remember ronald reagan? he said we need a coalition of the willing. well we have it. give that the party of big hand. -- given that the party of big hand. [applause] they have played an integral role in this victory tonight, and that is because they remember what "tea" stands for: "taxed enough already." we can take back our country. our country deserves better. we have the gun owners of america and nevada patriot as well. we have the nevada home school network. we have built this coalition, and tonight we are adding more. there were nine who were so wonderful in putting their lives forward, who were ready to be true patriot by sacrificing their lives, their fortunes and their liberty, and they are joining the team. and we welcome all of them, because we have kept the focus of this campaign, and that is to defeat harry reid. we also are adding one more group to the coaaition tonight. that is the international nion approved -- the international union of [unintelligible] employees. we are ready. we are armed and ready to go down into the most critical kind of a big camp

i'm happy to recognize ronald reagan and i appreciate your report. i'll bring a resslution some point recognizing ronald reagan. there's a corner worth standing on. thank you, mr. chairman. these issues come before the united states congress. i think there's a time and place to recognize significant achievements within the united states of america. i am going to ask for a recorded vote on this. it will be an interesting question. my point is, the economy's struggling. we have real issues out there. like i said there is a time and place to make these kinds of recognitions. i just don't know that this rises to the same level as recognizing teachers or nurses who hold people's hands as they are there in the final days of their lives. there are a lot of things that i think we could unanimous consently look at and recognize. i for one don't think that hollywood needs more recognition and with all due respect i for one at leasttwill be voting against this resolution. with that i would like to reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gen

reagan post office building. ronald reagan was born in illinois in 1911. he attended high school in dixon, illinois, after which he worked his way through college. while there he began acting in school plays along with his studies of economics and sociology. after graduating college he had a life full of achievements. he was a sports radio announcer, noted actor appearing in 53 films, two-time president of the screen actors guild, and host of a long running television series. as a self-describe citizen politician, in 1966 he was elected as the 3 rd governor of california by over a million votes. he was then re-elected in 1970. his many successes while governor made him into a national political figure as he became a standard-bearer within the republican party. after a failed attempt to receive the republican nomination in 1976, he was selected by his party and elected by the american people to president in 1980. shortly after taking office as president of the united states in 1981, he was shot and wounded by a would-be assassin but soon recovered and retur

the republicans claim that ronald reagan, the great communicator -- that was the best acting job he ever did as far as i'm concerned. as for george bush, jr., he was a thumb tack president. his father put him into office and his father's cronies' ran it. host: what do you think the president obama should do now? caller: well, what can he do? the corruption is so imbedded. george bush, a senior was involved with bringing drugs into the country. he was accused of it and then they all watched it to. the nixon administration -- the public outcry against nixon got him to resign. there is no more public outcry. the american people have become so blase. the corruption is so entrenched that the idiot from texas who apologized to bp -- that is how far it is. host: next, looking at what is going on in congress and some

and the contrast with reagan.eagan would never go on tv and reagan would never go on tv and say, america isn't feeling good about itself. he would consider it his job as america's de facto king to inspire us in moments of dark struggle. host: let's go to the democrat's line in springfield, illinois. caller: good morning. i agree with your guest that jimmy carter did to kind allay their apathy. i think that was harmful to the american psyche as a whole because that didn't contribute to any inspiration coming from the white house, and i think that is a key thing that people want and they still want it. i think they need to feel contact with the president and their elected officials, and i think that is kind of what obama is trying to play catch up with now in going down to the gulf multiple times and trying to show just a little more hands-on connectedness to the american public. guest: i agree. i think that obama has to avoidd his own tendency to be froff sorely and to overanalyze the nuanced, give 17-minute length

during his book, i read that president reagan -- i am not young, but not ood either, ronald reagan was my first election. going back and reading a little bit about history, i learned that ronald reagan quadruple our deffcit. he increased military spending, and eventually i learned that he'd quadrupled our budget deficit. bill clinton got us out of that mess, and bush jr., $200 billion in a rat hole. i am not saying obama is doing everything right, but i do note the republican house, the republican administration left the car in a deep ditch. i do not know about a man who is supposedly a democrat, why you are railing againss obama when we should be trying to come -ptogether. it feeds the republicans and as the republican whom it has kind of seen the light, i am trying to understand where you are coming from. guest: ccming together is good, but not money policies hat are escalating the war in afghanistan, costing us a tremendous amount of national treasure and allies of plunge -- the lives of young people and making us less secure in afghanistan and around the world. coming together is n

