Previously: Attorney General Chris Koster at Missouri Boys State

Attorney General Chris Koster on the stage for Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri on Saturday evening.

After his keynote speech on Saturday evening Attorney General Chris Koster took questions from the Boys State audience:

Attorney General Chris Koster (D): …Begin over here?

Question: Um, as you mentioned, newspapers are really important to you, uh, but that, but media has really expanded and has become so prevalent in national politics. Um, how much of a role do you think image plays in appointing officials? And, um, do you think this issue of image affects other issues like experience?

Attorney General Koster : How much does image affect elected officials?

Question: How, like, media has become really prevalent.

Attorney General Koster: Right.

Question: So, the image of a candidate, how he come, appears the public has become really important and do you think that, that has affected other issues like experience?

Attorney General Koster: I think that image became important fifty years ago. Do you want me to go back to the, uh, let me get, I’m gonna go to this, this seems to be a little clearer. I think image became important fifty years ago, uh, as soon as the Kennedy Nixon debates took place. Um, maybe a little bit before that when President Eisenhower started holding, uh, televised press conferences. But I think the biggest change, honestly, has to do with the expansion of cable on networks and the prevalence of television cameras, not just filming brief portions of the political day and putting them on the five thirty news, as they did when Walter Cronkite, uh, broadcast the five thirty news. But, the television cameras that now exist immediately outside of every committee room’s door, so that as soon as the committee chairman and the ranking member of the committee come out of there they are almost expected to say, uh, divergent and politically polarized things. And those things that they are expected to say has created a culture where politicians tend to fall and the back room camaraderie that used to exist, uh, is no longer there, like when Bob Michael was head of the House or Tip O’Neill was there, uh, back in the seventies. That camaraderie is gone and it’s the prevalence, I think, of having the television camera that is stuck in a politician’s face all the time that as much as anything has, has created that unfortunate circumstance.

Question: Thank you. [applause]…

…Question: …You spoke about the health care bill and how it affects our lives and how it’s going to affect us specifically. And, if you would be so kind, could you state your position on that bill and how around the country some states are filing suits with the federal government. Are you planning to do that? And, if you’re not or if you are, why are you going to do that?

Attorney General Koster: Our office has declined to file a, uh, any lawsuit related to the health care bill. And for, you know, there are a lot of political debates that have sprung up over the last twenty or thirty years where there has been a consensus, um, particularly on the, the right side of the political playing field that legislatively, uh, legislatively driven change should not be overturned or created, uh, or laws should not be created by the, the judiciary. Um, my sense is that one of the things that is happening right now is that that argument is being turned on its head by some folks and folks who previously argued in different, uh, political arenas, that the Supreme Court should never be the one to make law or to overturn a legislative act, uh, that the legislature is predominant or dominant, uh, are now advocating exactly the opposite of what they have advocated in the past. The now, that the shoe is on the other foot, that there is a very quick tendency to say we want the legislative, uh, dominance to be overturned and new law to be made by the Supreme Court. And so, in an effort to, uh, stay out of political waves that I think diminish the credibility of the office,  and to not find ourselves on both sides of a, an argument where, um, what is, arguments that have been made along one, uh, fashion in the past are now being changed a hundred and eighty degrees, uh, in this situation, we have declined, to stay back and to remain neutral in this.

Question: Thank you. [applause]

Question: …You talked about the party in your last answer. Do you think partisan politics really affects Missouri?

Attorney General Koster: I think that another one of the elements that have affected partisan politics has been the on, uh, the, the incoming of term limits in the state. Again, one of the things that used to happen before we had term limits was that people who worked together for a long period of time and who developed, uh, large bodies of expertise came to the political center and worked together, for example, in the state Senate and the state House. When you have term limits, uh, both in the House and in the Senate, what we’re seeing is people whose legislative careers are almost over as fast as they begin. Uh, there’s an unkind phrasing down in Jefferson City that term limits is four years of I don’t know and four years of I don’t care. What that has done is it has otherwise good politicians who would normally develop over a long period of time an expertise and learn to work together and come to the political center, it has those same, uh, political policy makers moving to the extremes in an effort to climb over one another, too often, uh, to get to the next job because the other option is, is moving home. My personal belief is that eight year term limits has been too short, uh, that it requires more time to develop legislative expertise and that the, the spirit of, uh, polarization that has been fostered since term limits has come in, has actually degraded, uh, the political culture in Jefferson City. I’m not saying that term limits themselves are bad, but I’m saying that eight year term limits are too short, uh, and that something like twelve or sixteen year term limits, uh, would have been better. Just to give you one extreme example, I think that you can go into this, uh, House of Representatives at the age of twenty-four in the State of Missouri. I may be off on that, but I think it’s, uh, twenty-four. It’s thirty to go into the Senate.  Um, and so, we have state representatives who are term limited out at the age of thirty-two years old. At thirty-two years old they’re forced into retirement. Uh, and that strikes me as unwise.

Question: Thank you. [applause]

Question: …You spoke against a political science major in college. And I was wondering, in detail, why you would suggest that?

Attorney General Koster: I think that the world, uh, demands, I think, I think the world demands more serious, uh, educational study than political science affords. Um, I, there is nothing, there, there is nothing that I see in my day to day job that either necessitates a political science degree or is particularly, uh, benefitted by a political science degree. Um, the, the type of reading and cultural and education that political science ostensibly is, uh, offers a young man or woman can easily be obtained through, uh, side reading or from reading a newspaper every day.  What makes a difference in, uh, professional life, is having a grounding in something that is, uh, real and something that is a cornerstone of your educational mind, educated mind. Like accounting, like e
ngineering, science, mathematics, something, uh, more concrete than, than political science. I actually have a real bias and think it’s a waste of time. Uh, I see a lot of talented young men and women going into political science and it just makes me scratch my head because I don’t think that you get much out of it. Uh, that education can be obtained through reading. And you’re wasting an opportunity, is one man’s opinion, you’re wasting an opportunity to go get an accounting degree or something that will be with you for the rest of your life.

Question: Thank you. [applause]

Question: …When you were seventeen and going into your senior year in high school did you feel  that you would go into a career in politics?

Attorney General Koster: No, I did not.  Um, I did not really think seriously about it until I was about twenty-five or twenty, twenty-five years old. I was a first year law student at Washington University and I didn’t have a, a summer job and a gentleman that I played summer league basketball with, uh, who also happened to be the general counsel for then, uh, the, for the gentleman who was then Attorney General. The general counsel called me and asked what are you doing for your upcoming summer? And I said I, I guess I’m still looking around for work. It was probably March or April of my first year in law school. And he asked if I wanted to come down and work at the Attorney General’s office. And so I did that for the summer.  And watching what the Attorney General’s office did, the good that it, uh, does in the community, the reach that it has into the legal field was what turned the switch on, uh, for better or worse, in my mind. And it was at that point that I first began to think about it. But, I was never involved in, uh, student government or, uh, really had much of a political interest, uh, at that point in time, and when I was seventeen.

