so much of warren harding's material while he is in many regards a classic conservative president is highly progressive president particularly on social issues. >> host: the transition in 1920, florence harding meets with edith wilson describing her as haughty and condescending and in a tour of the white house conducted -- [talking over each other] >> guest: that was a rather nice description. >> host: in a tour of the white house conducted by the housekeeper florence harding will use this white house as the home of a very sick man. can you elaborate. >> guest: wilson had a stroke many months earlier when he had come back from europe in negotiating the league of nations had gone out on a tour to try to sell it to the american people and had a very severe stroke, pretended he was all right when he was bedfast for all practical purposes. they had pulled the shade and the place had become a rather grim hospital for a very ill incapacitated president who was surviving unbeknownst to what he was capable of actually very little. warren harding made an interesting call during the campaign wh

coolidge's predecessor, warren harding and the secretary of the treasury andrew maldon, and this was also coolidge's secretary of the treasury slashed that to 56%, and coolidge finished the job taking the marginal rate down to 20%. the results actually aided those of modest incomes of in 1920 the last year of woodrow wilson's administration, this means 4% of all personal income taxes paid by those earning $5,000 a year or less. by the time coolidge left office in 1929, that figure had shrunk in to a minuscule 0.4%. those earning 100 grand a year or more as a tax had paid just 29.9% in 1920. by 1929 when coolidge left office, the figure climbed to 65.2%. thus, when coolidge leaves office, 98% of the american people paid no income tax at all. quote, it is only a tiny a saturation noted historians speaks over to say that the coolidge completely remove the burden of several income taxation from the backs of poor and working people. calvin coolidge, federal income taxes four times. he produced a budget surplus each of the six years of his presidency. he could do all of this because he not

the coolidge predecessor korean -- warren harding from antar mellon slashed that to 66% and two which finish the job taking the marginal rate down a 20%. of 15 .4% of all personal income taxes were paid by those earning $5,000 per year or less. by the time coolidge left office that figure had strong day shrunk to a minuscule o. 0.4%. those earning 100 grand her year or more 29 point* 9%. by 1929 when coolidge left office, the figure had climbed as 65%. thus when he leaves office, 98% of the american people pay no income tax at all. "is only a tiny exaggeration noticed historian said that the coolidge completely removed the burden of federal income taxation from the backs of poor and working people. calvin coolidge cut federal income taxes pretty produce the budget surplus each of the six years of his presidency and could do this because he not only understood economics and government but human nature february 1924 he informed the national republican club that if we had attacks whereby on the first working day the government took 5% of your wages the second day, 10 percent the third da

grown up in marion, ohio, his town, and my next door neighbor was the editor who would follow warren harding some years later as the editor of the marion star which was harding's creation. and had been the first editor of the paper. he introduced me and gave me my first harding book with harding becoming, if you will, my first president. my library has everything that's ever been written about harding -- good, bad and indifferent -- and i realized a long time ago particularly picking up this information as a kid that harding hadn't been given a very fair shake as a president. so when arthur schlesinger jr. started the series on which i wrote one of the series of 42 past presidents, i called arthur. known him for years. arthur had written some rather ugly things about harding himself, and i said, art, i bet you don't know what to do with harding. he said, john, i don't have a clue what to do with harding. and he said, are you interested? i said, i am very interested. when i turned in my manuscript, arthur called and said you have begin me an entirely different perspective on warren harding. h

presidents i called arthur, i'd known him for years, arthur had written some ugly things about warren harding himself and i said i bet you don't know what to do with harding. he said john, i don't have a clue what to do with harding. i said i'm very interested. when i turned in the manuscript arthur called and said the academy in entirely different perspective on the warden harding. he said i didn't realize some of the information triet you are one of the few people know who actually looked at the papers that did survive the presidency. it is a mystique what we've done with harding. he asked me to cut -- i was little hard on some of his friends who were historians on some of the false material they put on harding. so i turned arthur 180 degrees but was a wonderful undertaking because he had fixed views of harding. the speech you're referring to was a brave act at the time harding did it. he went into the south. the audience was segregated. there was a lawyer fence between the whites and blacks and harding spent most of the speech looking at the whites and telling them you just can't go forwar

i want to caveat your mention of teapot dome and harding with the fact that warren harding has nothingto do with it. that's one of the great travesties that he's been tagged with teapot dome when it happens after he's, it's totally away from him. the one time he learns of the scandal he deals with it aggressively, but yet he bears the burden of teapot dome. >> host: and he dies before he can defend himself. >> guest: and he dies before he can defend himself. but teapot dome is a, is a pure corruption scandal, and the only parallel, really, the strongest parallel is the use of the special prosecutor. they've selected two of them by the department of justice, the attorney general has selected two. in fact; i've read memo by the watergate prosecutors drawing on many of the precedents that were established under teapot dome. it shows we have a remedy less than having to have an independent counsel law that can be used and can be set up. i think sometimes it should. i'm one, for example, who counterunderstand why we're not -- doesn't understand why we're not dealing with torture that way. t

