one of the rsons is, and bob can talk about this, watergate was not a keeper. it was about a fundamental attempt by the president of the ited states to misused and abused the constitution, obstruct justice, and more than anything, to try to underme the very electoral process of our government. >> this is the important part. there were dirty tricks. there were all kinds of things aimed at t democrats who were going to run against nixonnd they wanted what they perceived, i think accurately, they wanted the democratic nominee to be george mcgovern. they really went after senator muskie who was the front rner and spied on him. they had 50 spies out in the campaigns writing false press releases. they literally had the gas fort senator muskie's chauffeur who would drive him around and bring documents from his senate office over to his campaign headquarters. there were so many documents that the nixon campaign wanted copies of the chauffeur called and said rented an apartment full-time and bought a xerox machinend in trs between but photographed documents for the nixo

thank you bob, thank you to the campaign, thank you to roger. [applause] i just want to make five simple points this morning. first of all, i love this country and i am a true over the top believer in the american dream. secondly, this is not our father's grandfather proxy economy. it is the third economic revolution in world history. 3, in global economies, countries aae teams. team usa lacks a growth oriented long-term fiscally responsible economic plan. four, when all this ben to much time worrying and winding -- when all of us spend too much time worrying and whining, poor people, students, workers pay the price. last, we need to remember how we achieve change in our country. in the midst of all these conferences, analyses, and debate, criticism, progressives forget to save what i know underlines the most fundamental reason for our activism. we love this country. i happen to think america is a gift. its greatest gift is that people come here from all over the world, like my grandfather. all he ever expected from america is that he was going

they have a new person, bob dudley, that's going to handle the long-term recovery efforts, which works for b.p., but he's on the board of b.p., and from all indications that i have seen from him, at least he's american. >> wait for the mic, please. >> i'm bar radio jones from the christian church, zpismse christ, which covers arkansas, louisiana, and mississippi. we have lots of hurricanes. my question is, when you were on the cabinet, we knew where to turn for those disasters. mitigations and recovery, when you were not there and katrina hit, it was a mess. and we had difficulty finding help, and we have just now gotten back on our feet, and i'm talking n.g.o.'s, and i'm talking recovery, and we have had to do it on our own at churches, etc. so we are very afraid of what's coming this season, and we've got a conference call coming next week with the new administration, what kinds of organization is there now? where would we turn now in terms of government agencies? how is it set up now? >> well, you know, i'm not there, but we had a very, very strong relationship with a volunteer orga

school, and now it is m distinct privilege and honor on behalf of the whole commission to introduce bob kerrey, former governor, former senator from the state nebraska, now president of the new school, and our host today. senator kerrey, thank you so much for having us here. you and your staff have been terrific, and the microphone is now yours. >> well, first of all, chairman angelides and vice chairman thomas d members of the commission, both the new school and new york city is proud, are proud to welcome you here this morning. and i appreciate very much you praising the staff because they've done all the work to make this possible, and it is always quite moving to me the fort ty make to accommodate these kinds of extremely important efforts. i don't envy you your work. this is a complicated matt. those of us who have sufficient quantitative skills but not impressive quantitative skills find ourselves actually quite unable to comprehend exactly what was going on and what went wrong. trying to manage risk today s become more and more difficult, and my own view of the matter is that, fo

bob and i have worked together -- with bob? be -- bixby and bob greensun. david walker has not only been doing in his present position, but in his prior position, where he brought a clear and honest analysis to some of the issues confronting our country, particularly from a fiscal standpoint. this month, we were us to ask americans the fittest -- the greatest threat facing our country. two top the list. one was terrorism. the other was dead. this is a remarkable moment -- the other was debt. this is a remarkable moment in our country's history. our powerful debt troubles americans as much as the most critical -- parole attack on our country. -- brutal attack on our country. americans understand the danger of the state of the economy, a hobbled government and a weak national defense. more than ever it is possible to imagine a government of, for, and by interest payments and entitlements. debt is a dominant part of the political landscape now. that will not be ignored because if there is one thing we understand in washington, it is political incentives, polit

bob was calledn by the city editor. >> if it was a nice day. and it was a saturday. and the editors in the morning said, who would be dumb enough to come in and work today? [laughter] and my name immediately came to their lives. >> and i was already in the office. i was late handing in another piece. that was a good story, obviously better tn the piece i was working on. >> you never got tat he's done, did you? >> i think i did. anyway. five men had been arrested in the headquarters of the national democratic party, wearing rubber gloves. they found them in business suits and they found -- as the police report would have $100 bills in sequence, as well as wiretping equipment. so obviously this was a story not about your average burglary. >> and the approach we ok was the poce reporter happened. what happened? what can we find out? it was very incremental -- just some examples, another reporter found out from the police there with these cryptic entries in the address books of two of the burglars. and howard hunt had been the director -- the operational director, and as