Question: Thank you, sir [applause]….

A transcript of the second part of the question and answer session will follow.

Missouri Attorny General Chris Koster was the keynote speaker on Saturday evening for the opening session of Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.

Attorney General Chris Koster on the stage in Hendricks Hall at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.

Attorney General Chris Koster (D): [applause] Good evening, it’s an honor to be with all of you, here in this exciting week. I was looking over the list of statewide elected officials who are going to come and speak with you over the next several days – and the list is certainly impressive. Secretary of State Carnahan will be here, Treasurer Clint Zweifel, Governor Jay Nixon and others have all taken time from their schedule to come and spend a few hours with you. Why do we do it? Not just why do we do it, but why do we consider it an honor to do it? Because all of us, the Governor, myself, all the statewide office holders firmly believe that somewhere in this room is a state representative, a state senator, a U.S. Congressman, a United States Senator, a governor. Sitting somewhere in this room. Not a Boys State Governor, a real governor, the kind that lives in Jefferson City. And if we Missourians are lucky, the kind of man who learns early in his life to keep his ego in check, to devote his time to quiet and patient study, who learns how to make prudent and careful decisions, to put others before himself, and to lead with a proper mix of head and heart, and to guide his fellow citizens forward. Somewhere in this room that man is sitting. And while we statewide officials come here for many reasons, one of the reasons we come here is to talk to him…

…It’s become cliché to say that we live in a time of rapid changes, but it is nonetheless true. At the risk of embarrassing myself I’m going to admit to you that I actually teared up the other day watching a new television commercial for the upcoming Apple IPhone that was, is released next week. Thank goodness I was by myself at the time. [laughter] As you’re probably aware, the new IPhone has a camera mounted on the front that allows for two way video conferencing. The Apple commercial shows all sorts of people video chatting back and forth on the device. Parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren.  And then, the commercial ends with two deaf individuals sign languaging one another over the telephone., telling each other that they love one another over a handheld telephone. And I was struck, as I so often am these days, at what a world of miracles and challenges we live amidst.

On the one hand your generation will live in an IPhone world, a generation that is literally unbridled by geography, unbridled by technology, unbridled by borders.  A generation whose reach is restricted only by your own guts and imagination. On the other hand, your generation will face unprecedented challenges, both nationally and at statewide levels. Let me mention three of them that are important right here at home. This State of Missouri, the one that you and I care about, used to provide low cost college educations to most every citizen of this state who desired one. But in the last ten years public support for public colleges has been cut by nearly fifty percent. In inflation adjusted terms. This State of Missouri , the one that you and I care about, now supports approximately eight hundred thousand Missourians, one out of every six citizens, on its public health rolls, and spends thirty percent of our governmental resources doing it. It is a number that is growing faster than any other portion of our state’s budget. This State of Missouri, the one that you and I care about, is home to an airport in St. Louis that used to fly everyday to places like Paris and London, right there out of St. Louis. It was home to Trans World Airlines, a company that used to launch four hundred flights a day across the globe out of St. Louis. But today TWA’s successor, American Airlines, flies just thirty-six flights a day from St. Louis, not one of them international. And whole terminals of that airport now stand empty. And major businesses no longer consider St. Louis a practical alternative to locate.

If you want to be the one that guides this state forward then these are some of the things that you need to start thinking about. And so how do you prepare to understand these challenges? How do you prepare to develop solutions? You go to college, obviously. You study something serious in college, like science, or engineering, and accounting. And not something frivolous like political science, because that would be a waste of your valuable time. If you want to be a politician then study something other than political science. And you do one other thing, every day. Staring as soon as you get home from camp, every day and for the rest of your lives, you read a newspaper. That’s actually the title of this speech – read a newspaper.

Here’s why. As Attorney General I’ve had the extraordinary opportunity to meet and interact with more interesting and successful people from around this country, even from around the world, than I ever in my life thought I would. I pretty much pinch myself for gratitude every day I get to do this job. And I’ve come to believe this about the most successful people I’ve met. They are not the people who understand complex things, rather, they are the people who understand how seemingly unrelated complex things fit together. For some of them the ability to connect complex things is a gift from God. For the rest of us it comes with practice. And nothing has yet been invented, not television, not the Internet, not the finest schools, that daily unlocks the complexity of this world like a great newspaper.

Indulge me if you would, in a brief story. My grandfather, his name was Sylvester, and he was a banker who lived with his family in south St. Louis city. During the nineteen fifties and sixties Sylvester was president of an organization called Lafayette Federal Savings and Loan, a modest sized lending institution with about twelve branch offices, each located in St. Louis. Sylvester was not the president of all twelve branches of Lafayette Federal, but rather, was the president of just one of those branches on St. Louis’ south side. My grandfather’s role at the bank was to take in deposits and make home loans to neighbors and friends across a thirty square block area just west of the Anheuser-Busch brewery. Sylvester’s job was to know everything and everybody in that thirty square block radius. His business depended on it and by all accounts he did his job well through his retirement in nineteen sixty-five. Sylvester had two sons who grew up and made professional lives in St. Louis. His oldest son, my Uncle Bob, was a real estate attorney, and his youngest son, my father, was a sports writer. For Sylvester’s sons to succeed in this world each of them developed an expertise that extended far beyond Sylvester’s thirty square block world in south St. Louis. My uncle’s law practice required a knowledge of real estate and governmental issues across all of St. Louis’ metropolitan area. Likewise my father, his success depended on understanding just one thing, professional sports across my hometown.

Between them, my Uncle Bob and my dad, raised six sons, a daughter – four of them were investment bankers, one was a molecular biologist, one’s a homemaker, and one’s the Attorney General. For the sake of efficiency I want to focus this story just on the investment bankers because that is the profession that my brothers and my cousins share with my grandfather. Two of the four investment bankers, my middle two brothers, live in St. Louis and raise capital in the hundreds of millio
ns of dollars for the purchase of business all across the United States. One of the four, my baby brother, lives in Atlanta and raises capital to fund some of this nation’s largest commercial transactions. And the last of the four, my cousin, lives in Chicago and works in the international mining and minerals arena. I want to describe for you, just a second, what my cousin in Chicago does for a living. My cousin works for Citigroup, one of the world’s largest banks. And he’s the chairman of Citigroup’s Global Industrial Group. This is what that means, when money needs to be put together to buy a gold mine in South Africa or a copper installation in Chile or to obtain nickel rights in Greece, my cousin’s team crisscrosses the planet and puts money together to make these transactions a reality. Many of these deals number in the billions of dollars. And when the workforce in South Africa, which is the world’s largest producer of gold and platinum, is eroded because that government’s inability to deal with the soaring HIV problem, my cousin’s clients and investors want to know. And when Columbia’s coal mining executives refuse any longer to live amongst the narcotics cartel that threatens their families’ safety and that nation’s security, my cousin’s investors in Paris want to know. And when Greece contemplates deflating its currency in order to pay its national debts, affecting the repatriation of corporate earnings to its, to its headquarters in Canada, my cousin’s New York debt holders want to know.

