And indeed that is central to why so many people think the country is going in the wrong direction right now. The sense of frustration with the economy and the lack of upward mobility, difficulty in getting the kinds of opportunities that historically we have come to expect. So i think precisely those issues will be right at the heart of much of the president ial debate probably in both parties. I think voters have been asking for an answer to that ssue since 2006. They havent gotten an answer that they particularly like on those issues and they feel like they have been saying to washington we need you to figure out how to fix this economy especially for those of us who feel trapped that we are the middle class and we are and have not seen any of rise in income in 15 years being able to send your kid to college or have retirement now seems like they are pipe dreams and washington has come back to perceive some politically motivated agenda. I completely agree this is what 2016 is going to be. That is a challenge for both parties which is how do you go into this next election with an agenda that looks like its addressing those concerns and theres an actual policy proposal on the table rather than just saying if you do the things that republicans want we are all going to be eating dogwood out of cans and grandmas never going to get her Social Security and if you do things the way democrats want we are going to be you know socialist country where we are going to look like canada with her health care plan. So we have got to get away from that. I think theres a reason why we have in this election the fact that we are not talking about this issue and we are going to see a dropoff even in a Midterm Election of voters even below where we see it normally in the Midterm Elections. We are seeing now a National Viewer people interested in the election and fewer people voting than we have seen in 2006 or 2010 and i think thats exactly because those issues arent being talked about. I think that has been the theme of every major democratic ampaign. Its being drowned out by the other side focused on obama which is all the other side is really talking about. That is just sort of a fact of life presumably in 2015 the obama keyes will fade a little bit and both sides will debate the issue. There is one other problem and the problem is people are increasingly confident that theres anything the government can do really to solve not only that problem but many others if not most of the problems as well. The level of confidence in our institutions is continuing to reach new lows. Peoples believe that government can address those economic problems is really in tatters and that makes it extremely difficult for anybody to advance those plans successfully because people just dont buy it. Thats just a fundamental problem. Just as election campaigns have a finality where the last vote is cast on election day so does panels we are at the end of our time but please join me in thanking this fantastic panel. [applause] they talk makers about the Midterm Elections, trends and numbers and possible scenarios that could occur on election day and after ward. Newsmakers on cspan. Throughout campaign 2014 cspan has brought more than 120 races. Watch live Election Night donch see who wins, who loses and which party will control the house and senate. Our coverage begins at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Youll see victory and concession speeches in some of the most closely watched races across the country. We want to hear from you with your calls, Facebook Comments and tweets. Campaign 2014 Election Night coverage on cspan. On wednesday family and ben bradleehe late funeral service. I know that my redeemer lives and he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though this body be destroyed, yet shall i see god who i shall see for myself and mine eyes shall ehold and not as a stranger. For none of us live eth to himself and no man dies to himself. For if we live, we live unto the lord and if we die, we die unto the lord. Whether we live therefore or die, we are the lord. a hoir singing] let us pray. Accept ours mercy prayers on behalf of thigh servant benjamin and grant him into the land of life and joy in the foal fellowship through jesus christ our son and lord, forever. Ow and his wizz dom is beyond our understanding. Deal graciously with benjamins family and friends in their grief. Surround with thigh love that they may not be overwhelmed with their loss but have confidence in thigh goodness and strength to meet the days to come through jesus christ our lord. Men. Mr. Vice president , mr. Justice, mr. Secretary, reverend clergy, members of the bradley family, sally, ladies and . Entlemen, so how lucky were we this is washington, the city of big reputations. Some of those reputations get punctured and ben was responsible for more than a few of those punctures. This is a very large building but everyone in it knows people whos enormous reputations are undeserved. [laughter] we knew somebody much better than his very large reputation, even braver, even smarter, much more fun. Had his faults, and if my mother Catherine Graham were still here, believe me, she could go on a very long time about those. But she literally wrote the book about how great ben bradlee was, and it was a very long book. At the same time, what a lucky guy ben was himself. His marriage to sally filled up the gossip columns of the rival papers but its several decades later and we can all say, sal, you were the wife of his dreams. All you had to do to make ben smile was mention your name always. He died surrounded by children he loved and who loved him. Ben junior whom he admired so much as editor and author, marina, whom ive known since she was a teenager and who every visit to ben made him so happy, dino stuck