Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20130122

Rose today barack obama was sworn in for a second time as president of the united states. It was a cold and sunny day in washington. Close to a Million People came to the inauguration. They came to celebrate and see history. They included former president s clinton and carter but not president george w. Bush and george h. W. Bush his father because of the latters illness. Supreme Court Justices were there as well as the parting cabinet members. The president took the oath of office for the second time having done it on sunday there a private ceremony then the inaugural address in which the president laid out his vision and his tae general da. My fellow americans, we are made for this moment and we will seize it so long as we seize it together applause for we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. cheers and applause we believe that americas prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middleclass. We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths that all of us are created equal is the star that guides us still just as it guided our forebearers through seneca falls and selma and stonewall, just as it guided all those men and women sung and unsung who left footprints along this great mall to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone. To hear a king proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul of earth. applause it is now our Generations Task too carry on what those pioneers began progress does not compel us to settle centurieslong debates about the role of government for all time but it does require us to act in our time. applause for now decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics or treat name calling as reasoned debate. We must act knowing that our work will be imperfect. applause let us of us now embrace with solemn duty an awesome joy what is our lasting birth right with common effort and common purpose with passion and dedication let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom. Rose joining me now from washington, d. C. Al hunt of bloomberg, jodi kantor of the New York Times, John Dickerson of slate and cbs news. Here in new york, Mark Halperin of time magazine. Al, let me start with you. Before we talk about the speech, just talk about the ambience of this inauguration. These are wonderful weekends. This is a long weekend. Whether its republican or Democrat People who come are in a great mood of celebration, theyre walking the streets. I love inaugural weekends. I think theyre fabulous. Not as big as it was last time but i think it was in many ways i thought there would be a little of a down tick but just Walking Around the streets a bit today that didnt appear to be the case. Of course all the fancy parties but there are a lot of just real people who dont go to fancy parties so i love this weekend. Rose John Dickerson you were there for cbs with a frontrow seat. What did it seem like for you . Bright and early people were out there. Long before the sun was up the president was walking down the parade the route they were 15 people deep. It was a nice antidote to what the rest of us were essentially saying which was talking about the fact that washington is stuck, that the drama and glory of his first inauguration is gone, that its been you know its a tough sledding period here in washington. That was not on the minds of people waving those flags so wildly. We were so far back that theres almost like different weather patterns in a crowd that size. Youd hear chants go up in one part then you would hear Something Else happen in another part. This wasnt a crowd the size as big of this inauguration but it was still enormous, largest of any second inaugural and it was so large that the crowd closest to the speaker would respond and there would be a beat and back where we were youd hear a response. So that gives you some sense of just how vast the grouping was of people who were there just to basically love the president which is not something he gets a lot of in the political to and from in washington. Rose jodi, you wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times about how the obamas have both changed. You said describing him they used phrases like more confident but more scared more isolated less hesitant about directing staffers whether butlers or highest leveled a visors, gratified by reelection which the obamas view as sweet vindication and bloodier minded when it comes to beating republicans. Tell me how all thaw you learned about them factored into the speech you heard today . Well i think my favorite word in that paragraph is bloodier minded because its not a word we associate with barack obama and yet it has become so true and fits with the very democratic ideological second inauguration speech we gave today. This is no longer the barack obama who calls for bipartisan healing, who wants to change the way washington works. He set out a very aggressive second term agenda. Within a couple of minutes into the speech i saw somebody tweet barack obama has talked about Climate Change more than he talked about it during the campaign. The question that leads us to, of course, is how you pass that agenda when the republicans control the house. Reporter jon, you wrote a piece in slate that said some of the same things that the president maybe should be more bloody minded. That seems the logical conclusion. If you look at his ambition, hes not one whos just going to sit in the recliner for the second term. He wants to transform. He pushed for health care in his first term, advisors said lets go for something smaller, he said i want to make history. Hes a man who wants to make history. We knew what he was going to talk about in his second term. These confrontational issues, climb change, immigration, gun control and hes also in these budget negotiations, is lets look at the debt limit