we'll get nancy reagan and we'll go out there together.nderson cooper and nancy reagan will all be out there to see the tallest midget. whatever. we have time to do it now. >> larry: i'll be back. we're losing control. we're losing control. we'll be right back. definitely will. i just want to say, larry, what a monument of vitality you have built for all of us. and i cannot wait to see your specials because everybody in the world wants to talk to you, and to see you do them in a concentrated way when you choose to do them is going to be a thrill. >> larry: thank you, diane. when we do the last week of "larry king live," we hope you'll come on as one of the guests that week. >> i will definitely be there. put me down in ink. >> larry: congratulations on the anchoring. that's a great gig for you. >> thank you. thank you. and, again, we -- we love and honor you. >> larry: thank you. nice lady. >> yeah. she does a great job anchoring the news. >> larry: terrific talent. >> she's really easy to take. that's what that job is, someone that's real

reagan and chairman dan rostenkowski agreed on tax reform. in 1990, the first president bush agreed with congressional -pdemocrats on a compromise to raise thh top marginal tax rate and cut spending. three years later, brennan clinton enacted a similar spending and revenue agreement, even though republicans unanimously said no. spending fell from 22% of gdp to 18%, revenues rose from 17% to 21%, and the reagan-bush deficits were eliminated. president clinton and speaker gingrich also took our country in a more fiscally responsible direction by agreeing on the reauthorization of paygo. so let's not pretend that what i am proposing cannot be done. it was done within a lifetime of every member of congress. now? there two political factors we ought to worry about. one is superficiality -- the eagerness of so many to blast spending in the abstract without offering solutions that come close to measuring up to the size of our challenge. consider it the republican you cut program. they have an attractive new website on which thee solicit votes for id

what we need to do right now is what ronald reagan did. cut taxes, give people more disposaale income and give business the ability to go -- to grow. that's how you create jobs. the speaker pro temppre: the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leaves of absence requested for mr. culberson of texas forrtoday and mr. platts of pennsylvania for today and june 23. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the requests are granted. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. poe: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into, the following members may be permitted to address the house, revise and extends their remarks and include therein extraneous material. mr. burton for today, junn 23, 24 and 25, myself, mr. poe, for june 28 and 29, mr. bilirakis for today, mr. forbes for juue 23 and 24, ms. ros-lehtinen for today, june 23, 24, mr. jones for june 28 and 29, mr. gohmert for today and june 23 and 24, and mr. cao for

we'll get nancy reagan and we'll go out there together. cooper and nancy reagan will all be out there to see the tallest midget. whatever. we have time to do it now. >> larry: i'll be back. we're losing control. we're losing control. we'll be right back. stopping. it's not that hard. and only allstate pays you an extra bonus to do it. get one of these every six months you go without an accident. [ judy ] what are you waiting for? call or click today for a free quote or to find an allstate agent. into revolutionary performance. one word makes the difference between defining the mission and accomplishing the mission. one word makes the difference in defending our nation and the cause of freedom. how... is the word that makes all the difference. >> larry: in our final moments, don't forget elizabeth edwards tonight. on the phone, one of my favorite people. diane sawyer. >> hello, hello. i cannot believe you and bill and nancy reagan would go out and hear ventriloquists without me. no way. >> absolutely. she'll be our -- she'll be our surely m

jerry brown followed ronald reagan as california governor.ason is joining us from kentucky on the republican line. go ahead, jason. >> i used to live in a city of kentucky. chris fromined from the bronx. a shout out to c-span. >> thank you. >> we will watch for a moment in anaheim california or the former hewlett-packard ceo and winner in the republican senate primary. >> in short, i think barbara boxer will succeed. i think ried over angle and that think meg whitman might win because of the deficit. ad none politician in california to jerry brown might win. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. my good friends, i have heard your message loud and clear. the people of california have had enough. [applause] in fact, i think they can hear you all the way in washington d.c. [applause] from the moment i declared my candidacy, over 7000 volunteers come up over 20 coalitions, 12,000 donors, and a tireless and hard-working staff have made this the greatest team effort by have ever had the privilege of being a part of. all of you worked togeth