in another country who i so wish were here today and quinn his daily companionship lit up his last 33 years. Mother occasionally perhaps teasingly uses the phrase mail chauvinist pig to describe her fellow correspondent. Surprise, in one crucial respect he wasnt. Take my word for it. In 1963 when kay graham became publisher of the post and many men were reduced to blubber by the idea that they were. Ddenly working for a woman no other man they knew was working for a woman because no other woman was running a Large Company other than kay graham. Any man at a company had insecurities at of himself, he tended to demonstrate those insecurities around kay gram. Ben, after all those years as a destroyer officer in world war ii had no insecurities about himself and he recognized a ,reat publisher when he saw one my self doubting mother always second guessing within minutes the last decision she had made knew for once when she made ben the editor she had done something great. She knew it by the evidence of her own eyes and she knew it because every reporter she liked and trusted came and told her so. The reporters ben hired were the toughest he could find, and that meant they were the toughest critics of ben himself. That was fine with him. Those reporters, i hate to say trks mr. Justice, would not believe the word of a Supreme Court justice under oath. The post staff could be fairly described as hard bitten. They were a group of men and women who proudly had no heroes, but he was our hero. Benjamin c. Bradlee, and he will be always. A reading from the book of ecleast after thics. For everything there is a season and a time forever matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to sow, a time to keep silent and a time to speak, a time to love, and a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace. What gains have the workers from their toil, i have seen the business that god has given everyone to be busy with. Moreover, he is put a sense of past and future into their mind s, yet they cannot find out what god has done from the beginning to the end. Good f the lord morning. My generation my generation considers the 26 years of ben indleee ben bradlees run the Washington Post room as our golden age of jurenlist. He was the most enthusiastic cheerleader and the best protector and a reporter to ask for. There was Nothing Better than ben coming to your desk the orning and getting a bradlee pat on the back. I cant repeat what he said here. [laughter] in his memoir, ben wrote that he had been given ring side seats in some of the 20th century most vital moments, and lucky us, we were right there with him. , me and others at the post he became more than just our post. In 1966, the year ben hired me from the washington star he heard that ann and i and our 3monthold son needed a vacation spot. Out of the blew blue he offered us a house he had rented on marge yaw Marthas Vineyard because he had to get back to the paper. That started a friendship that only grew over the years. When ben married sally in october of 1978, she brought a new sparkle life to his life and to ours outside the paper. Along with larry stern and others, we share decades of work, mixed with pleasure thanks to sally and ben. Ben and Catherine Graham made the post a second family to many of us, but it was ben who every day was the pumping heart of the operation. And pushed us with a kind of competitive hunger that was infectious. Built bylid Foundation Ben and the grahams that the post and our hope goes on to even greater heights. I once went into bens office to ask for a raise. He looked up from a crossword puzzle that he was always doing and said in his best gruff tone, you ought to be paying me for all the fun youre having. [laughter] he was right. His friends, his colleagues had memories ben golden that add to the enormous debt we owe him for the richness of life he has given us all. Et te [choir singing] a reading from the first letter of paul to the cridgians. If i speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love, i am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if i have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if i have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, i am nothing. In i give away all of my possessions and if i hand over my body so that i may boast but do not have love i gain nothing. Love is patient ent. Love is kind. Love so not envy yuss or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own ways. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,. Dures all things love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end as for tongues they will sees. As for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part and we process the only in part, but when the complete come, the partial will come to an end. When i was a child, i spoke like a child, i thought like a child, i reasoned like a child. When i became an adult i put an end to my childish ways. For now we see in the mirror but then we will show face it face. Now i know only in part then i will know fully even as i have and now faith, hope and love provide, these three and the greatest of these is love, the word of the lord. There have been memoirs, endless interviews, documentaries, move ease about beens leadership at. Post, what is the central part of his character, the part of him that was different . He was not afraid. On september 23, 1972, about 9 00 p. M. , i reached john mitchell, president nixons former attorney general and Campaign Manager by phone about a story we were running. It said he had controlled the secret fund for undercover operations such as water gate. Mitchell was quite upset. Responding jesus several times as i read him the story. He then proceeded to threat n an important part of catherines graham anatomy which he said would get caught in a big fat