. >> mark bauerlein, the book is "the dumbest generation". .. d.c. is 1 hour and 50 minutes. >> welcome to this fantastic event about a called "america's defense meltdown: pentagon reform for president obama and the new congress". i am danielle brian, executive director of the project on government oversight. i want to thank the 5 organizations that are sponsoring this event, the most important is the constitutional government, where we are -- the organizational home, the home of the recently passed stewart mott, the center for defense information, which winslow t. wheeler is a representative well, as well as drew, packages of common sense, with the executive director and newest member to our coalition, helen. the interview for policy studies, the executive director, these are a range of organizations who believe in the integrity of government. you couldn't have a better panel of people representing how to fix the american defense system. the 3 people behind us -- the first behind me, the editor of the book, winslow t. wheeler, he is currently the ce

. >> we are with mark bauerlein, author of a "the dumbest generation". you also have a a title that says or don't trust anyone under 30. you put a lot of statistics in your book. a pull out the one statistic you like the most when you have to talk to groups about this particular book. >> i think one thing that happened was the speech i gave at the university of maryland a few years ago, there were about to and 50 students in the audience and i cited a statistic for them that came out of a civic knowledge of young adults and the statistic was that roughly 18 to 26 year olds were six times more likely to know who the american -- the latest "american idol" winner was then there were to know who the speaker of the house was just 2 miles away from the university of maryland. and what i can add to that statistic is that a young woman in the back yelled out, it is more important to know who the "american idol" is. and the thing that was important to me was in her social world it certainly is more important to know that so there you have a good balance between t