they tried to tap this well? whoever was in charge of making this decision? go home. do not put mud in there, keep drilling. they need to be undercharges right now. host: john, democratic line. caller: good morning, greta. i would like to give you accolades as to have -- how you handle the program. i have a problem with the question of the morning. host: all right. caller: what is showing more emotion than of what is he supposed to do, emotionally? i keep hearing from the tee bagger point of view, less government, less government, less government. that is it. can the government show more emotion when it comes to soldiers being killed in iraq? should the american p

kathleen wright says, can we declare bankruptcy? we get 60% of the revenues from oil leases. james, from detroit, good morning. caller: the president is trying everything he can to clean this mess up. the banks are not lending. -- they're not lending money to banks. even when we bail out these companies they're not hiring people because in the stock market news that they say the banks are afraid, or the corporations are afraid, or the businesses are afraid to invest in new inventory, or to hire new people. that is not the president's fault. the president is doing everything he can to stimulate the economy it is the corporations. people need to understand that if you want to talk about patriotism, we need to go after the corporations and ask them -- where is your patriotism, corporate america? you have takkn all the money from the bush years, you have plenty of capital. why aren't you taking that and investing back in our country, our people, who have supported you all of these years? host: thanks for the call. here it is a story inside the paper, all but one state and local g

congress who are here today who helped to make reform a secretary of health and human services, kathleen sebelius, is here, as is secretary of labor, hilda solis, and they are two of the members of my cabinet who are helping to implement this law. i just finished a meeting with the c.e.o.'s of some of america's largest insurance companies, and some of our state insurance commissioners where we discussed how we're going to work together to where we discussed how we're going to work together to

the president will be joined by kathleen sebelius. live coverage tomorrow at 11:40 a.m. eastern on c-span and c- span.org. in a few moments, admiral thad allen breaks reporters on the gulf of mexico oil spill, saying the clinic could take years. president obama comments on the claims process for those affected by this bill. -- the spill. and the role of progressive in this year's elections. the debate in utah. >> noncandidate has -- no candidate has given more opportunities to ask questions and see what he is made of. >> see some of their early television appearances in the c- span video library. with over 160,000 hours of video. a quarter century of history you can search your way. all available free online. >> cleanup crews continue to aid wildlife affected by the gulf of mexico oil spill which has reached more than 100 miles of beach. this was at the fort jackson bird rehabilitation center. >> [unintelligible] >> [inaudible] >> at today's white house briefing, admiral thad allen says cleaning up the gulf of mexico oil spill will take years. he talked about the claims

and in part because of their story, i instructed my secretary of health and human services, kathleen sebelius, to make sure that any hospital that's participating in medicare or medicaid - that means most hospitals [laughter] allow gay and lesbian partners the same privileges and visitation rights as straight partners. [applause] after i issued that memorandum, i called janice and i told her the news. and before we came out here today, i wanted to make sure that i had followed up -- secretary sebelius will officially be proposing this regulation. and i can also announce that the secretary has sent a letter today asking these hospitals to adopt these changes now - even before the rule takes effect. [applause] nothing can undo the hurt that her -- that janice's family has experienced. and nothing can undo the pain felt by countless others who've been through a similar ordeal - for example, charlene strong is here. she lost her wife, kate fleming -- and charlene is here along with kate's mom, who said on behalf of all mothers, thank you. because we think it's the right thing to do. [app

kathleen is joining us from athens, ohio,ood morning. caller: i agree with the previous caller who was on the phone about israel, but i want to went -- mention three website since our mainstream media did not even touched thi international humanitarian flotilla before there was violence. rachel madow -- cnn, nobody mentioned the flotilla when they left land flowing toward gaza. informedcomment -- if americans live the great place t get lirature and other information about the situation in israel, and another w site called -- mondeiss, his name is ilip weiss, he is jewish, he writes about the issue all the time and have great discussions. but i want to mention what the mainstream media is doing with it now. i turn on fox yesterday and i think his name is carl hammer -- host: charles krauthammer. caller: they were blaming, they call them the peaceniks, saying they were trying to cause