there is an industry person telling them this, that, and the other, weaving and bobbing. it is not a fair fight. we have to get back to where the industry actual cares when am mms inspector -- an mms inspector is coming. i'm concerned about the permit process. i am interested in how we can make sure that certain parts of that process are elevated into a statute, particularly the ability to demonstrate, as a company, that if you're going to go drill on the moon or 500 feet under the -- 5000 feet under the ocean, that the techniques you have forced a -- for stopping a spill can be verified. an application comes in. the boxes are checked. d mms folks -- the mms folks go to work. take me through the process that happens when the permit comes in, in terms of getting to the approval stage. >> an application for a permit to drill is submitted based upon the exploration plan that had a party been submitted and previously approved by dumping minerals management service. there would have been-- approved by the minerals management service. there would have been an investigation. the

now, i announced this week that bob graham and bill riley, two respected individuals who have experience both on the environmental side and energy sector, are going to be examining the next six months what went wrong but forward looking how do we increase domestic oil production without seek the kinds of disasters we are witnessing on television. i think governor jindal and other parish presidents spoke about the immediate impact and what i said to them is the same thing i said to graham and reilly. if they can front-load some of the analysis of what went wrong and how you would solve what has happened and what can happen, and you can do that more quickly than six months, then let me know. don't hold the results of your review for six months and then tell me. tell me when you find out. what i told the folks in this room was i'm not going to cut corners on it and i'm not going to press them to move faster than it would take to do an accurate, independent job based on sound science, because i do not want to see this repeated and the american people don't and i promise you the people of the

bob gates has been, i think, as successful as any secretary of defense in recent memory in actually killing programs, which i think anybody who follows washington knows is very tough, very difficult. we have instituted pay goal, and although there were baselines built in that took into account the fact that some of this stuff wasn't going to be solved overnight, it is starting to provide budget discipline to congress as they move forward. and we have set up this fiscal commission who will provide reports starting in november, and although there were resistance, ironically, on the part of some of the republicans who originally had been cosponsors of legislation to create the fiscal commission, and they, in fact, ended up voting against it, what's been encouraging based on what i'm hearing, both from democrats and republicans, is that there's been a serious conversation there. people are looking at a whole spectrum of issues to get at what is basically a structural deficit that preceded this financial crisis. even if the financial crisis made it much worse, but even if we had not gone through

my name is bob maguire. i'm the chair of his haiti rking group and i will now move us forward to the rest of our program, looking forward from some perspectives that are complementary to those presented by general keen and some that are slightly different. we have three speakers. one is a rresentative of the international organization. one is the representative of an international ngo that works on human rights and development issues, and one is a haitian american scholar, who works on macroeconomic issues, so this is the blend that we have for you. are representative of an international organization is dr. auguste kouame. he is the lead economist and sector leader for poverty reduction and economic management for the caribbn and the latin america and caribbean regional vice presidency of the world bank. he joined the world bank in 1996. from the perspective of an international ngo working on human rights and development issues, we have subfive, who is the director of the robert f. kennedy memorial center fo

in include carrying and handling the materials and supplies, raking or shoveling debris, operating bob cats or power washers to clean rocks and beach areas, wiping or washing oil covered items and removing trash and other debris. safety is a primary concern so we make sure that these folks go through basic training not only for the task they're doing but for exposure to potential materials they'll come in contact with out there. the majority of the training for this area is actually done here at this site far beyond the logistics site and the safety area for boom, this is actually a processing point and dispatch point for person nel. they can come in here, receive training get certifications and be deployed elsewhere. in general, the operation here at theodore is one of the best i've encountered and i want to commend everybody here for the job they're doing and the way that the contractors, subcontractors and local community have come together to help us optimize this response for the folks in alabama. with that, i will be glad to take any questions. >> what's your plan with the govern

about one month ago, you posted senator nelson and bob. we talked about a variety of issues. i wanted to follow up with what my colleague from alabama of was just discussing. when we had the meeting, we talked about your confidence in president karzai as a partner for our country in this effort to fight the taliban and al qaeda. these comments he made in kandahar are welcome but to follow the comments reported around the 10th of this month that he lost faith in the u.s. ability to defeat the taliba n. i wanted to get an update from you. >> great to see you. if i could start of that i think the statement that he has lost faith in the u.s. is a newspaper account and not a quote directly from him. it is the characterization from some second and third hand sources. it does not square frankly with my contacts with him in recent months or when general mcchrystal reports nor any others who have a contact with him in kabul. these are the next important my vote resume milestones for in the conduct of the military operation. these are related to economic disputes contentions, and so fo