for example. He said not only am i not going to negotiate, im not going to pick up the phone. He got some sort of positive biofeedback on that. In other words, he took a hardline posture in those negotiations and the republicans essentially blinked. So all of that led me to the conclusion basically that the president is if he wants to be transformational he has to press his case hard and thats what he did in his inaugural address. Rose Mark Halperin, youre writing a book about the campaign of 2012. How do you see todays speech summing up the last four years and looking ahead . The Biggest Issue in the campaign was jobs. Wasnt talked about very much. The big issues that were talked about and the big issues for the president so far is budget fights. The budget fights relate to jobs but its not a direct connection either in terms of macroeconomics or in terms of the American People. John and jodi talked about three big issues the president talked about today the president himself clearly telegraphed which is gun control, an issue brought to the fore by the tragic events in connecticut. Immigration and Climate Change, two issues the president talked about in the first campaign, talked about in the first term but didnt as jodi said talk about very much in the context of this reelect. Jobs to me was the big issue missing today. Rose but he tied that into what he wants to do for the middleclass. That seems to be he talks about it but rose hes expressing that. Absolutely. But the fundamental challenge for the country right now and we have many is jobs. Not deficit reduction, though thats a big issue, too. Its not immigration, though thats a big issue. Its not Climate Change right now, although its a big issue. And i was struck today by how little he talked about that. Its not supposed to be a programmatic speech. Rose al hunt in a piece you wrote for bloomberg you said whatever the political limitationss historians say obama needs to think big starting with his second inaugural address. He has a chance to explain where america ought to be in ten or 20 years said h. W. Brand of texas. He can rise above everyday politics and speak to history. Lincoln did in the 1865, f. D. R. In 1937, now its obamas chance. Did he do that . Yeah, i think he did it pretty well. This wasnt lincoln 1865 but we havent had one since. The closest was roosevelt 1937. Were not likely to see that, charlie. I thought he did what brand said he should do. I appreciate what mark is saying but i think this is not a programmatic speech. This is not a speech where you talk about heres my fourpoint jobs program. Its a speech about vision and i thought he gave a good sense of where he wanted the country to be i think it clearly was a Progressive Democratic speech. In f you read reagans in 1985 it was a conservative republican speech. And a as for those who say i watched fox news who say he didnt offer olive branches or reach across the table to try to encourage bipartisanship, i would note 16 years ago bill clinton in his second inaugural said that you have sent a democratic president and a Republican Congress back to washington, you didnt send us back to engage in bickering and partisanship. Within a year they were impeaching him for lying about sex. So so much for the message that resonates on for bipartisanship on inaugural day. Rose heres what david brooks said. It was the most unapologetically liberal speech weve heard barack obama give. It was really tracing American History and saying to keep faith to our ideals we have to change in a collective direction. We have to guarantee women equal income for the same work, he he mentioned gay rights and Climate Change and preserving medicare and Social Security. I thought it was laying down a liberal agenda. Did you see it that way, mark . I think without a doubt, this was a progressive speech from a guy who has offered himself up sometimes as something more postpartisan. No doubt that almost every major progressive desire, vision of america was laid out in the speech. Again, nothing surprising about what he believes. I thought the most surprising thing about the speech and it goes the point david brooks is making theres something surprising in it. Theres nothing he said about these issues are important to him that was new or fresh or allowed us to see into his vision of how to move the country forward on them as opposed to simply saying i am a progressive and these are the things i believe and ill fight for. Rose how do you see this, john . This liberal agenda . I think thats right. Also what was interesting is there was a little historical sleight of hand. I dont mean sneakiness i just mean clever writerlyness. When the president talked about history all president s bring them into their inaugural adresses to add weight to whatever theyre proposing in his first address he talked about gettysburg and concord and khe sanh. Here he talked about seneca falls, stonewall. These the historical touchstones for a president speaking to a new generation. A generation he thinks ratified his vision of the world in this election in which he did well with minorities and Younger Voters so to the extent that his second election ratified the new Obama Coalition and the new shape of the electorate he so, too, hopes his second term will speak to that. And i think that was an interesting part of this speech but if youre in a republican hearing this when he talks about collective action they hear big government, when he talks about investment they hear taxes and when he talks about takers which he did in the speech, thats a loaded word. It aims right at paul ryan who talked about takers versus makers, the takers being the one who receive federal benefits but pay no federal income tax. Thats a shot. Thats not just language thats slipped in. So thats the sense in which this had a combative there were a few barbs in this speech. One of the moments in the