somebody like dennis could sign up to be part of a pool where they got the lowest rate possible -- kathleens would oversee these policies offered. you would have a choice of plans. it would not be one size fits all. if dennis had a bigger family and wanted to have a certain kind of better insurance, he could pay a little bit more. if he was single and feeling healthy, he could have a cheaper version, but he could get the benefit of being a part of this big pull. that is the main concept behind -- pool. that is the main concept behind this health care reform bill. we will do our best to provide subsidies to help people pay for their insurance. all of this does not go into effect until 2013. how come it has taken so long? it is not just a question of money, but also setting it up right. we are talking about 30 million people getting insurance. you have to set it up in a way that is efficient and not subject to fraud. we have to do it right over a certain number of years. by 2014, what you are going to see is a situation where somebody like dennis, our caller, even if his coverage has lapsed,

kathleen is joining us from athens, ohio, good morning. caller: i agree with the previous caller who was on the phone about israel, but i want to went -- mention three website since our mainstream media did not even touched this international humanitarian flotilla before there was violence. rachel madow -- cnn, nobody mentioned the flotilla when they left land flowing toward gaza. informedcomment -- if americans live the great place to get literature and other information about the situation in israel, and another web site called -- mondoweiss, his name is philip weiss, he is jewish, he writes about the issue all the time and have great discussions. but i want to mention what the mainstream media is doing with it now. i turn on fox yesterday and i think his name is carl hammer -- host: charles krauthammer. caller: they were blaming, they call them the peaceniks, saying they were trying to cause trouble, instead of having any kind of and the fate or compassion for the deaths of those people and focusing on why that flotilla was headed towar

of catholic life these days that is free or that can escape the inevitability of questions about kathleen identity. -- catholic identity. how do you foster a strong sense of catholic identity and communicated to the rest of the world? catholic higher education is an obvious case in point. there is not a catholic campus in this country that has not had all long and painful internal conversations around the issues of catholic identity. it seems to me that the major challenge we will face in the 21st century in our part of the world is that a steering a middle course between to potential extremes. on the one end of the spectrum, we have my friend and colleague describes as catholicism light, a kind of watered-down, sold out version of catholic identity that is catholic in name only. terms of its values and world view it is effectively secularized. if we are honest with ourselves about catholicism in a bit the years since the second vatican council, we can find examples of this. it is not just that the area or in abstraction. it is a real and present risk. at the other end of the continuum fr

kathleen sebelius just said that there would be a shortage of doctors. you look at the health care lot and they do not deal with doctors in primary care. they go after physicians who displayed malpractice, but there is nothing in there for new doctors. i agree with the administration, you are right, we want to increase quality, we want to decrease costs, we want increased access, but this health care law does not accomplish those laudable goals that the president said. host: next phone call. mark, and it spurred -- in pittsburgh. caller: i think he entered a couple of my questions. i have two friends. i am 46. my best friend, his mother had umw medicare. and they are keeping her in the hospital. she had a heart attack. host: we are having a problem with his connection. we are going to move on to stephanie in washington, d.c. caller: what was taken on of medicare was the business subsidy. nothing was taken out of medicare except for the subsidy that paid business for something that they did not need. it was being paid for by 90% of the other medicare pati

last week i had the opportunity to welcome health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius into my district to talk abouthe positive influence that the health care reform bill will he on medicare reform, paying for value over lume and continuing to provide the highest quality care to our continues at the lowest possible cost. i also want to thank my friend, ron kind from wisconsin. we talked a lot about the part d doughnut hole. this week $250 rebate ccks will be going to them to allow those seniors whoave worked their entire life to build this nation and to prepare for a prosperous rerement. 63,000 minnesotans will see that three weeks in advance. ths is just one of the many benefits that will come to them. it's absutely critical our seniors in this country hear the facts, the real facts about health care reform, how it will end up bringing higher quality f care, lower costs and paying down thenational debt. i'm proud the secretary could see thatthe world famous mayo clinic. yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose doethe gentleman from texas rise? mr. poe: reque

>> what if kathleen have mentioned is correct.started, ann that is one of the reasons why they contacted american university, to try to come up with a program that would be done in haiti. so rather than sending -- because it happens that i was at the central bank of haiti in the 1990's, and at that time, i was part of a technical assistance program, so i was one among 20 haitians that went back to haiti for five years to work at this republic, and at that time, the governor had put in place a program where he had sent about 25 patients to get master's degrees in u.s. universities. what happened is that once the program ended, they came back to haiti, but once the situation started to deteriorate, those who got their degree from north american universities are among the first to leave and get jobs elsewhere, so therefore, the new governor, when he became in power, decided to try something a little bit different. rather than sending students abroad, he decided to have them be trained in haiti, said the program at the american univer