ringer if the post printed the story. He also said were going to do a story on all of you and he hung up the phone. Called ben at home. Woodward and i did not much observe the chain of command. Ben interrogated me, had mitchell been drinking . I couldnt tell. Did i properly identify myself . Yes. Did i have good notes . Yes. Ok, ben said, put in all of mitchells comments in the paper eave out mrs. Grahams ts ok, he said. A top official of the Nixon Campaign called me a few minutes later to make an appeal that mitchell had been caught in an unguarded moment. He had been a cabinet member and so forth. He doesnt want to show up in the paper like that. The official then called brad lee at home to repeat the appeal. Abradlee recalled saying it just boils down to this question, mr. Moore, or whether mr. Mitchell said it or not and whether the Washington Post reporter identified himself as a reporter and if he did that, all my requisites have been satisfied. Mitchells comments stayed in the paper. To be honest, i was frightened. Bob and i were 28 and 29 years old, a raw threat from the former attorney general, probably the official closest to nixon was not normal in the course of business as we knew it. The statement about doing a little story on all of us was chilling. We knew a lot about how they operated, dirty tricks, abotage, espionage but ben didnt miss a beat. He was not just cruel but, hey, this is a great sorry. Get it in the paper fast. He couldnt wait to tell Catherine Graham who stopped by my desk the next morning and asked with a smile did i have anymore messages for her. [laughter] lets think about this for a minute. We live now in an era where too many of us run afraid. Look for and we embrace the safety play, what will the boss think, what will the president of the board of directors do . My god, im vulnerable. I better be careful. I better seek comfort in the company line or the party line. How do i stay on the main road . An outlandish number members of congress now, democrats and republicans hold office in a safe district, protect it as long as they hold the party doctrine, whether left or right, the media cultures too often geared to the lowest denominator, make noise, get eye balls, cover the political battles like a football game, manufacture as much controversy up. An be jimmed ben lived and worked off the main road. There was no safe line except the truth. What happened . Why . What is the context . No sensationalism. Keep digging. Onths later in 1973, late on april night, we learned that water gate was about to explode spectacularly and nixons involvement in leading the cover up was indisputable. And the ongoing wiretapping was widespread and that lives could be in danger. It was 2 00 a. M. Woodward and i decided we had to get hold of somebody from the post immediately. Who . We, of course, decided to go straight to bradlees house. Calling from a pay phone before we arrived, he said come over. When we suggested we talk on the front lawn instead of inside, ben and his in pajamas and his badge bathrobe came out onto the front lawn and when we started to share details of what we had learned, he had one question, what do we do now . The next day he mobilized all of the senior editors on the rufe garden at the post where leblingt ronic eavesdropping would be unlikely when one of the editors suggested the thing reached the end of fantasy. Ben said he wasnt interested in the logic of it. Weve seen some pretty illogical things in the last year he said, he just wanted to find out what might be true. He pulled off being bradlee because he wasnt afraid of president , of polio, of political correctness, of publishing the pentagon papers, of possible retribution or the likelihood that the government might strike at its his newspaper with all of his power, going off to war in the pacific and making mistakes. Ght weeks ago in long island on august 26, sally seated next to ben at his 93rd birthday party. He held my hand at times and he and i talked about his oldest friends from another washington era, about fast eddie, lawyer edward benny ways he shook and ead and several others their sunday breakfast at the drugstore on weans avenue and about water gate, you guys he said. He struggled with some of the particulars but there was that big bradlee smile and he looked great. I mean great. And he made some cracks about sally who was seated in a distance a couple of places away and he seemed to be having a kind of revelry, savering some emories and then he blew the candles out. I loved this man. For the thousands of us who worked with ben. If was not it was this love and the real question is why. Because he spoke and dealt with all of us personally. He touched each of us in almost every encounter or discussion with ben, no matter how fleeting, he made you feel better about yourself. He left you with the feeling not just that he accepted you, but that he loved you in return. He made you want to be better and, yes, had more fun, not just for yourself, but for him, whether it was a 19yearold summer intern, a beginning reporter in an outer county where ben had never visited, or the spouses of the staff. And here i wanted to list names of people who worked for ben and wouldy wife reminded me i have to read the whole staff directory or portions of it over 26 years. Ben made made you feel that your enterprises, whatever they were, were the most important in the world. So it might only be for a few seconds, short Attention Span you know, you got that. Ben hated clubs and claimed he never joined one, but he ended up forming the most sought after club ever, club bradlee. No entrance fee, no membership card. Everyone felt it was a privilege orbit. K to work in his we could feel that way because he never conveyed to us that it was a privilege for him. This is what he did. As he