Over a period of forty years, from my grandfather’s retirement in nineteen sixty-five to the midpoint of his grandchildren’s careers, the world that they are expected to have mastered has grown from a thirty block square just west of the brewery in south St. Louis, to an area that encompasses literally every corner of this planet no matter how remote. I make the point not to tout anyone’s personal success, but to emphasize that the world that you are stepping into offers each one of you incredible, incredible wingspan. You will have the ability to touch, see, effect, and react to successes, failures, experiences, culture, languages, economies, diseases, cures, calamities, joys, friends, and even girlfriends from every corner of this planet.  Your lives can be national. Indeed, your lives can be global if you want them to be. But having a global life under, means understanding a global life. Understanding how complex things like gold mines and HIV exposure and Greek debt and narco-terrorism all fit together. And that, my friends, requires a newspaper.

The education that you are currently receiving is, no doubt, outstanding. Just being here indicates that you are beyond your years in your mastery of English and history and mathematics. Your collegiate endeavors will take you farther into topics such as engineering, cost accounting, and medicine. But then, the world is full of people who understand complex things. The world that you are stepping into requires both an understanding of these building blocks, these complex things, as well as a comprehension of the magnetic forces that draw them together. Forces like American politics, international affairs, business news, medicine, and science, culture, and the arts. And each of these forces is covered in detail in its own separate section of an old fashioned device called a newspaper.  Nearly every successful person I know is a voracious newspaper reader.

As for myself, my days begin at six a.m. sharp as they did this morning with a brief prayer to center my day and then a detailed twenty minute organization of my day’s goals. Then six twenty to eight twenty, every morning, I read the New York Times cover to cover, followed by a scan of Wall Street Journal , and finally a review of political and other news clippings from around the State of Missouri. Near my bed, where I read, is an absolutely invaluable tool, the National Geographic Atlas which helps me separate Guyana from Ghana, the geography of Africa and the Middle East, and even some of my geographic blind spots right here in Missouri. Two hours a day is a lot of time, but in truth it is barely enough to do my job as Attorney General. Without that two hours in the morning I would be like a blind man groping my way through my day. Every see, every successful person I know reads a serious newspaper and every successful person I know takes his reading seriously.

What is a serious newspaper? Well with all due respect to the Warrensburg Star-Journal, and even the Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star, the world that you are stepping into demands that you go further. Further into foreign affairs, further into business, further into politics, and science, technology, and even theater. Frankly, in the United States it probably requires either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal of the cornerstone of one’s reading day.  Personally I choose the New York Times, not because of any political bias, conservative or liberal, but simply because the Times provides a broader based education than the Journal. It’s simply more important to my life to understand education policy in New York State of the budget crisis in California than it is to have Alcoa’s quarterly earnings at my fingertips. But everybody, everyone is different. And your personal interests will ultimately select that newspaper for you.

Nonetheless, if there’s one hope that I have for you today, is that after you enjoy this fantastic experience at Boys’ State, you pick up the phone or go online and spend the money to buy a subscription to a serious newspaper. Don’t wait until you’re thirty. Start when you’re eighteen. Start when it matters. Then every single day, take at least thirty minutes in the morning and read it. Develop your own style and read the sections in the same order every day.  By doing this you’ll begin to recognize the names and the storylines. You recognize the Prime Minister of Israel. And understand how the back door of his coun, his country spills out into Jordan, and Iraq and Iran. And you’ll think about the reasons that three thousand of your older brothers in spirit have left this world now in an attempt to calm that world.  You’ll understand how the actions of one health care company in California gave us national health care. And how national health care will affect the tuition costs for you at the University of Missouri. And the newspaper will stop being a set of isolated stories and become a continuing narrative, like a book, revealing a new chapter of its story every morning.

Why is this important? Because somewhere in this room tonight, maybe it’s the guy next to you, maybe it’s you, somewhere in this room tonight is a Governor of the State of Missouri. The challenges he will face will be immense. His compass has to be finely tuned. His knowledge of our state, our nation, and our world must be vast. And for the good of all of us, his education must begin today. Welcome to Boys State. [applause]

Today is the first day of the week-long American Legion Boys State of Missouri program on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. Approximately 1000 boys from across Missouri will participate this week. This is the third year we’ve been able to cover the session.

Our opening day coverage from last year: Missouri Boys State 2009

Warrensburg American Legion Post 131 member Jim Whitfield, a volunteer at Missouri Boys State for over fifty years, helps direct participants at registration.

The Boys State staff is very efficient at implementing the logistics of registering close to 1000 Boys State citizens.

Warrensburg American Legion Post 131 member Gary Grigsby assists a Boys State citizen, directing him to the line for registration.

And of course, we’ll be covering the statewide office holders and others in public service who make up the session’s impressive list of keynote speakers:

[Missouri] ATTORNEY GENERAL CHRIS KOSTER

Saturday, June 12, 2010 (7:30-8:20 PM)

Following Opening Night Ceremonies of the 71st session of Missouri Boys State current Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster will deliver the keynote address at a special assembly in Hendricks Hall. Following his prepared remarks, Attorney General Koster will hold a question and answer session.

MISSOURI GOVERNOR JAY NIXON

Sunday, June 13, 2010 (7:00-9:00 PM)

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon will deliver the keynote address at a special assembly on Sunday evening in Hendricks Hall. Governor Nixon has been an outstanding supporter of the Boys State program throughout his years as Missouri’s Attorney General and Governor. We are very pleased to have him back to Boys State. The Governor will hold a question and answer session following his prepared remarks.

MISSOURI STATE TREASURER CLINT ZWEIFEL

Monday, June 14, 2010 (7:00-9:00 PM)

Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel will deliver the keynote address at a special assembly on Monday evening in Hendricks Hall. We are very pleased to have Treasurer Zweifel at Boys State for the first time this year. The Treasurer will hold a question and answer session following his prepared remarks.

FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS JOHN BOLTON

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 (7:30-9:00 PM)

John Bolton will accept the 22nd Annual George W. Lehr Memorial Speakers Chair on Tuesday night at Hendricks Hall. John Bolton is one of America’s most prominent policy voices. As the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Bolton was strong in his defense of American economic and security interests, no matter whether there was popular or waning public opinion. Bolton provided a forward-thinking vision on issues vital to the U.S. and its allies including human rights and working to forge sustainable global communities and infrastructures. He will share his views on domestic policy issues, global security, diplomacy and how the interconnectedness of the global economy will affect the country in the coming years. Bolton currently serves as a foreign policy senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributor to FOX News Channel and his op-ed articles are regularly featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times. Following his prepared remarks Mr. Bolton will hold a question and answer session.

MISSOURI SECRETARY OF STATE ROBIN CARNAHAN

Thursday, June 17, 2010 (7:15-9:15 PM)

Missouri Secretary of State will deliver the keynote address and swear-in the newly elected state officials at the Joint Session of the Boys State House and Senate on Thursday evening at Hendricks Hall. Following her prepared remarks, Secretary of State Carnahan will swear-in the new MBS Governor and all new MBS constitutional officers and Supreme Court justices.