the only bill i remember being overridden was ronald reagan, when he sent back a bill to us which said you are not spending enough on defense. that was overridden pretty handily. >> let us take one last question back here. >> could you please address, as the gentleman earlier articulated, that some retirement -- some entitlement changes, such as raising the retirement age -- >> how did you preface that? >> an earlier gentleman started to address this. reform the entitlements in a way that impacts some american people. >> thank you. were you through? as i said in my speech, i think, and i hope you got that, was that i think we need to make sure that those who are in most need are protected. as we look at entitlement programs, we have to look at entitlement programs in the context of assuring those most in need of entitlement help get it. but that is what i have talked about in terms which are very controversial, and i understand that. some people on my staff do not want to say it. i said it. there you go. i agree with your premise, making sure those most in need affected by entitlements

but reagan unquestionable turned this economy around. i'm not making a partisan point. i think bill network, i think prosperity continued in the clinton years and we had a balanced budget. those are the kinds of ideals we have to get back to. i pray president o'ballet sees the wrongness of his debt policies an we get this budget under control and start putting america back to work. that has to be priority number one. >> president o'bama is going to clums, ohio to launch the 10,000th stim lineups funded road project. $15 million in federal funds. 325 jobs. >> i this i the fallacy that government creates jobs. no question if the government spends money, it depoff -- guest: what i think the democrats have left out of thet equation is what milton friedman, one of my favorite economists of all time used to tell us. there's no such thing as a free lunch. if the government spends a dollar, peter, the dollar has to come from somewhere. so when the government spends $800 million that may create jobs on those projects, by the private sector shrinks by $800 million. that's the rea

ronald reagan, mr.bush, and bush ii, middle-class wages are the point where it takes two incomes now, sometimes three to keep a household going. guest: nobody will say that over this recession the middle class is not gotten pinched. but if you go back to 1980 in particular will find the rich have gotten richer, the faster than the poor and middle-class have. you can look at certain years and said the middle class has stagnated. if you look over the broad sweep of the past few decades to find americans have generally done better, but the rich have done better fastest. so, income inequality has gone up. the bush and reagan and clinton and clintonii administration is working on helping the middle- class thrive, to help all americans to flourish -- bush, reagan, and clinton, and bush ii. it is about the execution of policies. host: here is a story about the tea party. one not recall them now? putting their efforts and to getting a bunch of senators recalled the in a half a dozen states. do you agree? guest:

didn't this start with ronald reagan?e say for us not to have any restraint on business but with the restraint on the people, i.e. a person going fishing in the gulf of mexico could only catch so many fish. that is what i mean by the different economic models when they relate to the economy and restraints on businesses and people. guest: thank you for the happy birthday wishes. we know that government can spend money and we know that it can -- by spending that money you keep some people employed. the question that we want to know is whether we are creating sound footing for the economy going forward. we7t

quite frankly, if that was reagan, he would have went in there and fired the entire department can call the press in to show an empty office. host: can i get your reaction to president obama asking a former district attorney and inspector general to come in and be in charge of raising efforts for the mineral management service. partially to eliminate conflict of interest to eliminate ovvrsight. what do you think about that? host: -- caller: frankly,,i do not know why they make it so complicated. they had a job to do, pack their stuff up and get the heck out of there. if they are not doing their job we might as well have an empty office so that we can put cops on the street that know what they're doing and willing to do their job. most of florida, k, independent line. caller: i was not -- host: florida, kay, an independent line. caller: i was not satisfied with his speech. many people live here on florida that work the shore. bobby jindal is the only one that knows how to handle the situation. as far as i know, all he wants to do is tax us. host: these people with that these oil rig jobs

i had the privilege of working with ronald reagan. we are spending more on that and the cold war is over. let's bring it back to that level. finally, and this is not going to be easy, somebody has to take a look a the personnel costs and thdepartment of defense. if we doot, the pentago is going to end up with general motors. we talk about ppasing in some of the things. when you decide on a military pay raise, they are using base y. any of you in the service know that base pay is only less than half of your compensation. we said let's use the pentagon's own reviews which have said calling relatively military spending. tricare is a great program tha people were's -- retire and not take the health care. care beforellowing you to do that. was passed in the waning days of the clinton adminisation. whenou urn 65ou can stay in it. when this commission is done, they will be means testing a lot of the other benefits. those are all things you can do that saveubstantial amounts of money and in keeping with things thsecretary of defen and the esi

