mr. brinkley was a good man. and i am from north carolina. and read your articles everyday, you know, when i am going to get "the washington post". president obama, i want to know what your take on him giving a good speech in cairo, and then the people critiquing him the way they do. he is trying to set up a new type of relations in the middle east. and we all know that the middle east is really controlled by the desires of god. and i would like to know your take on that. guest: what worries to me about the president's approach to the pal -- palestinian approach is historical and the honest broker, brokering the differences of israel and the forces, the hamas and all the rest who want to destroy israel. because israel is a salient of our values, in a dangerous and inhospital neighborhood, it seems that the united states is an ally of israel and gets many awards from that association. host: as we jump around about the policies in iran? guest: it's thrilling what is going on in iran. in the run-up of the election, twittering, i don't know the v

mr. brinkley spoke about the genesis of this interest in the subject. >> what interests me is writing a book like this, roosevelt really is the father of the u.s. fish and wildlife. roosevelt realized the federal government had an obligation to take species of birds and animals, to save plants and trees, and to -- the president has an obligation to make sure that we put aside for generations unborn, natural wonders like roosevelt did, like the grand canyon or mount olympus or the petrified forest. they turned this training center for conservation into a museum almost four theodore roosevelt. >> the training center is the national conservation training center, one of many places douglas brinkley went to research his book. >> we talk about the eagle's nest and our discussion with doug brinkley about his book on conservation. it's over your shoulder. >> that was five years ago we had a bald eagles that started trying to build a nest. first season they did not do a good job, but the second season they came back and tried again. they succeeded in building their nest. they had two eaglets back her

mr. brinkley was a good man and i'm from north carolina and i read your articles every day, you know, when i'm getting "the washington post." president obama, i want to know what your take on him giving a good speech in cairo and then you know, the people critiquing him the way they do. he is trying to set up a new type of relationship in the middle east and as we all know, the middle east is really controlled by the desired of god. i'd like to know your take on that. guest: what worries me about the president's approach to the israeli-palestinian dispute is it seems unhistorical and unworthy of the united states to try to position itself as so-called honest broker, above the fray, brokering the differences between israel, a nation, member nation of the united nations, and the forces, the hamas and all the rest, who want to destroy israel. because israel is salient of our values in a dangerous and inhospitable neighborhood, the united states is not merely a disinterested ar bitter, the united states is an ally of israel and gets many rewards from its association with israel. host: as we're

greg curl replaced amy brinkley as boa's chief risk officer. given the fact that mr. curl fwaled to unless $12 billion of merrill lynch's losses, it is wise to have mr. curl be your chief risk officer? and did you approve of that decision? >> mr. curl didn't miss the instruments which caused the loss. what happened is we did not anticipate the meltdown of such a significant proportions in the fourth quarter. so we -- he identified everything properly. no one thought things would get as bad as it did in the fourth quarter. and i made that decision. >> you made the decision that mr. kerl should go ahead and become the coo. >> i made the decision for him to become the cro. >> let me announce that we have two votes on the floor and that we will recess for until 12:30, we will be returning at 12:30 and of course continue the questions. so the committee is in recess until 12:30. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> in your testimony you stated that nine days after the shareholders approved the me