richard, independent line, you're next. richard, are you with us? richard, it would help if i pushed the button. my fault. go ahead. >> caller: okay, yes, i hate to say this, but one of the problems we have is right in the white house itself. our president is not a uniter, but a divider, and he is definite a radical, and it looks to me like the left, the progressives are going to use this incident by this deranged lunatic who politics probably didn't play any part in whatsoever in what he did, but they're going to use this incident to further their agenda, and we have to look at president obama's actions when he first came into the white house and what his background really is. >> host: all right. thomas? >> guest: the caller's comments are emblematic of the problems we have in the country. i think any objective, fair minded view of president obama, his background, his policies endorsed, and actions in office put him very much in the mainstream of american politics. much of what he's done embraces republican policies of a decade or two ago, and yet there is a belief built up that there is a radical in the white house who doesn't deserve to be there. that kind of demonization sort of fuels an anger and a rhetoric that this is really quite destructive of our politics. i could say the caller should cool it, calm down. talk to someone who sees things differently than you and see if we can't get back to a position of reasonable deliberation and compromise. >> host: well, doug, did you see a similar pattern when president george w. bush was in office and rhetoric coming from the left? >> guest: yes, there was. i mean, you can read people on the left that were saying george w. bush was like hitler or the new stalin. i mean, if you read the antibush language coming from the left, it went overboard and over the line. i would say it's growing. it seems to have grown, and i don't know where it began. if you look at where this may have been some years back with the clarence thomas supreme court appointment. it may have started with wood ward and bernstein when the press got stronger and got huge permties and -- personalities and trying to play i got you journalism and with nixon, i'm not sure, but we're in a period now where we have to calm our jets, i think. we have to create some kind of by part san -- bipartisanship and civility back into american life. we're turning people off on politics in general. what people are engaging in is a finger pointing over fellow americans, even this tragic event, people are pointing fingers. i haven't, and i don't think people should. i'm not sure what role, you know, talk radio had played in this young man's life and as a writer, i write books and look after artists a lot 6789 there's tv, movies, violence everywhere. any time there's a crime we can't say oliver stone is at fault because he made this mew view and this video caused this crime. it is a deranged person we are dealing with, but get back at looking at mental health issues, how do we detect it? there was a trail that this man had a lot of mental instability. how do we help these people when they are young? take a real look at a country drenched in guns and how do we make sure the right people are getting license and not people getting semiautomatic weapons that are not for hunting or protection, but to kill. >> host: a tweet from a c-span junky who says we had a kinder union when they were not promising to meet our needs, but two protect our rights. . an e-mail says we are trying to draw a straight line between this. we will never agree to what degree each factor played a part. we don't have to just pick one over another. can we as a society improve and learn from this tragedy? to floyd, a republican in butler, tennessee. yoir on the air. >> caller: yes, ma'am, i want to make my statement to both. i'm a republican, an old man, and i've been around and i've seen a whole lot of stuff, and i'm going to tell you in the last 30 years, the republicans made me a republican when i was young, would roll over in their grave to see what we got going on today. >> host: thomas, you take that first. >> guest: you know, i've spent quite a bit of time speaking to former republican politicians, the elected office holders who are as disstressed as anyone with developments in their own party and in our politics it really is such that it becomes a crime to think about compromising with the enemy, and yet our whole constitutional system is predicated upon people with diverse views coming to the and trying to understand what's behind other arguments and interests, but that's been taken out of our politics. no compromise. stand on principle. reclaim americans for real americans. it's a dangerous period, and our politics -- i'm noting it's directly -- i'm not suggesting it's directly connected to the tucson incident, but the roots are in the personal mental problems of the individual involved, but it calls forth a larger problem in our country that we really need to deal with. >> host: manhattan, gregory, democratic line, you're on the air. >> caller: good morning, everyone. i hope i can express what i have to say, and i'll keep it short. america has a history of violence, a violent history. when the people came over and the i understand were there there and the indians taught them how to use the land. what happened to the indians? they were destroyed. my family is native american and black american. the second thing is there were limpleggings in american -- lynchings in america and rallies going on. most people alleged to be by the few. as the guy who called in earlier and wanted to degrade president obama who he is, you know, greta you came back with a balanced approach and did the same thing to bush. the attitude towards president bush who i don't believe is a racist personally is how he became president. the supreme court anointed him president. secondly he took us into wars was not really the way we were supposed to. that's where that history finds itself and the responsibility that bush has to take personally, and lastly but not leastly, it's fox news. okay? can't nobody with college degrees who teaches classes can stand there and actually believe that the intention behind fox news is to be fair and balanced. >> host: this is a comment and question. let's go to trevor in northerly on the independent line. you're next. >> caller: good morning. where is the tendency for governments to react to tragedies that's called problem reaction solution? it is part of the dialect government that practice for years to divide the people and to promote a certain agenda. you two men are very educated and well aware of the the hegalian dialect. a couple examples would be the christmas day bomber which i might incidentally add was a story broken by the detroit press where the state department helped that man, that alleged bomber, get on the plane, and then right after that, what do we get? scanner. 