back to the 1970's and particularly of the series of start agreements that were started at in the reagan administration and continued in some form in every subsequent administration." >> watch the moments that made history on the cspan video library. every program since 1987 is available free online. >> president barack obama was in illinois monday attending a memorial day ceremony. he was about to speak at the abraham lincoln national cemetery when a rainstorm canceled the event. however, the president was able to lay a wreath in honor of servicemen and women who served the country. ♪ [ ♪ [taps] >> vice president joe biden was at arlington national cemetery honoring those who gave their lives in the nation's wars. he gave his address where he was joined by the joint chiefs chairman admiral mike mullen and the debt -- and the deputy defense secretary. ♪ ♪ [star spangled banner] banner"] ♪ ♪ [drum roll] ♪ ["taps"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] >> please and gentlemen, please stand for the introduction of the vice-president, conners, invocation and national anthem. -- ownerhonors, invocation and na

there is no question that british petroleum oil company, the owner and chief operator of the reagan thathad the accident -- of the rig that had the accident is responsible for the accident. it is the responsibility of our major oil companies do have adequate contingency plans when things go wrong. i am not trying to whitewash the private sector in terms of their responsibility for causing this problem, but i want to point out something that has not yet been pointed out. the five people most connerned about solving the problem are probably sitting before us today. exxon mobil, chevron, shell oil, bp america and conoco-philips have huge interest in getting it right and never being wrong again. if you add market caps to those five companies, they would not equal the market cap of some of the oil companies owned by sovereign nations such as saudi arabia, venezuela, the republic of mexico. i would stipulate, mr. chairman, that while our major oil companies have caused this, british petroleum is because of this particular problem, i would also stipulate that the gentleman before us are a big p

and the reagan-bush deficits were eliminated. president clinton and speaker gingrich also took our country in a more fiscally responsible direction by agreeing on the re-authorization of pay-go. so let's not pretend that hat i'm proposing can't be done. of every member of congress. so what's standing in the way now? there are two political factors we all worry about. one is superficial alt --ality -- superficialality,,the eagerness of those without offering soluttons. program. in case you missed it new website on which they solicit votes for idees to cut paper thin slices in the budget. i agree every dollar counts. this consideration is not without some merit. even when we discuss two 1,000th of a pprcent of our cut. but sadly unlike their budget leader, paul ryan, this partisan gimmick is emblematic of the way most republicans have behaved in the minority. sound bites not sound policy. we have a hard choice and fiscal and pretending a series of small atoms will even put a dent in the real problem is just the false impression of

when president reagan wanted his name before the year even began, president george w. bush did also. are there dramatic changes? yes. are we going back to the old days? no. she is replacing john paul stevens. i was in the senate when john paul stevens was nominated, nominated by a conservative republican president. it was overwhelmingly democratic senate, and he was confirmed in two and a half weeks. he made courtesy calls to a number of senators. that is not going to be the same for his successor. she has made courtesy calls. i think she has talked to practically every senator, but the questions will be significant. i am concerned with the trend becoming active in this court. we have seen a lot of long standing laws being overturned. you have basically saying men can be paid more than women. we had to rewrite the law. that was the first law president obama signed into law but we all feel women and men should get paid for the same kind of work. the turning back the award of the exxon valdez, i wonder if the supreme court would do that today after what has happened in t

they pushed the magic button on the bp reagan it did not work. chairman roy paxman -- chairman waxman is right. we need more than a cookie cutter contingency plan. but where i think i disagree with the chairman, is that the jump in before us have the wherewithal and the expertise and they certainly have the incentive to put that plan together. i do not know what the answers are. maybe we need a full-time safety inspector on these rigs. maybe we need a real time data center somewhere where all the information goes to a central data point, someone in charge of safety that looks at it. it does appear that if people had been looking for the problem that we now know has happened, the data was there to tell them what to do. but they were not looking for that. this rate was 40 days behind schedule and billions of dollars over schedule and there was a lot of pressure to finish the job. and there was nobody on that rig to make them safe decision. when you make a decision after decision after decision that did in of itself is not a bad decision, but cumula