campaign when the president was Office Balance was when he said you didnt build it, talking about small business. That was one of the big themes of the speech saying you need collective action in order to get anything done. Again, not new but laying down real markers act the fact that hes going to night the second term for a progressive vision based on those historical touchstones john mentioned and a program that is based on things that right now republicans have no interest in working with him on. In terms of gun control and Climate Change, immigration and budget stuff different issue. Jodi let me go back to your point in your piece about the New York Times about where the president is today in his own mind. Well, in some ways i feel that the real story of for president s first four years which is so hard to tell is how much he learned in washington. He did come to washington in 2009 without a lot of managerial experience, National Security experience, economic experience, washington experience. He was still getting lost in the halls of the capitol when he ran for the presidency. What is very hard to see unless youre sitting with him in the oval office and maybe you cant even see it then is how much hes learned. Hes had the ultimate washington education so we see two changes in him. One is the philosophical change weve been talking about. This is the president who didnt always say what he really thought in the first term. When there were terrible storms that leveled parts of missouri he flew down there and he gave consoling speeches in which he talked about those storms as acts of god which really angered some of the climate advocates because they said how can you talk about this like an act of god when we believe that this is linked to Climate Change and we can do something about it . Gun control. This is a president who did very little on gun control in his first term and within hours of the newtown shooting you could see how that changed. He came out and made that first statement and you said to yourself this is a president whos going to try to do something about gun control. The second question is how much smarter hes gotten about the washington maneuvering. The white house did do a better job at playing out the recent series of debt and budget negotiations. The question is how that will translate. I mean, even if hes smart and maneuvers really well and capitalizes on everything hes learned how much of this can he actually get done in the next four years . Rose on that point, al, you say in your piece the president shows few signs of reaching out or broadening his horizons. If anything, capitol hill democrats say the inner circle is more closed. Obama most recently at a News Conference last week deprecate it is role of relationships in politics. Hes dismissive of the notion that they would all be better if he would drink whiskey with lawmakers as Lyndon Johnson did. Yeah, far guy who is so smart it really does puzzle me. Perhaps jod city or john can answer as to why he just doesnt appreciate the fact that personal relationships matter in politics at every level always have going back to lincoln. Look at spielbergs film. 2013 always will. He doesnt do it terribly well, maybe thats why he wants to suggest it doesnt matter. I agree with everything that jodi just said about some of the opportunities. I do think its worrisome and not just a parochial matter. Its worrisome that they arent bringing more people in not just because diversity of voices and views helps but some of these people are tired. Some of these people particularly economic people they are spent, charlie. I wish there were you had this sense there was an infusion of fresh ideas and fresh blood. Not to change views and change him but just to kind of bring more vital toy the tail rather than just get ready for the big fight. Senator Chuck Schumer has a theory to go to als point that he tells his colleagues which is that because president obama never had to climb the greasey poll pole of politics, didnt have to make his way up in the political world, hes had a kind of special path in life he doesnt know this benefit of relationships. He didnt have to learn the hard way that relationships are what got you from the tiny City Council Race up into maybe the slightly higher race and thats one of the reasons. I think another thing in talking to white house aides about why the president doesnt believe in schmoozing, a, he believes he doesnt want to do it. Its not his cup of tea. But his view particularly on john boehner is that boehner cannot deliver a deal. He can do all the schmoozing he wants but when john boehner, the house speaker, goes back to his caucus they are driven and ruled by imperatives that are impervious to schmoozing and this thats basically their constituents at home and therefore if boehner cant help him make a deal he has to find some other kind of leverage and that comes from the outside which is why in the inaugural address today the president talked about voters and said we have to do it not through our votes but our voices thats why hes organizing america for action, to try and build pressure from the outside that will somehow work on lawmakers. Hes tried that before but theyre recommitted ittoit now thats given up on dealing with congress directly. If you took the 2001 most influential people in washington 2000 of them if you them in a room and ask them to chat about the topics, the president s lack of willingness to reach out to congress very much, his lack of feel for the importance of relationships, 2,000 of the people would agree republican, democrat, journalists, politicians, yeah, thats how that works. The one who would disagree is the president. And jodi zez said theres four years now and stuff to look at. I think were done with this. I think the notion that this is going to change we can bury. Rose even though he said i may have an empty house soon, my