9/11. right after that, what do we get? the patriot act. now with this shooting incident here, what do we get? we're getting the tone down the rhetoric. as things get worse this this country, as the unemployment rises, as the food crisis rises, as people start becoming more disconsent, obviously the anger is going to be targeted towards the so-called public servants we have. >> host: all right, doug? >> guest: well, clearly there's a lot of anger that's put on the politicians in the time of particularly recession. today as a historian, we talk about franklin roosevelt and the new deal, but go back and look at what was said about fdr in the 1930s and not just people like father coslin on the radio and many people thought they used to slur him as being rosenfeld making an antisemiautomatic metic connection. it seems to me even when fdr was attacked of being a socialist and anger with the great depression, there seems to be some kind of rules of engagement that people had. photographers didn't even take photographs of fdr in a wheel cheer. there's just a couple that exist for respect to fdr, and even unfriendly papers didn't want to disrespect the presidency. we don't see that anymore. anything is fair game. any people, just misinformation flowing, and i don't know. we're in a new era, and i don't know if the past is helpful with this new information age we are at. we are still trying to figure out how to use technology, computers, solely to our advantage because there's a lot of negative aspects to becoming as wireed as we are right now. the internet has a mob quality to it at times. >> host: okay, i want to show both of you and the viewers the video put out this morning by sarah palin, a web video reacting to the criticism that has been put toward her and the shooting over the weekend. >> there are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for this deranged character and they believe political is more peteed. when was it more heated? back in the day when leaders settled differences with pistols? in an ideal world it would be civil, but our founding fathers knew they were not designing the system for perfect men and women. if men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. our founders genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways, so we must condemn violence if our republic is to endure. >> host: let me turn to you, thomas. get your reaction first. >> guest: well, as sarah palin is under a great deal of pressure now fairly or unfairly, she is a woman who is very effective in coming up with colorful rhetoric, and she's gotten quite a following out there, and i think feels unfairly attacked and responsible and she's what she's saying is it's always been this way. we've had violent and heated rhetoric. we have to live with it and just get beyond it. i really think that's a comment of a political player and not as a national leader. i really think -- if our president said that tonight, i think the country would feel let down. you need an appeal to our better angels. yes, it's tough. there's pressures, disagreement, differences, intensity, difficulty, but we don't need political figures especially in our two major political parties that further fuel that. we need someone to bring us together. >> host: doug, there has been a lot made of car ri palin not saying anything and told us this morning she put an e-mail out to glenn beck over the weekend. what do you make of her times this morning with the web video? >> guest: well, i think she was feeling compelled to do something and instead of being drilled by a reporter, put out a sometime like she did. it seemed time defiant. i think she's feeling defensive. it was defensive comments. she's having to depend the tea party movement she's a leader of, and they are under criticism now. she felt she needed to step up, but that's not a speech you just heard of a states person or somebody that's actually active in politics. it's somebody who is leading a movement in which guns are a big part of the movement hence her going back to duals in american history and always had rules. well, we also used to just shoot native american on the spot and used to have slavery. part of being a maturing country like the united states is you change and put things behind you and progress forward. i think her argument that violence has always been there so chin up, everybody, that's part of our, you know, we sometimes settle disputes that way. i don't find her comments particularly helpful. it might help her maintain leadership in the tea party movement. >> host: all right, doug brinkley going us from texas and thank you and you're out with a new book. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you. >> host: and thomas mann with the brookings institution thank you for being here as well and talking with our viewers. >> guest: happy to be with you. >> today is the anniversary of the earthquake in haiti, and next an update on the relief efforts from the president and eco of the red cross. it's estimated that the earthquake killed 230,000 people, injured 300,000 and left 2 million homeless. from the national press club in washington, this is an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. my name is allen buerga. we're the world's leading professional organization for journalist and committed to the future through our programming and being fostering free press worldwide. for more information, visit our website and www.press.org. visit www.press.org/library as well. i'd like to welcome our speaker and guests. i'd also like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. after the speech concludes, i will ask as many audience questions as time permits. first, i'd like to introduce our head table guests. from your right, executive strategy adviser for security first,. liz skinner, reporter for investment news and new member of the press club. international news manager for world vision. sam worington and a get of the speaker. senior vice president of the national services for the american red cross and a guest of the speaker. melissa with the news hook media, speaker committee's chair and organizer of this event. skipping over the speaker for a moment, susie francis, and rachel ray of the london daily telegraph. richardfor the urban radio network, and finally erik stoddard for the journalist. [applause] today is the one year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated haiti claiming more than a quarter million homes leaving more than 1 million people homeless. many haitian families one year later still need food, sheet or, and sanitation. survivors are living in tent camps marked by disturbing reports of violence. debris bogs the capitol in port-au-prince. today's guest has been essential to haitian relief efforts. as president and ceo of the american red cross, gail mcgovern has the largest organization one that raised nearly a half billion dollars for haiti. last week the red cross spent or signed agreements to spend $245 million on haiti recovery efforts, more than half of what it has collected. haiti is a test for the american red cross as well. when she took the job in 2008, mcgovern was the charity's 7th ceo in seven years, hired to restore the tarnished reputation and bottom line. twice name