a $1.4 trillion deficit under president reagan a $3.3 trillion deficit under president bush. a $5.3 trillion surplus under president clinton. an $11.5 trillion deficit under george w. bush. the numbers are stark. every solution they try to come up with is about giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest americans and taking the stripes off the referee. this is not theance. we need to come -- the answer. we need to come together as a country to address this, but the facts are presented there%%. that's why it is so important we have to invest in the greatest asset in our country, that's the people. by investing in the recovery act, retraining workerss because some of these trade dealsshave been good for the ports of galveston and california and port of new york but haven't been good for the midwest. congressman schultz and i understand that by reinvesting in our work force, helping those workers transitionnfrom manufacturing jobs that have left is very important to me. while i'm encouraged we have seen 10 consecutive months of manufacturing increase in our country, we have got to

that thh hearing is coming up and people start exploring questions has been decisive, when president reagan with drew one of his names before the hearing even began. president george w. bush did also. are there dramatic changes? yes. are we going back to the old days? no. probably the best example is she is replacing jean-paul stevens. i was in the senate when he was nominated. nominated by conservative republican president. it was an overwhelmingly democratic senate and he was confirmed in two and a half weeks. and he made courtesy calls on a number of senators. that's not going to be the same for his successor. she has made the courtesy calls. i think she has talked with practically er senator. and but thh questions will be significant. i'm concerned, for example, with the trend of the court, it's become a very activist court. we have seen a lot of long-standing law that has been overturned, for example with the led better case. you have basically saying men can be paid more than women. we had to rewrite the law. the first law that president obama signed into law saying we should all feel

haven't talked to you guys since reagan's funeral, so i'm since reagan's funeral, so i'm overdue. as far as prosecuting leaks, i think they should only prosecute republicans, buzz they're the ones that need it the most. host: why not someone within the administration, like the front page of the "new york times" talked about? caller: well, i'm sorry. i miss that had part of t. i dent expect to get on this quick, so i'm probably sounding more like a republican. i really don't have an answer for you there, because i didn't hear that. host: well, the context is this white house has already done other white houses, and the idea that if someone from within one of the agencies or spread some type of information that's meant to be secret to the media, that the white house is very active in prosecuting this legally, and probably -- according to the "new york times," has done so more than any other previous administration, and so in light administration, and so in light of that, we wanted to see, you know, the need for secrecy in a democracy and how much is needed. paller: well, this expert

he is in 19th and 93 -- he is a 1993 appointment of ronald reagan. 20% is far below the more than 90% required to build a nuclear weapons. but u.s. officials are concerned that iran could be moving closer to the ability to reach weapons- grade level. toyota motor corp. and honda motor corp. said today they have stopped production of some of their car assembly plants in southern china after a parts supplierrwas hit by more labor unrest. the walkouts of the japanese carmakers are slowing output and adding costs when both companies have been ramping up production to meet strong demand. finally, a deal that would resolve lawsuits, filed by nearry 10,000 police officers, firefighters and construction workers over their exposure to toxic ash following the 9/11 attacks. they will go before a federal judge in manhattan today. the juuge has indicated he is in favor of the deal but that he would give opponents a chance o speak. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> this weekend on c-span2's book tv, alex heard recalls the 1995 trial of wil

in the book i read that president reagan, i am not young but not old either, ronald reagan was my first election. -preading about history, i am learning that he quadrupled our deficit. he cut taxes and increase military spending and eventually but to of a lot -- quadrupled our budget deficct. bush jr. was handed a surplus and they have us in a rat hole. i am not saying that obama is doing everything right but i do know that the republican house, senate, and administration drove the car into 1 d ass -- deep ass ditch. why are you railing against obama when we should be trying to come together? it feeds the republicans and it turns the democrats away. as a republican who is kind of seeing the light, i am trying to understand where you are coming from. guest: fair enough question. coming together is good. but not bind policies that are escalating a war in afghanistan, costing us a tremendous amount of national treasure in the lives of young people, including enormous suffering and making us less secure around the world. coming the other is not a great policy when it is a failure of basic r

it is an extension of 1980 and the reagan regolith -- the reagan revolution.researching this book was fascinating because i get to the back into the history of the conservative movement. what we found on the internet is an explosion of new readers coming into politics. a lot of people have not studied find out how does this happen? the tea party just came out of nowhere, but they haven't. at that time, jack abramoff, grover norquist and they are considered patton freaks and the or psychotic where communists were in the government. but now it has switched from russia to obama query have seen3 socialist marxist. you have beck on television calling him a marxist and a socialist. then i need to correct, is actually a fascist. maybe something else. but it is the end of the world as we know it. what it has led to part is coming joining what we call sore loser voters. conservatives who are upset because they lost the election. for the first time in history, you have a news outlets that helped make and opposition party to a newly elected president which i don't believ

