overturning the stem cell policy, and he is talking about the role of science in policy making. let s be clear, promoting science is not about providing resources, it s about protecting free and open inquiry, and it s about letting scientists do their jobs free from manipulation, and especially when it s inconvenient. i believe we have somebody with us that was at the event and can speak to this a little bit. dr. susan wood, are you there on the satellite? i am. good morning. good morning. you worked at the fda back in 2005, i believe, and you were involved in the first time that the petition was made to make up a plan b available over-the-counter, the administration decided not to approve plan b over-the-counter,
policy the women s speech that hillary clinton gave in 95 was followed i was complaining about barack obama s language with regards to the reproductive rights, and i had many complaints with hillary clinton s language with preproductive rights, and she walked back all kinds of reproductive stuff as a senator in 84. she makes the tremendous grand pronouncements, and they don t always match. i think it s important when the administration does good that we acknowledge they did good. that s why we have this segment. with plan b, it was politically brilliant. not maybe what i would have chosen. the speech this week, that s the president we hoped we would see,
they were enormous big spenders in the bush year in everything you can imagine: defense, domestic, entitlements you name it, the g.o.p. was they money after it. that being said, i m in favor of redemption and after new finally after eight years of being pork addict big spenders if they are finally saying county maybe we should offset new spending we should do, that is good news. but, i m still not on their side because i don t think disaster relief is a proper function of the federal government. new jersey should pay for new jersey damages and north carolina should pay for north carolina damages and vermont should pay for vermont darks like mudslides in california they should pay for it and tornadoes in kansas they should pay for it. neil: leaves aside wisdom to that each state look after itself, i go back to this issue republicans raise: won t they be better off saying we were wrong. we did not walk the walk. we barely talked the talk.
it s a great window on the personality of who the president is. michael, let me challenge you. between the two of you, you ve written six of these great epical speeches there is a sameness to all of them. i hate to say it to someone has tried to give speeches occasionally, the pundits are all built up. two days later people have forgotten it. how often is there that memorable phrase that actually captures the public imagination? i think david could answer that question because he is famous for the most famous phrase. the phrasing is the least of it. the question is have you succeeded in forcing the priorities of your administration. here is where michael is right. it s a forcing mechanism for the executive branch of the government. if you can mobilize people and discipline them and force them to think, and force them to do there was actually the era of big government is over was a clinton phrase, and that was very powerful, and for a while true. david, you are either famous o
speeches. that made big news. how hard was it to get those words into that speech? it only took three people working a week and a half to do it. seriously, did you have to lobby for that? no, no. look, in the bush administration, it was a much sometimes people it s like the speech writers had control of the asylum there was much more agreement for the writers in that administration. it was a very writerly administration. they drove a lot of it. president bush always liked big themes, big messages, big content. and he was a high stakes president. and that phrase, it had very high stakes attached to it. when you say something that people remember, you also are inviting people to judge you. it s pretty rare that any lines from presidents, whether state of the union or not that we remember them, we only remember even a few lines from ronald reagan. but these speeches when they re done with kind of boldness and a bit of surprise can change the political environment. clinton in 199