FEDERAL JUDGE DUANE BENTON

Friday, June 18, 2010 (6:45-7:00 PM)

U.S. Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) Judge Duane Benton will briefly address Boys State on Friday evening at Hendricks Hall. Judge Benton, a great friend to the Boys State program and member of The American Legion, will offer his best advice to participants of Boys State drawn from his experiences as MO Director of Revenue, MO Supreme Court Justice, little league baseball coach and his years on the federal bench.

WHITE HOUSE FELLOW AND NAVY SEAL COMMANDER

ERIC GREITENS

Friday, June 18, 2010 (7:00-8:30 PM)

White House Fellow, Navy Seal Commander and Rhodes Scholar Eric Greitens will speak to MBS participants on Monday at Hendricks Hall. One of the most accomplished Boys Staters in recent memory, Greitens will share his extraordinary career with Boys Staters in a special assembly. Greitens returned from his last tour of duty in Iraq in 2007. As an award-winning humanitarian leader, Eric has traveled to many war and crisis torn countries to reveal not only the hardship of the people, but also their strength and compassion. Following his prepared remarks he will hold a question and answer session.

Our previous coverage of Congressman Roy Blunt (r) at Missouri Boys State on Saturday, June 13, 2009:

Roy Blunt at Missouri Boys State: opening remarks

Roy Blunt at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1

Roy Blunt at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 2

…Question: …Just as there are many different personalities and things here, uh, what type of personalities do you encounter, uh, in the House of Representatives and, uh, in the Senate?

Congressman Roy Blunt: Uh, the personalities, you know one of the great things about, I don’t know about the Senate, though I do work with the Senate a lot, I have worked there like I work in the House.  You know I, I actually have had a, again, jobs in the House where I, I really had a chance to get to know the members, both our side and the other side, always thinking what Democrats can help us. I used to say my job in the House was the, as the Republican whip, was to know the Republicans in the, in Wa…, in the House of Representatives better than anybody else in the world knew them. Uh, and to know the Democrats better than any other Republican knew the Democrats.  And, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s a diverse wonderful process, uh, sometimes the results aren’t all that wonderful, but democracy’s a wonderful thing. And in the House I, I, there, there, you’re gonna find some people in any group of four hundred and thirty-five people that are not well motivated, that do bad things.  And, and hopefully that should and will be punished for that. Uh, but virtually everybody there is there I, I’m convinced, for a good purpose. Uh, it’s just, uh, that’s what the great debate about the future of the country is, is, you know is, are we for big government or are we for trusting people? I, I’m gonna be on the trusting people side. You know, every, uh, every day in, in this job you, you’re likely to cast one vote if not many votes that are about do you want more freedom and less government or more government and less freedom. And I try to always be on the side of more freedom and less government. But also on the side of what government should do, government needs to do very well, instead of just say we’re gonna do this, get all the applause you can for that and then walk away and announce what you’re gonna do next. Instead of really doing what you’re committed to do. Okay?…

…Question:…Abraham Lincoln once said that a house divided cannot stand.  In your opinion why would the Republican Party decide to make actions in the House and the Senate, such as not voting for the Obama stimulus package, that would further this action of making the house not able to stand?

Congressman Blunt: Yeah, I think Abraham Lincoln, of course when he gave that, when he made that speech he made it, he, he repeated that theme often.  In eighteen fifty-eight when he and Stephen Douglas ran for the Senate, he was talking about a, a much bigger issue than division on items before the Congress. Uh, yeah the reason every Republican voted against the stimulus package was it’s not gonna work. Uh, and, uh [laughter], I’m glad we did. [applause] [garbled][inaudible]…the issue, the level of freedom or, or slavery or the kinds of things Lincoln was talking about, that’s a much different, uh, discussion. Abraham Lincoln was a, was a, uh, a active partisan advocate of one side. And when you think the other side is wrong you should oppose the other side. And you should try to make your very best case as to why they’re wrong. That’s what democracy’s all about. You know, the, the idea that, bipartisanship is not just agreeing with the other side. Uh, and whether we’re in charge or the other side’s in charge, you know, the measure of, uh, of, of, of, of your, of your willingness to get along should not be that you’re willing to give in, it should be you’re willing to look for ways where you might be able to come together with something that, that people can agree with. I think, I definitely think that we can do that healthcare. And I’ve been advocating we do it on healthcare, but I don’t know that we’re gonna get it done because there are, there are two or three principles that I’m not willing to concede and, and you know, maybe those same principles are absolutely essential to a majority. If they’re not essential to a majority maybe we can figure out how to make those things work. Okay.

Question: …When considering a piece of legislation, uh, in your experience in the House and, uh, your, hopefully experience in the Senate, uh, is the first consideration whether or not the piece of legislation is a good idea, or is the first consideration whether, uh, enacting that legislation falls under a power specifically enumerated to the Congress by the Constitution?

Congressman Blunt: I actually think that the first consideration would be whether it’s the job of the government. Uh, this is actually a good question. And then, then decide if it’s the job of the government or it’s a good idea. If it’s not the job of government it, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a good idea or not. The four years I was a university president nobody ever came to me and asked me to do anything evil. But a lot of people came to me and asked me to do things, I had to say, “No, that’s not what we do.” Or, we, we can’t, that, that’s not what we can put our focus now. Uh, but none of it was bad necessarily, it just wasn’t our job. And I think that same principle in government is that, that, the question you asked the order would be, is, is it the job of the government first. And if it is, then you evaluate if it’s a good idea or not as opposed to saying, “This is really a good thing, somebody should do this, why not the government?” I, I think that’s a, that would not be the, the, what I’d want to do.

Question: …With the current economic crisis and, uh, the plethora, I guess, of problems today, um, it seems that, uh, alternative energy has kind of slid to the background. And so I was wondering how you do as a congressman, um, uh, work to keep these still relevant and important today.

Congressman Blunt: Yeah, you know…,as, as the gas prices go up this summer, uh, the, all these issues are gonna come back on energy. But, you know, for whatever reason, in energy, uh, as long as its prices are temporarily affordable it’s hard to keep our country focused on the future. Uh, and, uh, you see a little more of it every, every day now as gasoline prices, the one for posted price out there in the marketplace increases. But I am for more American energy. Uh, it’s crazy to buy things from people, to have to buy things from people who don’t like you. Uh, but it’s almost as crazy that, to buy things from economies outside your own if you can meet the need internally and create the jobs and opportunity here. So I’m for more American energy, but I’m also for, for, for, I’m for finding more, using less, and investing in the future. Uh, we need to find alternatives, we need to find, I’m for all of the above. I’m, I’m for, uh, for using the traditional fossil fuels and finding new ways to, to resource them as we develop alternatives. Uh, I’m for wind. I’m for solar, I’m for renewables, I, I’m for all the above, and I’m for more American energy.  I’m for con… conservation. We could do a lot in our state. And our state is interesting in that we’re, we’re truly a border state in the energy field. We have sort of northern climate and southern building standards. You know, so a lot of our older houses don’t, didn’t have, uh, insulation and things that, a lot of houses in other places the country had even then. They’d say, “Well, you know, my cousin in Arkansas doesn’t have insulation, why should I ha
ve insulation?” Well we’re two hundred maybe, or two hundred miles further north. That’s why we should have insulation. We could save a lot of money. Uh, we could become much more energy efficient in our state, uh, by just conservation. By just doing smart things to use less energy. So, find more, useless, invest in the future. Okay.

