>> by the special prosecutor, lawrence walsh. >> bill: who was appointed by?> by -- well, by the justice department. in this case actually by bush. >> bill: okay. so bush appointed the guy and then the guy came back and hit bush? >> that's right. >> bill: that's really not what i'm talking about here. >> i'm sorry. you -- >> bill: i'm not making accusations against president obama here because i don't have the data. >> appointed under reagan to investigate iran contra. >> bill: right, okay. did you see clinton, president clinton use the justice department to punish political people? >> the closest we ever came is when they released linda tripp's personnel file from the pentagon in an effort to embarrass her. >> bill: somebody ordered the pentagon to embarrass mrs. tripp because she was exposing the president's problems. this is such a low level beef i can't believe. >> it's ridiculous. coincides with the finding in the latest zogby poll that christie is the most popular republican candidate against obama. >> bill: so you think it is a political play? >> absolu

or lawrence walsh, depending on your political perspective. but it was a pretty ambitious idea in terms of trying to diminish, regulate, and contain executive branch corruption. in the after math of watergate, this was a serious problem. that's a grand expectation about what government could achieve. i'm not sure carter -- i mean i see the image of carter. it's the malay speech that people point to. he's lecturing americans on the need to deal with it and understand the limits of what they are going to have. that said, there's a lot in carter that isn't diminished at all. very bold. i think sometimes it caused some political problems. it was too much for many democrats. this is not what they wanted to try to focus on. >> dr. zeller -- zelizer, pardon me, as part of the forums, let me congratulate you on a truly outstanding presentation today. could you talk about the strength and weakness with carter's cabinet, relations with the vice president and the cabinet? >> he has two sides of the team. the one side is the georgia mafia. the group of pe

they think of kenneth starr or lawrence walsh depending on your political perspective but it was an ambitious idea in terms of trying to diminish, regulator and contain executive-branch corruption. in the aftermath of watergate this was a very serious problem. that is a grand expectation about why government could achieve. i am not sure -- i see the image of carter and the malaise speech people point to where he basically is lecturing americans on their need to deal with it and understand the limits of what they are going to have. that said there's a lot in carter that is not diminished at all. sometimes it cost political problems. too much for many democrats. it is not what they wanted to focus on. >> as a veteran -- let me congratulate you on an outstanding presentation today. could you talk a little bit about the supporting cast, what were the strengths and weaknesses of carter's cabinet, his relations with the cabinet and his vice-president? >> he has two sides of his team. the most famous side is the georgia mafia, the group of people who had been with him since 1966 when he runs for con