caught thers are growing older. I thought that was a good way to get through the press conference. This is who he is and hes been remarkably successful and as john said, when he failed in things like getting boehner his attitude is i did try, it didnt work so when i do it it doesnt necessarily work. The next four years i really would doubt hell change one iota on this score. I would make a small distinction between schmoozing and whether hes willing to have a can pay with people at night and what he chooses to do at 7 00 and the point that al made which is what people say about this administration now is that the area of promotion is line of sight promotion meaning that the president promotes people who are in front of him who hes closed to who he trusts. Somebody from chicago said with me w wonder that the president has become mayor daley because he is becoming famous for having trusted lieutenants who he moved around from position to position. Michelle obama objected to that when she worked in the mayors office, she thought it was too insular and part of the appeal of barack obama circa 2007 2008 is that he had this kind of expansive quality. He brought in people like austan gools by and Samantha Power who were not the usual politicos who looked at the world differently. We see that less with the administration now. There seems to be a narrowing. Rose its said that journalists have the first draft of history and historians have third, fourth, fifth drafts. When we come back, further conversation of the next four years of the Obama Administration two. We continue this evening with a conversation about the presidency of barack obama on the occasion of his second inauguration this time four years ago the world watched as the first African American was sworn in. It was an historic day. Mr. Obama came to the president in the midst of a Global Financial crisis and two wars. He has had to reshape americas role in the world, the boldness of his accomplishments Health Care Reform has been divisive. In his first inaugural speech president obama promised a new vision for a troubled country. Today i say to you that the challenges we face are real they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time but know this, america, they will be met cheers and applause rose four years later much work remains on major issues from Climate Change to Immigration Reform to the debate about taxes and spending and the most recent focus on gun control joining me to assess barack obama is a group of distinguished scholars and historians. From boston, dorr wince kearns goodwin, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her book called no ordinary time. Her latest biography team of rivals formed the basis for Steven Spielbergs movie lincoln. Shell join us later. From nashville, jon meacham, he won a Pulitzer Prize for the biography of andrew jackson. From washington, d. C. , Pulitzer Prize winning journalist bob woodward, his latest book is called the price of politics. In new york, Michael Beschloss, the historian for nbc news and author of many books including president ial courage brave leaders and how they changed america. Finally robert caro, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the biography of Lyndon Johnson. The most recent biography is called the passage of power. Im pleased to have all of them here as we broadcast on this Inauguration Day as we talk about the second term of president barack obama. I begin with robert caro. What is the challenge for president s in a second term . Challenge but a great opportunity when youre in the second term you have nothing more to run for, no more elections. So what youre running for a place in history and you know if you do a great job you will have a great place in history. Rose and you never know whats coming though, as vietnam oh, it as i write now, the last line about Lyndon Johnson, when his second term starts with passing medicare, Voting Rights act, Civil Rights Act just on the triumph of getting social welfare legislation through and here comes vietnam in 1965 overshadowing it all and everything turns and as youre listening to the tapes of these conversations and you hear the despair in his the growing despair in his voice as vietnam comes to overshadow everything he wanted to do and that he wanted to started to do in the second term. You see how a second term can go really bad. Rose what did he say that bitch of a war stole the woman i love, the great society. Rose the challenge for a second term . Well, the challenge i think often times is that a president whos had great reelections suddenly finds he has less power than he thought he had. Franklin park zoo in Franklin Roosevelt in 1937, more Democratic Congress than in any time of the century suddenly realize that the Supreme Court can keep on overruling the things he gets passed through congress so he tries to pack the Supreme Court, slapped down, bad second term. In nixons case and i think bob woodward can speak on this, too at the beginning of his time he had both houses of congress in democratic hands. He was turning to something called impoundment saying im just not going to spend the money for these bills, these acts, these agencies that democrats are voting for in the house and senate and even in the absence of watergate its possible that that could have gone to impeachment. Rose jon meacham in nashville, Thomas Jonathan van everyson after a successful first term in which the Louisiana Purchase was dominant he goes into the second term and what happens . Well his second inaugural address is largely an attack on the press so he set a tone there. Every subsequent president has wanted to do that, may not have pulled it off. He ran into the possibility of war with Great Britain and imposed what many historians believed to be beginning with henry adams a disastrous economic embargo that expanded the power of the presidency in ways that