Question: …I was curious how, as a congressman how you’re trying or working to, uh, decrease the national deficit?

Congressman Blunt: To decrease the national deficit?

Question: Yeah.

Congressman Blunt: Well, I, I never voted for any of these, these spending proposals. Uh, and I’m hoping the country just begins to rise up. You know the budget that we voted on doesn’t actually spend any money it just sets a blueprint. And the blueprint is bad. The blueprint is, you know, doubling the deficit in five years, double it again in ten. Uh, and, and I hope people are really responding to that in an aggressive way and that we still have a chance here to, uh, snatch, uh, true economic hardship for the future, uh, away from what’s about to happen. And, uh, be sure that that doesn’t happen…

Question: …What was your biggest challenge and how do you, what motivated you to get to where you are.

Congressman Blunt: Um, what motivated me to, yeah, public service, I’ve always found it appealing. Uh, when I was growing up we, we, uh, my family was always interested and it was a topic of discussion around our house. So I was actually an elected official in Springfield in Greene County which then was the third largest county in the state, uh, when I was twenty-three. I was the Secretary of State when I was thirty-five. [garbled] Matt was already governor by the time he was thirty-five, so I’m way behind there. Uh, I, I like the idea of public service. I, I like, uh, the opportunity it provides, even when I wasn’t in elected office, uh, the option before me, the one that I found most appealing was to be a university president. And I was fortunate to do that four years and it was the, it had the same kind of satisfaction for me, uh, that, uh, being an elected official has had. Which is, is the opportunity to solve big problems, uh, and, and truly be a public servant. And I hope I meet that definition.

That it? [applause] Thank you…

Congressman Roy Blunt at Missouri Boys State on June 13, 2009.

Our previous coverage of Congressman Roy Blunt (r) at Missouri Boys State on Saturday, June 13, 2009:

Roy Blunt at Missouri Boys State: opening remarks

Roy Blunt at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1

….Question: …I was wondering how you feel about the huge shift, the political left in the two thousand eight election and what you think about how the Republican Party is gonna, uh, react to that in the two thousand ten election.

Congressman Roy Blunt: Well, I, I’m running for the Senate as a Republican in two thousand ten so I obviously must have some optimism about that. [laughter] I think in, uh, I think in two thousand and eight, you know, with the war, other things had, had led the, the, the, to the level of dissatisfaction. Uh, interestingly if you start in two thousand and eight you wouldn’t have thought that Iraq would not be an issue by the end of that year. That the surge would have such results that really nobody was talking about Iraq in, in a way they were, uh, in January by the time you got to November. Uh, but I, I think people are now looking at change, this idea of change, you know, when, when a candidate runs for public office and promises change, who’s not for that? You know, and if somebody at your school said we’re gonna change the school , and that’s all, the only information you have, and you’re allowed to decide that it’s gonna change exactly how you want it to change, you’re, you’re really inclined for that to happen. Almost nobody is totally satisfied by the way things are. That’s, that’s the way we were made, we were made to want to change things. But I think people are seeing that the specifics of that change, whether it’s healthcare, or energy, or tax policy, or, or, or, or our, or our policy related to other countries in the world, I think there’s gonna be a desire, as I told, as I answered the first question…asked, I think it’s gonna be a desire to get more balance back into the system. I think this is an opportunity for my side, uh, to talk about, uh, the principles of, that are, that are foundational to the side of our debate and our country to believe that government should be the last resort rather than the first resort. I think people are gonna be pretty uncomfortable within a couple of years with the idea that the federal government now owns car companies and has somebody that decides how much money people make, the so called pay czar who was announced this week. So, I, I think that there’s gonna be a, one of the wonderful  things about our system is its ability to recalibrate. It’s ability to get back to where the system itself begins to control itself. And every time the system, in the history of the country, has swung too far one way the American voters come right back in and usually pretty quickly and say, “Wait a minute. You know, I’m not, uh, I, I’m not totally unhappy with the way things are going in Washington, but I don’t want just one side to be able to do whatever they want to do.” And then there’ll be another group that says, “I am totally unhappy, uh, with the way things are going in Washington.” And, and of course, they’re, they weigh in and, in a way that shifts things, shifts things back, uh, to the middle as well.

Over here…

Congressman Roy Blunt at Missouri Boys State in Warrensburg on the campus of the University of Central Missouri on June 13, 2009.

…Question: …How, how do you manage to balance national affairs and along with state issues as, you know, the congressman [garbled][inaudible].

Congressman Blunt: You know, one, I , I’ve had, my view of that is a little bit different than a lot of people’s I think. When I went to Washington I’d been a statewide elected official for, uh, several years, elected twice as secretary of state. And, and my view was, it, it’s particularly easy for me to start meddling in things in Jefferson City that aren’t necessarily gonna benefit by, uh, by my distraction in that direction. So I, I’ve sort of had, I’ve had a principal that look, until we get all the problems solved in Washington I’m. I’m gonna do my best to not give much advice to what, what needs to happen in Jefferson City. And when my son Matt became governor that became an even better position for me to take. You know, I could spend all my time talking about things that are not my responsibility or I could spend my time trying to do things that are my, are my responsibility. And so I, I, I’m still on the, I’m still in the mindset until we get all the problems solved in Washington then I’m not gonna get very involved giving my friends advice in Jefferson City about how they can do a better job. That doesn’t mean I don’t talk to them about what we need to do in Washington that helps them do their jobs. It just means that I try my best not to get into discussions that are going on day to day in the Missouri General Assembly. I don’t work there, I’m not elected and I’m not elected to work there, uh, it, it, it would be a distraction of, of all kinds if I got too involved there. But I really do believe that in our system when you, uh, encourage the states to try to, when you give the states more freedom, uh, then, if it works, that, you know, again, back to my comment about Jefferson, in, in this system the states can uniquely be laboratories for change and we ought to encourage that rather than try to create federal straitjackets where you couldn’t have change.

Okay, over here.

Question: …How do you think that we can stop this radical movement of nationalizing more and more businesses?