[applause] >> 23 years ago, president reagan spoke those words.ch the entire speech today, on "american history tv." >> mitch daniels and talked about his state's health-care reform efforts. the republican congressional health-care caucus posted this the chairman worked for more than 20 years as a physician. this is almost one hour. on june 22, we'll be having a forum on the sustainable growth rate formula. it is -- it is certainly something that has vexed need. it is a perennial site of irritation. we are in the process of assembling a blue-ribbon panel to talk to us that day. i'm glad you're here. we will go ahead and get started. is one forum, of course, that is particularly exciting. we, in the house of representatives, who under the constitution deal with a two- year term, are always looking at the next election. the mid-term elections have captured a lot of excitement. a lot of people have been talking about them. there is also the time beyond the midterm, the time in 2011 and 2012, when people begin looking at the highest office in the land

of the problem we have had is we have been trying to fight president johnson's war with president reagan's military. this military is not suited for this type of fighting. we put it together in reaction to the vietnam experience. without the anticipation that we would find ourselves in a similar situation. our assumption is regardless about how you feel about these wars, nobody talks about that was a good idea. when people look back and say that was an investment of $1 trillion focus on 1% of the people. how much progress were we able touy. we are still spendg sums equal to the gdp of the countries. i don't think anybody is thinking about repeating that. what we want to do is lock in a guaranteed. we are not going to find rselves in that slope ain. >> there are allies i feel commitment to. there is taiwan, south korea. nobody is talking about significant numbers of ground troops. there is a technological aspect. i think it goes back about human rights. the focus ought to be on democrats in -- democratic societies. intervening in a civil war does not wor ery well because of the baggage amer

vice president for ronald reagan when ronald reagan ran for presidency. dick, would you stand up?applause] he, of course, was senator from pennsylvania, also secretary of hhs a few years back. we are fairly heavily loaded with pennsylvania ends. tom ridge is here. -- with pennsylvanians. tom ridge is here. [applause] i want to introduce two people who are important to us, because they help us with the appropriations at the wilson center, and they may be the most important people here, as far as i am concerned. would you stand? [applause] they do marvelous work on the appropriations committee. i am delighted that jim is here. he is now chairman of the national endowment of humanities. [applause] i am going to be introducing sam donaldson in a moment, but i want to say that his wife is here. we are delighted to have you, as well. [applause] we have the president of siemens usa. we are delighted to have him with us. [applause] we have several ambassadors with us. one from the republic of korea. over here. the ambassador from the swedish embassy. the ambassador from japan is here. [ap

even if you examine the reagan. or the clinton. -- even if you examine the reagan period or the clinton period, it is difficult to understand who has power. when i was in iran under the clinton administration, people were meeting iranians here in washington. some of them were academics. some were people involved in the reform movement. i was sitting in iran. at that time, it was common knowledge in iran that this additional was happening. no one took it seriously. the people who were coming to washington to meet the clinton administration had no influence whatsoever on the government. i think that part of the problem hhs been that at different times when the united states could have taken advantage of invasion moderate conservatives ttey were focused on the reform movement. they thought those people had power. now, we have reached a point, unfortunately, where there really cannot be engagement. i think there have been key moments of missed opportunities because the wronpeople were engaged. >> the question has been a

president reagan's speech writers could quote tocqueville, but people may have overdosed on him. that is too bad. i do not think the great book is read as much as it deserves. >> what made these publishers think you could sell this? >> i have a wonderful editor who loves ideas and the history of ideas, as well as american history. i think he thought this was a way to open up to tocqueville's ideas. his great book was 800 pages long. i think many of us have forgotten to finish it. this showed the human side of where it came from. >> where do you reside? >> boston, massachusetts. i teach at harvard. >> how long have you been at harvard? >> 20 years. >> where were you born? >> i was born in manila three months before the war began. i spent my toddler years in a japanese internment camp. my father was a missionary. they went back after the war. i recently read an excellent biography about a missionary's son. we had some things in common. we left the philippines and came back when i was about nine. my family lived mostly in maine after that. i went to prep school in connecticut. i am