would have made the a younger Thomas Jeffersons head explode. The president literally had the power to decide which ships left the country and which didnt as he bought time to try to prepare for war. So he is one of the classic examples where a president in the a second term ran into trouble. I think part of that is a simple mathematical fact which is with four more years and a job of ultimate power and ultimate responsibility you have that much longer for the unexpected, the surprising and the difficult to overtake you. To my mind the president who bucks that trend and doesnt get credit for it is ronald reagan. We tend to think of reagan and irancontra as the second term. Its also true that he didnt go to geneva this until 1985 and the man who managed to push the cold war toward it then did so largely in that second term. Rose bill clinton also i guess you could say got welfare reform in the second term, did he not . Actually, it was before the election in 1996 and he created his own problems as we know and thats one of the grat tragedies of modern American History is this enormous man, the best politician since Lyndon Johnson to hold the office who ran into the impeachment issue and ended up squandering at least a year and a half, two years. So and i think the other the most recent example i think by pretty common consent, president bush did better after what he called his thumping in 2006 when he finally fired donald rumsfeld, brought in bob gates and began to move to slightly more of a Center Position before the economy collapsed. Rose so whats the challenge for president obama in the second term . Its immense, Brendan Sullivan one of the great defense lawyers here in washington always says when youre in a negotiation and you have the upper hand as obama has had in the first term and may continue in the second term, when you have that upper hand and you beat your opponent you need to let them leave the field with dignity. And that is not obamas style. If you google obama rebukes republicans it goes on and on and on. He is always going after the people his beating. Just a tactically i think thats a mistake and hopefully it will change. On the Foreign Affairs front if you talk to the intelligence people they say that the world is increasingly dangerous, you have meltdown situations potential meltdown situations not just in syria and the middle east, pakistan, north korea which has the bomben like iran and that is just ticking away. Theres the egypt problem, theres whats going on recently in algeria and so forth. So i think the theme here for president obama is going to have to be i need to smoke the peace pipe domestically in this country with the political opposition and i need to work and develop friendships abroad and develop some overall strategy for dealing with this very dangerous lull. Rose just drill down on that temperament for the president who had an overwhelming electoral victory. I think Franklin Roosevelt would have disagreed. He said the election of 1936 was a great landslide and gave him the opportunity to define his opposition during that campaign. He said theyre unanimous in their hate for me and i welcome their hatred, the economic royalists. So i think what roosevelt would have said on the other side would have been if you begin to define them before americans reach their own conclusion that can be a big weapon especially for a second term president who is going to encounter these institutional constraints. If i may, charlie, in this environment i think that president needs to learn to manage the opposition in a creative way and use them for his purposes and all of these negotiations that go on in the end you have to learn that the person on the other side of the table is your friend because thats the bhosh can give you what you need and thats not whats happening in the endless negotiations, not just with congress but in the world. Rose and i think you can actually do both of those things. Theres this wonderful scene in i think it was the summer of 1974 when gerald ford became president he played golf with his old friend tip oneill, his counterpart democratic leader of the house and at the end of the game oneil said to ford isnt this great, gerry . Here we are having a nice game of golf and two weeks from now well be denouncing each other and beating each others brains out. laughter rose let me go to a perfect example of what were talking about on the side of some kind of comedy, dirkson. Rose well, johnson in the second term and johnson in the first term he knew dirkson was the key. Rose civil rights legislation. Civil rights legislation. Medicare, all legislation. Johnson saw that he didnt have enough democratic votes because the southern democrats were against him, as they had been against roosevelt and truman before him. He needed votes from some place else and he saw the place to get them was the republicans and the man to give them was dirkson. But if i can say, i know its the consensus that barack obama has to do is get along with the republicans. Id like to Say Something about that. President obama is fond of quoting and if he isnt, i am Martin Luther kings statement the moral arc of the universe bends slowly but it bends towards justice. In the first term, president obama did bend that moral arc. He got health insurance, peace of mind for more than 30 Million People. The bill may be flawed but its passed. In the second term i see it as sort of differently. Everyones attacking the moral arc of justice, Social Security, medicare, everyones saying we have to cut it back. Thats the great safety net for the American People. I almost see him as a defender. He has to defend Social Security and medicare in a fiscally responsible way, bring in the in a fiscally responsible way but defend it. Rose but reform is almost universally suggested as necessary on the entitlements question and their means to get at that question