Congressman Blunt: Well, nationalizing businesses, I, I, you know, look at the polls on this. And I’m sure the White House is, is hopefully looking at these polls. People are very dissatisfied with this. Uh, that the, you know, the idea that the American taxpayers would somehow own sixty or seventy per cent of General Motors a year ago would have, I think, been unthinkable. Uh, and we have rapidly, much too rapidly gone this direction. Uh, we got started down that road to, in, in the, under the other administration, not in running the businesses, but thinking that things were too big to fail. Uh, and maybe, if the government has an obligation here it’s to, it’s again to organize the marketplace, back to that principle, organize the marketplace so that things can’t get too big to fail, rather than let things get so big that then you have to go in and use taxpayer’s money and the, the focus of the government and the resources of the government, uh, to be running a car company, and they say they’re not running a car company but the President announced where the headquarters was gonna be. And Barney Frank, uh, got, uh, they planned, uh, to, to close a distribution facility in his district. He complained and they changed their mind on that. We don’t have any business running a car company. Uh, we don’t have any business with the government takeover of healthcare. Uh, and, uh, we’ve gotta get back to figure out how the government serves its responsibility of seeing that the marketplace works rather than constantly trying to get in and run the marketplace. We ought to work hard to be sure that we create markets. One of the things our government’s done since the antitrust act is when people are gonna buy, you know, when companies are gonna buy, uh, another company, uh, if, if you get down to where there’s not much competition the government actually, for almost a hundred years now, has had to at some point say, okay we still think this allows the marketplace to function. Well if we’d really done that effectively these companies wouldn’t be too big to fail. There’d be some other competitor out there that could c
ome in and, and take their place.  And that’s what we ought to be working on. Okay?

Question:…If you’re elected to the Senate, um, you already said that you’re gonna fight, uh, large spending in government. What, what other major issues would you fight? [crosstalk]

Congressman Blunt: Well, you know, I’m defending the country. I’m on the, I’m on the Intelligence Committee and that doesn’t mean that there are only like enough, a few people that are intelligent, it, it.[laughter] The Intelligence Committee is a, there may not be that many people that are all that intelligent [laughter], the Intelligence Committee is where, you know, we really do have a few people in the Congress are on a committee, its job is to monitor the executive branch activity of the CIA and now the, uh, the National Security Administration and other places, uh, to be sure that, uh, that, that the Congress is appropriately doing its job, uh, to work to, to watch the executive, to have oversight to be sure that we’re defending the country in an adequate way. Yeah, strengthening the economy and defending the country, uh, are, are clearly, or strengthening the marketplace and defending the country are clearly two priorities that if the Congress would, uh, the House and Senate would focus on that and the federal government focused on that a lot of other problems would solve themself. The marketplace works, if you’d insure you had one. The world is a dangerous place. We have enemies in the world. Why do we have enemies in the world? One of the reasons we have enemies in the world today in, in this movement toward a radical view of, of the world and, uh, in the radical, most radical of, in Islam is that we’re so diverse. And if you watch what Osama bin Laden and people like him that have talked about for decades now, their point of view is that everybody has to be the same. You have to dress the same way, you have to pray to the same God at the same time, everybody’s relationship in their house, husband-wife, father-children, mother-children, children to each other, it has to be exactly the same as the house next door. Well, this room, if, if you knew all you need to know about this room you’d know that unlike any country in the world, uh, we prove that that’s not true. And if we’re as strong as we appear to be there, there’s something wrong here in their daily diatribe about how everybody has to be the same. And so either they have, they have to also every day say the United States is not a, who, as strong as it appears to be. Uh, the exact quote in, uh, in, from Osama bin Laden would be that the America was a weak horse, not a strong horse. And they say every day things like if you push the Americans just a little bit they will crumble before your eyes because they’re not who they appear to be. ‘Cause if they’re who they appear to be we must, the, the other side must be wrong. Because we, we, we disprove that theory of how a society has to be every single day. And we disprove it like nobody else disproves it. That’s why we’re the number one target of that kind of radical point of view in the world. It’s not that, uh, we’ve looked to be the target. And it’s not that, uh, that we have worked to be the target.  It’s just who we are disproves who, the way they say the world has to be. And so that’s made us a target. So, securing the world, uh, securing the country in a dangerous world and working for opportunity for you, uh, and everybody else in this country, particularly for rising Americans, uh, as you enter the world of competition and work, you need to have the same kind of opportunities, uh, that your, your parents generation had and their parents generation had and I’ve had….

Part three will conclude this series.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.

On Thursday evenings during Missouri Boys State the Missouri Secretary of State traditionally takes part in the ceremonial swearing in of Boys State citizens who were elected by their peers to the offices of Boys State governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, and attorney general. After being escorted into Hendricks Hall by designated committees from the Boys State House and Senate for their joint session Robin Carnahan addressed brief remarks to the assembled participants before swearing in the officeholders.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan administers the oath of office to Boys State executive office holders.

State Representative Stephen Webber (D-23), a Missouri Boys State alumni and staffer spoke to Boys State participants Tuesday night in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.

Missouri State Representative Stephen Webber (D-23)

Representative Stephen Webber: …Boys State has been a part of my life the last nine years, not just in the weeks I’ve spent here on this campus, but really in the lessons that I’ve learned here. And I apply them each and every day.

I’m very, very honored and grateful to have an opportunity to address you today. It’s meaningful to me and I appreciate all that you, and all the members of the Boys State staff, and the Legionnaires, my fellow Legionnaires have done. I appreciate it. I’m grateful.

You all have an opportunity to hear from a tremendous variety of speakers. You just heard the Governor of the State of Missouri. You’re hearing other speakers this week who are of state and national prominence. And it can be difficult to try to figure out in this short period of time what I can say that would maybe leave some sort of mark. Or sort of inspire somebody in this room to something. So what I decided to do tonight is to tell you a story. It’s one story, it’s a hard story, but I think by the end of it you’ll understand why the principles that Boys State stands for means so much to me and why I’m committed to public service…

…The story takes place in two thousand four. I’m twenty years old, a few years older than any of you. I’m a United States Marine. I’ve been called in my junior year of college to go to Iraq for the first time. I’m an infantryman in the middle of the Sunni triangle, one of the most violent regions of, of Iraq. That, that summer, one thing you have to do if you’re in a hostile area is you have to constantly be watching, your back, watching your base. And so, one of the, one of the duties that, that fell to me as an Infantryman was to pull guard duty. To stand on the, on the north wall of our forward operating base just to observe, and make sure that nobody could attack us or, or make sure that my buddies that are inside could have a few minutes of peace and quiet.

When you stand guard duty every day you start to notice the patterns and, and things, there’s repetition, and sort of the flow of the city that you’re in. One of these patterns was that every day large numbers of Iraqi children would come to us begging for food, asking for candy, asking for money, which was a very normal thing. But one of these children came more often than the others. And he stayed longer than the others. The others would leave and he would stay. And slowly through my little Arabic and his bigger command of English we began talking. I found out that his name was Malik. That his, his father worked at a roadside stand selling trinkets – he had lost both of his legs in a war several years ago, one of Sadam’s wars.