>> the first speech writer is considered to be justin wellver for warren harding. no surprise at all that the first speech writer comes as mass media comes on the scene and presidents have to speak much more. when calvin coolidge was president, he made speeches roughly eight times a month. kennedy, in his thousand days it was 19 times a month. clinton in his first time was 28 times a month. and i haven't seen any numbers for clinton's second term, w. bush or obama. you have to believe that time keeps going up. >> linda, we've been talking about interesting, but off the news things in a way. what's going on internationally? we say the president's chances are looking up domestically, or in some sort of rise. international, doesn't look so pretty does it? >> i think depends really where you look. afghanistan is still so problematic. there are some signs that things are happening there that are very sures. the afghan parliament turns out to be one of the major challenges in challenging its president, president karzai. there's a life in the parliament that says we're si

your mention of teapot dome and parting with the fact that warren harding has nothing to do with it.e has been tagged when it happens after it is totally away from him and the one tiny learns it he deals with the aggressively but yet he bears the burden of teapot dome. >> host: he died before he can defend himself. >> guest: but teapot dome is a cure corruption scandal and the only parallel -- the strongest parallel is the use of the special prosecutor. a selected two by the department of justice and i have read a memo by the watergate prosecutors drawing on many of the precedents established under teapot dome. it shows we have a remedy less than an independent counsel law that can be used or set up and sometimes should. i am one who doesn't understand why we are not dealing with torture that way. these are very serious crimes. they are war crimes and they won't go away. there are foreign government investigating seven former bush officials and if we don't do so, they won't travel abroad but certainly they could be theoretically tried in absentia. >> host: how will history judge geor

>> warren g. harding the conservative republican and immense civil liberties and rights pardons a socialist to was prosecuted and in their celebration of public opinion that the only caveat to that story is that i read the brief looking at facts of harding's attorney general and defense and you know, what it is based on? no legal argument that public opinion the american people kind of like this guy we don't socialist around the country but he stands for that is the excuse given for releasing it. [laughter] >> just a footnote on a question about taft the court struck down a loss of minimum wages a brilliant o opinion written by sutherland but he gave a scathing dissent relaying against the rights. if you add the vote to four t.r. two taft you get the votes of 1916. this looks like a republican phenomenon if you see where was but obviously people like this this is what moves their way into the democratic party have we looked at this? was the main the republican phenomenon? >> four t.r.? good to see you. wh

>> well, warren contador not going to get a former treasury secretary talking -- [laughter] i really do believe that and i worked very hard the strong dollar is just very much in our interest and essentials to the success and pre-eminence of the united states of america and i believe that the best way to have a strong dollar is again looking at it over a long-term view have a strong economy and have fiscal discipline. now, i am not going to give you a view of what i think is going to happen with the dollar the next five or ten years but wine focused on because i don't get a lot of the money over a relatively short period of time. >> if i need you a trustee for my children and said you have to buy fixed-income would you prefer tips bonds which the treasury inflected type? >> i would go to you, warren. [laughter] >> i would ask you and take your advice. but i would ask myself the question which gets back to where you are going to go which is again which gets to the currency a little bit. i've spent a lot of time outside of this country and i've spent time. and believe me, every other major economy, china included, has many

warren. but also, ar arianna, no democrat would nominate white or jack kennedy. >> the president has tried hard bipartisan decisions. the problem is liz cheney and giuliani and members of the peanut gallery think they're in a debating society, and whatever the president proposes, it's their job to oppose it no matter what. >> there was a cartoon that had "blank" is a fascist. "blank" is an anti-american, "blank" is a baby killer, we're just waiting for the nominee to fill in the blank. >> i don't think there's going to be a good fight. assuming someone is nominated who meets all of the qualifications. >> you think there will be a filibuster? >> if the republicans go to the mat again as they did on health care and oppose someone who's qualified, except for the discussion we had an election, the president qualifies someone who is not in the scalia mode -- >> they think it's working for them. >> in the short run it's working, in the long run they could be back in the desert for 41 years. >> another thing that can put them back in the desert is this immigration bill. you heard senator kyl say the c

warren buffett said in 2006 "newspaper readers are heading into the cemetery while non-newspaper readers are just getting out of college. it's hardmake money buying a business in permanent decline." >> well, i think whole media sector has been overrated for a couple of years. at the moment it is underrated. >> rose: even though the stocks have been down. >> yes, but... >> rose: you know. that. >> charlie, let's simply look, for example, at our company. i mean, give me one minute for kind of show off presentation. i need to do this because it puts everything a little bit into proportion. for me, the year 2009 was by far the happiest year in my professional career. this was the year that i love most. why? because in a very, very tough environment, we had to deal with the financial crisis and we had to deal with the structural changes, the fundamental changes of the media industry. we achieved a high two-digit e.b.t.a. margin. we achieved in the traditional newspaper business an operational e.b.t.a. margin of more than 20%. at the same time, we were able to grow our digital revenues of the entire company to more than 20%. the three

have happened because i don't think, warren, i don't think we could have taken another big institution failure, do you? it's just the system is the thing that is hardfor people to understand is we had ten institutions that had 50 to 60% of the financial assets in this country and they are so interconnected it's just i think in many ways we were as bad as this is and it's terrible, but we look at what could have happened. we are pretty fortunate. >> hank, the british had given you that the british like a warning about the situation a couple of days earlier. but in effect, they blocked the barclays acquisition of lehman brothers. do you think the understood what the consequences were? >> i don't know everything they understood but remember, there is -- there was a requirement for a shareholder vote and they didn't -- >> we overcame a lot of things in this country. >> that's right. and -- but then what we needed was we needed a buyer that could do what jpmorgan did with bear stearns which was still in the capitol whole and guarantee the trading during the shareholder vote because there was no authority -- turning over every stone to see what authoriti