without suggesting that you are somehow opposed to the intent and purpose of those entitlements. Rose and thats the real problem just the way you thats the way you pose it. To make the American People understand that when people talk about government as an evil, government is Social Security, golf can we even imagine, remember and conceive what it was like when you were old and you didnt have any income . You were laid off by your company . There wasnt a Social Security check . When you were old and couldnt afford medical insurance . What did you do . We cant even imagine that now because we have medicare. Its a real you pose the problem exactly right. How can we protect these things and reform it and get rid of the excesses but defend the basic principle . Its not just a matter of defending it and i think bob caro is right that obama feels very strongly about this, hes the champion of the safety net and he should be but even he when i talked to him some months ago he said that spending on these entitlement programs is untenable and he and all the economists know and you get to a point where you either fix it and fixing it means youre going to have to find some savings in it that theres going to be less benefits given the number of people who are coming on these programs. Obama realizes that and hes just hes got to find a way to work some deals. He needs to he needs the republicans. The simple fact is and Michael Beschloss is an expert on this issue the president has to rally the country. Not just his own party or series of Interest Groups and rallying the country at this time with the media that operates 24 7 mean youve got to find some way to include the in the case of obama the 60 Million People who voted for mitt romney. And there needs to be a strategy in the strategy of sticking your finger in these people in his eye all the time i dont think will work. And thats one reason why an inaugural address for a second term is so important. Here we are Inauguration Day. You have a president who probably is addressing the biggest audience he will ever have for the rest of his life. Its one of the few opportunities the president has these days given the media cacophony that bob is talking about. Rose doris kearns joins us from boston. We are taping this on friday in anticipation of the inaugural address on monday and looking at the analysis of what has the not do. From all the second terms of all the president s that you have known whats the most important lesson that comes out of that. I think id go back to what bob caro said because i could hear and i think being able to make the country understand that he is framing a debate on the importance of government. That was partly what this whole election was about. I agree theres no part in not giving dignity to the opposition but right now i think he has to play an outside game as well as an inside game. He has to bring the characters to the white house, spend time with the democrats and republicans but the only way i think hes going to have a strategy to move things in the house and the senate is to make the country itself pressure from the outside in. Thats when Teddy Roosevelt had to do because he had a Republican Party that wouldnt do his bidding so he got the press and public to push them from the outside in. Thats what his second term has to do and its different from the way he did hit in the first term. He tried the consensus route. It doesnt mean you wont reach it ultimately but to have your people pushing in your idea of what you want to happen be the countrys idea. You have to provide a story for the country. I wanted to show you this conversation i had with the president last summer about what he considers the mistakes of his first term. Here it is. When i think about what weve done well and what we havent done well the mistake of my first couple of years was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And thats important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American People that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times . When i ran everybody said well, he can give a great speech but can he actually manage the job . And then my first two years i think the notion was well, you know, hes been juggling and managing a lot of stuff but wheres the story that tells us where hes going . And i think that was a legitimate criticism. So getting out of this town, is spending more time with the American People, listening to them and also then being in a conversation with them about where do we go together as a country i need to do a better job than that in my second term. Rose are these the skills that he has . The skills to build on a narrative having to do with the role of government and the responsibility of the president . Having to do with the ability to govern . Oh, i think so. If you wake him up in the middle of the night and ask him what he is besides the president he will say hes a writer. He wrote two memoirs before he was 44 i think. So he totally thinks in terms of narrative. He thinks in terms of character driven drama and i think he makes a very good point about having flipped the expectations the. I think it was president clinton pretheir man crush who said that he can the bromance back when they were still somewhat at odds who said he can give a pretty speech but can he do anything else . What obama has proven and i throw this out to everybody to see if theres a counter example is that the greatest president and i would argue f. D. R. , johnson, reagan, jackson i think jefferson were people who could both project a vision that made present pain and sacrifice seem an investment in beater country, tomorrow, future and who had the legislative skills, the mechanical skills to cut deals and get it done. Doris lincoln is the great example of that. The great president s can do both and i think the president has proven oddly that hes pretty good at both