Every time Malik came by he had sandals, but he’d bring his sister, his younger sister would always be barefoot. He didn’t go to school, he foraged for scraps of metal that he and his family could sell for food. He lived in pretty dire poverty. But he and I formed a friendship and we’d talk about hopes and dreams. He told me what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a police officer. I’d tell him about my home back in Missouri, and missing my friends. If there was a big firefight or attack that day or that night, the next day he and I would talk about it. He’d laugh. He’d talk about how he ran to the basement and hid. And I’d talk about how we hid in the bunker or shooting at somebody and we could share and bond over our common experience of living in a world torn with war.

When I found out that that he, like most Iraqi children he loved soccer, but he didn’t have a soccer ball. So I wrote home to my mother and asked her to send me one and I gave him his first soccer ball to play with in his village.

But this is Iraq and it’s a war zone. And there are really no happy stories that come out of war zones. And so one day the children didn’t come by my post. About, late in the afternoon a car came up and out came a bag, a burlap sack. And the car drove away. And I looked through my rifle scope to try and figure out what was in the sack. And I saw the sack was moving. And then out of the sack crawled Malik.

He hadn’t been the only one watching my post. There were other people in the village, the town who saw a friendship between a young American Marine and a young Iraqi boy and they were threatened by it. They were scared because they thought that if maybe we got along through cross cultural dialogue and we became friends, maybe somehow that would change their world. And they refused to let that happen.

Malik stumbled away from the highway up to my post. He was bloody.  While my buddy watched I ran down to, to grab him, to see him, to see what had happened. His face was already bruised and swelling. He had been beaten. They had taken a knife and they had cut this nine year old boy’s hands through his fingers, through his toes, and scarred his face. And I tried to bandage him up through the fence using my own first aid kit that was supposed to be meant for me. He didn’t cry, he just stared quietly at me while I worked and tried to tell him in English I’m sure he didn’t understand that everything would be okay.

Once I got him bandaged up my buddy and I covered him with our rifles as he ran back across the street, back into the village, and hopefully the safety of his home. And I assumed that would be the last time I would ever see Malik. I was wrong though. The next day, still bandaged up, Malik came back. And I ran down the steps of my post and to the fence to talk to him. And I tried to ask…why? Why did he come back? He’d just been tortured. He could be killed. Why was he talking to me? And he didn’t understand what I was saying. And I kept trying to find the words to ask what, what made him come back to me.

And finally, this look of understanding came across his face.  And he looked at me and he said one thing. He looked at me dead in the eye. And he said, “I love you.” And I didn’t know what to take that. I couldn’t protect this Iraqi child. In a way I felt like I was his older brother, I loved him, too. But I knew when nightfall came I couldn’t, I couldn’t watch out for him. I knew that there was people in the village that were gonna hurt him and I knew that in a month I was going home to my life in America, I was going back to college. And I felt sort of a sense of betrayal that I was leaving him behind. That he would come and have such faith in me and I couldn’t deliver. And I struggled with that for a while.

But then I’ve come, I finally came to understand something. What I understand now that I didn’t understand then. Is that when Malik talked to me he wasn’t just speaking for himself. He wasn’t just speaking for the children of Iraq or the children of the world. Malik was speaking for everyone that struggled. Everyone that suffers from poverty, that is a victim of crime. His life was wracked by violence, he doesn’t have an education, he doesn’t always feel like they have a chance in this world. And when he told me that he loved me he wasn’t necessarily talking just about me. He was talking about anyone who does have an education, anyone who’s fortunate enough to be in a position to make a difference. And what he was saying was even as bad things happen to me, even though I know he knew that I was leaving, that I couldn’t stay with him, he still had faith in humanity. He still had faith in the goodness of people. He still had faith that I would find a way, maybe not now, but in some way, s
ome capacity, to help him or help others like him.

Now look across this room tonight. Everyone here is incredibly blessed. When you were born you became a citizen of the United States of America, one of the great countries on Earth. Not because our military might or financial power, but because the reputation we have for being a nation of rights and laws and the opportunity for social mobility. To, to make a change in your life.

Every single one of you is going into your senior year of high school. You’ve already been given an opportunity in education that many in this world only dream of having. And you’ve been tapped for Boys State. You’ve been brought here because folks in your community see something in you. And they believe that you can come back home to, to your community, where you’re from, and you can make a difference. They believe there’s something about you that makes you a difference maker.

And so what I’m asking you tonight is to use that, use that power for good. Now I have no doubt that every single person here if they choose to can go back and be wildly successful when they grow up, through college, getting a good job, making money. But what I’m asking you is to take a piece of that and just use that to help your fellow man. You don’t have to be a monk. You can have fun, life’s, life’s to be enjoyed. You go to college, enjoy it. When you get your first job have fun with your friends. But make sure you leave a piece of yourself that can be devoted and dedicated to helping others.

Find something here this week. Look around you, you see staff members, some of my greatest friends, who give up a week of their life, away from their families, they use vacation time, and they do it because they fundamentally believe in the power of giving back. And they fundamentally believe in the power you have to shape this world.

If there’s one thing I’ve seen, walking around either Jefferson City, or my home district in Columbia, or patrolling the streets of Fallujah is that this world needs leaders. You have the capacity to be those leaders. And I’m asking you to step up to the challenge and do that. Your community needs you, your state needs you, your country needs you, and this entire world needs you…

…Thank you very much [applause]

Our previous coverage of former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage speaking at Missouri Boys State on Monday evening:

Richard Armitage at Missouri Boys State: via Twitter

Richard Armitage at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

…Question: …I was wondering, you talked about the situation in Asia and Obama’s ‘soft power’. I was wondering what you think is the best source for Obama in regards to foreign policy, especially tensions in Asia?

Richard Armitage: Well I think, uh, you’ll see Mr. Obama go to Asia here shortly. First of all, let’s see what he’s done on Asia so far. He sent Hillary Clinton out there first [audience reaction], her first trip, which as normally for a Secretary of State, going to Europe. She went there and it was excellent signal to our Asian friends. Second, Mr. Obama, who lived in Indonesia for a time, is looking forward to going back, probably at the time of, of the APEC meeting which is held, I think, this year in Singapore. I can’t remember where. But anyway, Mr. Obama will be, will be going. Uh, third, he has dramatically increased our interaction, uh, with Asian societies. In the last two years of Mr. Bush’s administration the Assistant Secretary for East Asia focused almost entirely on North Korea – this is Ambassador Hill who’s now in Iraq – to the exclusion of the others. And there were all kinds of stories in all the Asian press about America is passing over Asia etcetera, etcetera. Now this is one of the reasons that Secretary Gates was sent by Mr. Obama to Singapore to give this speech where he said we’re a resident nation in Asia. So I think he’s doing fantastically well for Asia now that we’re back on track with Japan and South Korea and China on the six party talks. I think Mr. Obama ought to continue his personal interaction but not overlook the tenets of the Hippocratic Oath. You know what the Hippocratic Oath tells you to do? First, do no harm. It’s what doctors are cautioned, first, do no harm. And this is what Mr. Obama should do first. Do no harm. And when he goes to Japan, when he goes to Korea, when he goes to China soon I think you’ll see him do a hell of a lot of good for us. I’m pretty enthusiastic about his Asia team and his own views of Asia, not least of which because he used to live in Indonesia. [applause]…

…Question: …I was wondering, did we have any leader in the United States ever try any diplomatic relationship with Sadam Hussein?