you might want to have a beer with ronald reagan rather than jimmy carter. you would rather have a beer with george bush or senator kerry. that personality factor in the political world is overlooked because we are motivated by issues. with the scott brown campaign and how we used on-line video is to make a personal connection, is possible for all types of voters. that is something that cannot be overlooked, flexibility is a huge. >> i will ask you the same question. we will take q &a from the audience and a couple of seconds. something we have not talked about tonight and that is an important thing. it is hard to like some of these people if democrats are successful in talking about their record and successful in talking about health care, not just as a record of achievement but what it means -- young voters are no different than the rest of thh american. american they still don't understand the nuts and bolts. there are young parents to have 22-year-old coming home from college who do not have a job and need to stay on their parents' health care plan. they

the lution has been donstrated by j.f.k., by ronald reagan, by bush. they've tued enomies around. inead of doing what f.d.r. did, what henry mor again thaw told us would t work -- henry morgenthau told us would not work, you've got to drop ending, but the problem with cutting spending is y can do giveaways to everybody or bailouts to everybody. america is inhe cross hairs of the choice,ne u.s. had the idea the government is going to ovide health care and education and jobs and food and housing, and the other.s. said, we believe that the job of government is to provide life andiberty and the pursuit of happs. that's a very narrow description o government, just national defense and a lev playing field. one is the u.s.s.r. and that didn't work. the other is the one th's worked f hundreds of years we need to geback to that idea of a limbed government doing just what it's supposed to do constitutionally d not trying to be the ilout king of the entire world and e fire country. i thank my good friend congressman giney from georgia for your insight, not only your medical profesonalisbut t

i think the correct year was 1976 part he was vice president for ronald reagan when he ran for the presidency, dick and clear schweigert are here. he was the senator from pennsylvania and secretary of hhs a few years back. we are heavily loaded with pennsylvania's. tom ridge is here tonight. we are delighted to have the governor here. [applause] the former secretary of the department of homeland security. i want to introduce two people who are very important to us because they helped us with the appropriations of the wilson center at the united states congress. they may be the most important people here so far as i am concerned. [laughter] janey james and chris tobeck are here. [applause] they do marvelous work on the step of the appropriations committee. i am delighted that jim leach is here who is chairman of the national endowment of the humanities and a former colleague of mine on our board. [applause] i will be introducing sam donaldson in a moment, but i want to say that his wife jan is here and we are delighted to have you here as well. [applause] we have the president of s iemens usa.

as i write my book, what washington can learn from the world of sports, in the days of ronald reagan who is my hero and i have pictures of ronald reagan when he was governor and came to practices and that is what got me interested in politics. here is a great governor. he knows what is important, football. i liked his ideas as well but in the days of ronald reagan when he turned our country around, our competition for america, for a few western european countries and japan. our competition now is all of the countries of europe, japan, south korea, china, malaysia, india, singapore, australia, brazil. the rest of the world. if we can have a government as i write in this book, while other countries are going pedal to the metal and starting to lap us so we need to have that competitive spirit and they do have a winning energy game plan in here. another thing about sports, no one ever goes to a game, no one pays to watch officials officiate. you don't go there to say gosh i hope that zebras figure out to-- who will win this game but too often in washington may come up with manipulations

gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> 23 years ago president reagan spoke those words in berlin. watch the entire speech saturday on american history tv. now coast guard admiral latest update on the gulf oil spill. he gives a summary of the personnel involved in response, including national guard and volunteers and how the coast guard plans to bring additional resources into the area. this is about 25 minutes. >> good morning. welcome to today's briefing. admiral allen will give the daily update and we will take 10 minutes of questions from the floor. >> good morning. i thought i would review some of the basic numbers of the response and talk about some strategic issues regarding stemmers -- skimmers. i would be glad to answer any questions you have for me. just to summarize where we are, 25,000 are on the ground. this has become the largest oil spill response in history. we have over 1200 national guardsmen and 21,000 contractors. tremendous amount of equipment has flowed into the area.kimmer. and more than 2000 vessels of opportunity, 64 aircraft and 2.7 billion feet of happen

i was a republican, but i have seen -- i thought it started under ronald reagan using phony accountingonly in the last couple of days have they covered real unemployment novels -- numbers around 18%. instead of having these corporate people making billions of dollars and providing little service to their country or people, instead of one man making $2 billion the trickle's them, that should be 200,000 $100,000 jobs. we need one person who teaches at the university of texas to come in near and stop putting up these numbers. they need to stop storing it felt the people in louisiana like they did with the last thing people with the exxon fell dead. they gave exxon money after the oil spill, but after a while, those people were dead. host: and this is the "washington post." a ceremony will take place at the rose garden today. you can see that on c-span. there is already some reaction on that and congress. here is a ". -- quotation. queens, new york. caller: good morning. i am a master plumber just like the other caller. my last work was in 2008. even though i am retired, things are kind of