but he hasnt brought them together in the same moment. And thats the challenge going forward. I would agree completely and the other thing is that the president has been plagued by this reputation of his as an orator that comes from 2004. Rose primarily answer prags absolutely. If you look at the first inaugural address i dont think it was one of his best efforts, it was almost as if he was pulling his punches to show that he was not just someone who gave speeches. And there was a little bit of a threat i think throughout the first term. This time i think he wont feel so inhibited. Theres a curiosity about president obama in that as a president who as f. D. R. Mastered the radio, kennedy and reagan mastered television, obama as a pam painer mastered the internet but not as a figure of government. Interestingly its very hard to think of obama soundbites, which sounds dismissive. But the only thing we have to fear but fear itself is a soundbite. Tear down this wall is a soundbite. I think theres a curiosity is n that he is kind of like jefferson in that his he communicates best in paragraphs, in written form. Is hes interestingly kind of a 19th century early 19th century president governing in the 20 the 21st century. Thats another gap he has to bring. And the irony of that i think thats a good point of view. And if i could continue i think whats so interesting is in the 19th century the speeching obama has printed would be read in full. And when row read his speeches they sometimes read better than when they sounded because what you get in the television is just a poster. You get that short hand which isnt often there but i think charlie the most important thing about the interview he gave with you is if a president is selfaware, if they can reflect on what went wrong and right in the first term then the second term offers amazing opportunities because nobody can be president until youre president. You can never learn what you havent done right and i think to some extent it kept him in washington and he knows he needs to get out of it more because part of communicating well with the American Public is feeling them. Thats what f. D. R. Was good at. He knew what people were feeling and thinking. Lincoln has those Public Opinion bouts every morning where he met with people who came to talk to him. He had receptions at night where he met with backwoodsman. The white house is more of a bubble and the fact that he sees he needs to get out more and connect more, he needs that energy more that will inform the way he speaks to the public because then theyre in his head not just the tell prompter of a written word. Rose are we disagreeing with what bob said in terms of making the point that you have to be you can do that and reach to explain your case and explain your vision and be able to tell your narrative but you dont necessarily to go out of your way to attack the other guy on a consistent basis or in fact have harry reid or nancy pelosi come out and attack them all the time if youre trying to get something done that demands an agreement with the other side. Bob . First of all, charlie, one thing you have to is president obama does not control harry reid or nancy pelosi they are more than anxious despite how he might wish. Yeah, in willing to come out and attack republicans on their own spontaneously and with sincere conviction. Rose do you think thats helpful . No, i think it doesnt work and i think hes got a real problem with that. But i think of very interesting question here is what are his frustrations in the job and its always hard to get good data on that but i think one of his frustrations is in the first term he inherited that financial crisis and he did a good job. We now have an economy not just on the verge of stability but on the verge of takeoff and you never get credit as president for what you kept from happening which would have been a depression and he knows he spent so much energy on that sand he knows in the midst of it he got Health Care Reform and thats kind of the negative to lots of people also. He goes in with some frustrations that are real and he articulates to his staff. Let me go to Lyndon Johnson because i can remember people saying at the time of johnson that if they let him be himself doris you can jump in on this and let him have that sort of overwhelming personality that he would have been better off because hes seems unreal in his relationship to public. Hes stilted on television but when you hear him on his tapes its unbelievable. In this last book the passage of power hes losing eight to seven in the Senate Finance committee, he calls he needs three votes, he changes three votes in 11 minutes. And when you hear his voice, he says i need your vote. Rip kov says i cant give it to you, i promised my constituents id go the other way. Ribicoff. Lyndon johnson says and you have to hear his voice you save my face today ill save your face tomorrow. laughter and ribicoff knows what hes dealing with. Johnson in person is so overwhelming. Johnson said with what everyone else was saying. Lyndon johnson said about civil rights weve talked about it far hundred years, its time to write about hit in the books of law. The job of the president and obama has done this magnificently is to make america feel its greatness, its ideals to arouse our idealism. Its also the job of a president to write it in the books of law, to get actual legislation passed. Thats what a nation is governed by and the second term in my mind is going to hinge on what is written in the books of law. Rose two things, one is that theres no question that l. B. J. Is the most Formidable Political human figure ive ever met and if we had only known that person that bob caro knows through his research that i was lucky enough to know when i was 24 years old i think the country would have been felt differently there was one moment that he spoke to a bunch of reporters