we have the senior editor of potomic books. tell us about this one. >> this is an altered history of 1812. what would have happened if the british would have won and the author pausits they would have send over the best general to fight america and they would have occupied the white house and would have come through and america would have been a british colony so it's very meticulously documented. it's a thrilling story of what might have been and we've been very successful with alternate histories and counter-factual histories which are -- it seems like it should be part of the realm of science fiction but, in fact, what it is, it is a way to look at historical documents and think about how history might have been different. and so it opens up great questions and it's a great book for historians and people who just love to read history. >> besides the war of 1812, what other alternate histories have you published? >> we're about to do one on the cuban missile crisis and that'll be out next year and then we've -- we've done one

george washington favored gnarl turnpike and favored building canal around the potomic. dwight iize eisenhower created e highway you all drive on. if it creates a more productive future, i think there are times and places where government will do it. i want it to be real. i don't want to have make-work programs or people pretending to develop new jobs. part of the thing i would ask you to look at in terms of your job, i am not urging you to go home and resign in protest. is this office creating enough new jobs to justify it? if it is not, we should get rid of it f. it is helping create a new generation of jobs, much like agricultural extengsion agent. they took seed corn out of lab and taught to grow productive crops. there is no question that public-private partnership was a key to the most productive agriculture in the history. is it real? is it getting something positive done or making work so politicians can give away jobs to their supporters? >> thank you. >> with the young britain foundation. i want to ask you where you think american foreign policy is going in the

course introduced by elia washburne frago that gave grant effective direction of the army of the potomic then led by george gordon meade. given the reckless carnage that followed grants appointment may reasonably considered a mistake. lincoln's friend and counselor, alexander k. mccluer who admired grant, wrote afterwards, "no general was better equipped for the supreme command of all our armies then thomas, who would have taken a richmond with grant's army and saved tens of thousands of lives of gallant men from the untimely death." to lincoln's credit, he later tried to dissuade grant as we saw before the battle of nashville from insisting on its order to remove thomas from command but it was major thomas eckard of the telegraph department, who held on to that order on its own responsibility, just long enough to let thomas make his move. lincoln, however reluctantly, had been prepared to let that order go through. afterwards, lincoln and stanton were both grateful to heckert for this insubordinate act. in fact in a touching scene as eckard and stanton wrote to the white house together

that questn, i headed down rir. st above washington, i found another usgs team sampling wer from the potomationwi survey checking for 300 emerging contaminantin our drinking water they were loing for well-known pollutts like pesticides, and for newly detected ctaminants found in pharmeuticals, body lotis, soaps and deodorants. inll, they found 85 compounds we're justow starting to be able to even anaze for in war. but the treatment isn't innded to remove the products. >> smithwhat makes this a matter of concern is that is the intake for the washingt aqueduct, where one milln people in the dc area get eir drking water. few of us may reale it, but people dnstream use waste water fromeople upstream. the tomac, like other rivers, serves as both the place whe we dump our waewater and the place where we getur drinking water. it's one big connuous recying operation from the toet or the shower to the tap. >> the riv flows down, a communy takes water out of the river, puts it bacthrough a wastewer plant a few miles down, out, bac out, back. and with proper regulaon and proper processes at e wastewa

the three areas resonate throug the government and they are the focus of this symposium presented by potomresent these areas the president said we suld use innovative tls and mhods and in these innovive tools and methods we will be discussing here for the nt two days and we welcome you to learn more about how we can serve the public better through leadership, collaboration and public eagement using gov 2.0, wed to .0. for those of you not familiar with potomac forum, we were founded 27 years ago as a nonprofit educational organization to provide symposium conferees, workshops and other trading activities all focused on the government. that is our charge, that is the goal, that is the mantra and th is one of the continuing series of government an2.0 programs present apply potomac for me and we are very glad you can participate in today's actavity. before we start i do want to give a special welcome to our pentagon news network viers and also c-span viewers throughout the world. we are very pleased yo can join us here at our potomac for on event. the workshop today will be presented by many