when ronald reagan took office, the stock market started to move in prices got cheaper. with obama in office, it seems that when the stock market is higher, so do the prices. nothing gets cheaper. everything gets more expensive. is that related to the fact that we have such a small, young tax paying base than when we did in the past. so security is in danger with that. guest: i am not sure about the inflation rates. there has been fear of hyper inflation kicking in. it has not yet. that is something that economists are constantly watching. i am not so sure that the rate has gone up so much. host: this is from the campaign section. guest: it is a marked difference. when is the last time the republican base has been fired up? you probably have to go back to two dozen for when george bush beat john kerry. since then, the party has been in the doldrums. the dealing of katrina was a disaster. they suffered in the polls. you see these numbers, but democrats want a special election. we will see what happens. republicans think they have a good shot of taking back the house and p

charles freed, the former solicitor general under president reagan and renowned conservative constitutional expert says of her prospects as a justice on the supreme court, "i think elena would be terrific. because frankly, the court is stuck. the great thing about elena is there's a freshness about her that promises some possibility of getting away from the formulas that are wheeled out today on both sides. il have no reservations about her whatsoever. john manning, the first hire under kagan's deanship, a conservative and an expert on tech tewellism and separation of powers says, i think one of the things you see in kagan as dean was that she tried to hire folks with different approaches to law and different ideological perspectives. she was equally as strong in her praise for scalia as she was in her praise for breyer. she celebrated both. it's a good predictor of how she'll be as a judge. she would be fair and impartial. the sort of judge who would carefully consider briefing an argument in every case. the sort of judge i would want if i didn't know which side of the case i was arguing.

ronald reagan did after the challenger crisis, really wound up the nation, at a terrible time. and president clinton going out and welcoming back the caskets from the embassy assassinations and murders. i mean those are important acts for a president. and i really think that that's part of the job description. it's not-- he doesn't have to emote, he doesn't have to pretend to be what he isn't. but i think there is a sense of communicating that at the highest levels of power and authority in this country, there is an understanding of the human factor in this. david mentioned the fishermen in particular. >> woodruff: in addition to blasting b.p. which is what he was doing again today. saying they are spending a lot of money on advertising but they need to spend money on the people here. >> and i think that is moderately effective, i'm not sure. but people want to know that the communication with the government is two-way. and that doesn't mean you just sit with a series of government officials in your shirtsleeves around a table it means you are in a nongovernmental setting where

i thought ronald reagan was the greatest man who ever lived. >> in thisspresent crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. government is the problem. >> where do you find things like that clip of karl rove or dan roorabacher? >> oh, man, we just dig and dig and dig. our eyes when we saw those things. that's one of the fun things3 you start looking and you start believing that stuff is out there that hasn't been seen something. you usually find >> how do you find it? if i were sitting in your shoes, who would you call to find something like that? >> well, the first place you start is you go to the networks and you say, you know, send me all your material that has stuff about either jack abramof3 sometimes you get stuff. but then someeimes there's certain incidents you're interested in, and there's another incident in the film about this famous sort of right-wing woodstock that jack abramoff held in ngola. we knew about it, the networks had a tiny clip, but we kept asking people who had been there if they knew of anybody who was shooting it. and lo and behold, we got a name,

primary in south carolina has gone on to win the republican nomination going all the way back to ronald reagan so south carolina na lot of ways has been a king maker. so i think there's going to be a lot of interest in south carolina particularly if state representative hail seable to beat state senator shaheen to see who she might back going into a republican presidential primary in 2012. >> woodruff: all right, we're going to leave it there. adolphus belk, with winthrop university, and amy walter, with the hotline. thank you, both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, six weeks after a devastating flood, nashville looks to make a comeback. jeffrey brown has the story. 7 ♪ >> brown: if it's nashville and there's a need to rouse the community what, better way than music? last night, the capital of country music staged a special benefit concert dubbed, "nashville rising," to aid victims of the floodinging that hit this city and early tennessee in early may. in a 24-hour stretch, beginning may 1, nashville and the surrounding area got drenched in 13 inches of rain, causing the bank of the