and he was himself and he never did that again. The teleprompter was a girdle on him. To go back to what bob woodward said, we cant forget that the republicans have attacked the democrats and obama even more fiercely than hes attacked them so its not like hes out there saying these mean things about them. Hes responding to a Republican Party that at one point said the most important thing they had to do was get rid of him after four years. So i agree he has to rise above that and deal with him and you want to make deals when youre there but the political culture in which hes had to work in these last four years may have been the most difficult political culture than any president has had in a lock period of time. The president needs to maintain his moral authority over all of these things that were talking about and if he is in this kind of food fight with with the opposition and doris is right, the republicans are often bitter and more nasty in their attacks on him but hes the president. Hes got the a shares here and he needs to find a way because fb though theres a strident talk in politics in this country you go out and talk to people and its astounding the number of people who were actually moderates and in the middle and those are the people the president needs to bring to him and you do that, i think, by not attacking the opposition in the way he does. Rose jon meacham . I would just say quickly to Bob Woodwards point thats true its also true that andrew jackson, who was an enormously successful president , created the modern office that lincoln drew on said his only regrets in public life were that he had not shot john c. Calhoun and hung henry clay. laughter so people like a fighter. And to go to bob caros point rose before we go i want to make sure i understand what youre suggesting obama should do. People like a fighter. People liked it when f. D. R. Said as michael just said, i welcome their hatred. They like people who go out there and try to sell it. But one point about the broader culture particularly at inauguration time to go to bob caros point absolutely Lyndon Johnson with the help of Richard Goodwin found the way to articulate the aspiration and finish the work, the unfinished work in the founting of the civil war in terms of race. Lyndon johnson was doing that as a lawmaker and law giver after Martin Luther king and let a movement in birmingham and montgomery and other places. He passed the Voting Rights act after jose ya williams and john lewis were almost beaten to death at the pettis bridge. President s who react to events with the spirit of leadership are going to be the most success so i dont think we cant isolate president ial leadership from what will be going on in the country. All true. And we honor president johnson because after the violence at selma he used the moment when americans were so outraged to go to congress and say lets have a Voting Rights act with the help of doris husband who helped to write enormously powerful speech. But at the same time barack obama did not need to go intensely after gun control. After newtown he did. Thats the difference. Rose im not sure i understand the difference. Why isnt it the same . Its a difference from president s who are inactive. Rose oh, i see. I would argue newtown was the closest thing to selma that weve had. And i think that that shows that this could be a strong second term. Bob, what are the agenda items for the president beyond immigration . What else . I mean, this often happens to president s who focus on the domestic agenda that something happens in the world that drags him into something he didnt anticipate and want. So i think i think if you look overall at the first term on the Foreign Affairs front hes done a really good job of managing all of that chaos and uncertainty and he has been both the hawk and the dove and i think there are few people in the world who think he wont crack him if he decides its necessary. In other words, he will use the military in some way. So what i think the healing thing is the issue here. People who are going to listen to him are going to say you know what . Hes reaching out. One of the critiques even of his biggest supporters is that theres an arrogance and overselfconfidence that comes through not just in the white house or dealings with congress but on the stump and i think hes got a little humility, a little bit of those suggesting he get out into the country and say i understand the voices of real people and im tuning into that and im going to act on that and certainly the gun control agenda is one that i think has wide appeal particularly to the moderate sensibility which i maintain still exists in this country. Rose that was part one of our conversation with with historians, part two tomorrow night. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by captioning sponsored by wpbt this is n. B. R. Susie good evening, everyone. Im susie gharib. Tonight, a special look at innovation and competitiveness in america. We introduce you to watson, the i. B. M. Super computer thats leading u. S. Innovation into the future. Tom good evening. Im tom hudson. We also meet some smaller all american businesses surviving and thriving as the global marketplace gets more competitive. Susie we have that and more tonight on n. B. R. Tom innovation and competitiveness. These two words attract a lot of attention by investors, Business Leaders and politicians as the u. S. Worries about its status as a Global Economic leader. America has a long history as the worlds leading innovator, but what will it take to remain competitive and remain a beacon of innovation . With the markets closed for the Martin Luther king, jr. , holiday, we bring you this n. B. R. Special edition. Tonight, we begin with a look at American Innovation today. Suzanne pratt has the story. Reporter the u. S. Has put the world behind the wheel and an iphone in mill o