aged, he never lost that sweetness for life, for sally and the countless members of his family and for all of us. He was a journalistic warrior, unequaled and probably never to be matched. He had the courage of an army, a lion in all seasons. He wanted his newspaper to be like the Navy Destroyer he served on in world war ii, make big bow waves and leave a royally wake. He ben prowled the newsroom in search of news, gossip, the hidden but emerging truth. He did not observe boundaries. Hey were for others. Schedules for those who would miss the moment. Ben studied the classics in college. It was a mild effort by all absombed the he central truth absorbed the central truth about the greek heroes, strong, leaderly, reckless at times, full of doubt and others, successful, yet men who wept tears as most men no longer do. But ben cried easily at the slightest hint of sorrow in a movie or in life. He was in search of the large truth, not just the facts which he was devoted to, but he was looking for the deep emotional struggles he knew were in the great events that moved history. He perceived that there was a thin threshold between flaw and fatal flaw. As a result, he was with all at sternness and swagger and selfconferred, a for giving man, he selfconfidence, a for giving man, he understand human frailty, an innocent and unthinking unintentional mistake was forgiven. I knew this because i participated in too many of the celebrated mistakes during his years at the post. There were a number of times we obtained information about top secret code word u. S. Intelligence programs that provided a degree of security back in the cold war that was almost unimaginable. The real crown jewels. But in the interest of the countrys safety at a time of the cold war, ben chose not to publish. He cared deeply about his country. Over four decades i traveled the country and the world with ben to give speeches, ferret out the news or vacation or share countless family holidays. Several years ago ben and i were invited to speak at the Nixon Library in california. Ben was astonished that this was happening, could not believe that the world had turned so much. How do you like them apples . He said smiling. And adding a second favorite line, think about that for a minute. We showed up at Reagan National t. S. A. Security for a flight to california. He was not driving these days, so he had no drivers license. He had forgotten his passport and he had no photo i. D. Card. Led out his aarp [laughter] tattered and expired. [laughter] ben always said you have to go with what you have. Even if it is a low fare. The t. S. A. Man was not going to have anything to do with this and he wouldnt even look at bens aarp card. Behind us in line we heard a voice. It sounded like the voice of moses. It was vernon jordan. [laughter] maybe you know the voice. Never a subtle presence, vernon bolted forward and said to the t. S. A. Man this is ben bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post. Ben bradlee said the t. S. A. Man, and then improbably and miraculously he waved ben through security. Ben turned and gave one of those muscle pumps se with his right arm, he had beat the system again. [laughter] in those hard final years of his life as the great mind faded, four people really took care of ben, his beloved wife sally. That was a real 41year love affair, their son quinn, dr. Michael newman, a saint in the medical profession and carmen their housekeeper. Not chronologically but psychologically bens passing is and in some very clear ways marks the end of the 20th century. He is gone and for that we are diminished and the world is smaller. I will never forget the leadership and the smile of this man we love so much. [tenor solo singing] part of ben bradlees incomparable charm was he already seemed ready to say anything to anyone. But ben was meticulous in his outrageousness. Tom litman told the story at bens retirement of how his secretary approached him as she was typing one of bens letters with a copy editing question. S dick head one word or two . Ben was eimmensely funny with a pure zest for life. Ben would make wise cracks, trade insults and gossip about washington. If you were too sent mental in making a story pitch, ben would play an imaginary violin. If you winter on too long, ben would roll his eyes or put his hands to his throat in a choking motion. If you didnt have the story he told you to go get it. Being an editor is often mundane, exhausting work. Ben made it seem fun. Cool even. No wonder we all tried so desperately to be like him. Hated a tough man who es he could be gentle and protective. Many of us remember getting in trouble, making mistake or being under public attack and having ben stride across the newsroom, put his arm around us, Say Something obscene and we knew instantly that everything would be fine. Knowing bens passion for all things fresh, sally organized his 90th birthday. During his birthday dinner, ben keeled over and we all thought oh, my god is this it . An ambulance rushed him to the hospital. By the time it ariff rived, ben was chattering away with the cute french nurses and sally had a look that said i told you he would be fine. As with everything in the final graceful years of bens life this, she was right. French received the award in 2007 i gave a toast for calling the movie cassa blanca, would you rather be victor lazlow, the resistance hero in [speaking uit and in french] or rick, the sloon keeper played by hum ree bogart who stands in the shadows in his tuxedo and nods his approval. It was bens smerble personality that he was both the man in the white suit who was our leader and the romantic man in the corner who made it cool and glamorous and real. Future journalists should ask emselves with us, what would ben do
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