i'm not steve clemons. [laughter] i'm nick goldberg, the editor of the editorial page at the "los angeles times." i was called -- [applause] am i still in los angeles? [laughter] i was called in at the last moment to moderate the panel because steve clemons can't be here. he's one of many who dropped out of the conference because it's the night of the white house correspondence dinner, and it turns out it's bad to have journalists talk about obama the night of the correspondence dinner. i'll start by doing something -- can you hear me? i'll start by doing something mean which i'm starting by reading something that garrett to my left wrote a few years ago, and -- >> i have no idea what that it going to be. [laughter] >> it's nothing embarrassing, but reminds us all what we thought what president obama was legislated, and then i'll introduce the panelists. back in 2006, he wrote the following, "no one heard of the skinny chicago state senator and institutional law professor. now all bets are off. >> he won a

there we're going to start taking a holistic look at this when you take a holistic look at it as steve clemons pointed out near atlantic monthly three days ago you know how much money we spent since two thousand though most so-called war on terror about two point six trillion dollars you know many jobs that use something like seven million jobs i mean if you just turn it into jobs we could have paid everybody in afghanistan and everybody had pretty good salary what we've done in terms of the war fighting this has got to stop it's got to stop and congress has got to come to its because there are some figures out there is also that say that our wars in iraq and afghanistan have cost us three point seven trillion dollars and counting and that pretty soon that will be up over fortunately i mean it really is is there a god willing it's there it's insane as one congressman said to me when i was testifying before the senate foreign relations committee and almost knocked me off my chair it doesn't matter colonel we can print more. and that's the attitude and that's what's been going on now what has be