Richard Armitage: Did any leader in the United States do what?

Question:  Uh, try to diplomatically talk with Sadam Hussein.

Richard Armitage: Uh, yeah, uh, I’ll give you any number of instances. First, uh, of course, Secretary Rumsfeld did, nineteen eighty-four. Then I did in nineteen ninety-one, with the Gulf War, first Gulf War. Uh, we sent unbelievably numbers of messages through, like, the United Arab Emirates, Cairo, Egypt to try to talk to Sadam Hussein. Uh, to my knowledge he was uninterested. But if you’re saying did anyone pick up the phone and call him, not to my knowledge. Uh, and of course, we had not had an embassy there for some time. We did during the first Gulf War, not during the second Gulf War. Uh, so, uh, I don’t, I don’t know what I don’t know. As far as I know nobody did talk to him in the final days leading up to the invasion.

Question: …I’d like to ask you, with Obama using a lot softer force when dealing with other nations, and the economy problems, and climate control coming up to head, do you see any possible way of a one world order coming in soon?

Richard Armitage: Question has to do with would there be a possibility of one world order. I don’t see it. Uh, in fact, I think the whole thrust of what we’ve seen, uh, in the last twenty years has been more nationalism around the world. If you look what happened in the former Yugoslavia, now we have Serbia, we have Bosnia, and , uh, Kosovo. Uh, you’ve seen a proliferation, if you will, of nations. So I think actually things are going a different direction. You’re seeing, you’ve got more nations in the United Nations now than you had twenty years ago, so I don’t see a new world order or a one world order on the agenda.

And Mr. Obama is in some ways presenting a much better face to the world. I wouldn’t call it a soft face, I’d call it a smart face. I think he’s using both our soft and hard power in a more intelligent way. Certainly if you’re in Afghanistan you’re not looking at soft power. Uh, Mr. Obama just put twenty-one thousand, [garbled] twenty-one thousand more troops in. so, uh, I think he’s using our power more intelligently. And using all the tools in our kit box now, in our tool box. Uh, Mr. Bush just used sanctions and, and force. Uh, and I think this gives us a better opportunity to prevail. What is soft power? [garbled] It’s the ability to attract. You want to persuade, you want to attract them. Hard power is coercive.  Well, force them to do something. If you can attract people I think it’s always better. It seems to last longer.

Question: …My question for you is, with the current situation in North Korea and the testing of the nuclear weapons, what are, what is the U.S. doing to better our situation and stance with what they’re doing?

Richard Armitage:…I would argue that we put new F-22s in, fighter aircraft, in Okinawa to kind of up the ante a little bit. That is, the North Koreans have to realize their behavior has left them in a slightly less, uh, secure position, number one. Number two, uh, we backed, led the UN vote on the sanctions which if put into effect can be meaningful. Number three, I predict we’ll go back to do some, doing something unilaterally, probably, actually bilaterally with the Japanese. We have the ability to interfere with the money that actually goes to the regime. That was what the big to do a year ago was concerning the Macao bank accounts. This really bothered the Kim Jong-il regime, hence it seems like a supremely good idea for me to go back and do that again. Uh, in fact, if I were in the government I’d be arguing to do just that now, to interfere with the finances of the senior leadership. And we know who they are and we know where the money is. [applause]

Question: …I was just wondering, uh, you have been up here today, said that you have been in support of President Obama. I was wondering if you’d be able to accept the viewpoints of your friend General Powell, not only helping President Obama, but if you were interested in any parts of his administration or any help that you’d be able to assist with the president. And what do believe that, uh, you’d be able to help with the most?

Richard Armitage: Well, first of all Secretary Powell, you may have seen recently, is trying to get the Republican Party to behave itself and actually act as a loyal opposition and actually stand for something for a change. And not just run around like a bunch of knuckleheads. Uh, he’s trying to have a real debate. [applause] If we don’t have that debate and if we can’t have a very functioning, coherent Republican Party which stands for something, then this nation will be ill served. And our friends on the Democratic side will do what any administration would do if they hold the overwhelming majority, they’ll go off the rails. They’ll overreach. So, for no other reason we need a very coherent Republican Party. For the second, the question of assisting Mr. Obama, uh, Secre
tary Powell has, uh, met with him most recently about three weeks ago for an hour. They talked about a full range of things, they talk on the phone a lot. Mr. Obama has called me. I’m sure if, uh, I’ll just speak for me, if my telephone rang the answer would be “yes”. Uh, but it hasn’t rung. And, uh, who knows? Mr. Obama, when I talked with him he said, uh, we’ll want to get together in due course and, uh, we had a good conversation. As I said, Powell’s in to see him all the time. So, I don’t think Secretary Powell at his age wants an official position with the administration, but I, I, it’s quite clear if there was some special mission that the president wanted Secretary Powell to do, he’d do it. Because he’s served over forty years, I suspect he’d continue serving again. [applause]

Question: …I was wondering about what you thought about, uh, the threat that the, Brazil, Russia, India, and China have to U.S. hegemony, when you consider [crosstalk]…

Richard Armitage: The threat, the threat of which, please?

Question: Of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. When you look to the [garbled] proposed thesis about their gross domestic product by mid century, coupled with the post American world.

Richard Armitage: Yeah, [garbled] indicated clearly when we come out of this recession, uh, the [garbled] countries I referred to, Brazil, Russia, India and China, uh, are gonna be in a new place. And we’re gonna find ourself in a new place. And it’s gonna take a lot more nimble diplomacy, a nimble, uh, treasury, uh, work, for us to maintain our dominance. These, nothing here happens overnight. It happens over a long period of time. And those countries you named, Brazil and India, are relatively young. Uh, India’s what, twenty-four point eight years of age? Brazil, I, I think it’s around that. Russia and China are actually quite old. China’s about thirty-seven years median age and Russia is older than that, older than us in terms of median age. Which means for Russia you’ve got a declining empire. For China you’ve got one that around twenty forty is gonna peak out and have a lot of old people. But India will still be in the ascendency. Our close relationship is with India. Uh, so I think that we ought to be able to parlay that, and Brazil, we’re in pretty good shape, into a pretty long lasting partnership, if you will. But when you think about twenty forty, twenty fifty, you also really have to take into consideration demographics because they have a huge impact. Now we are in relatively good shape. Our growth, we haven’t aged very much in the last couple of years because of the influx of, uh, foreign immigrants. And they tend to have a higher birth rate. So what this means is, we’re gonna have workers who can continue to provide to pensioners long after a Russia, a China, or many of these other nations, certainly our European friends who are in a real dilemma right now. So our immigration policy and our relatively high birth rate has kept us in pretty good shape when it comes to twenty forty, twenty fifty, and Social Security. We’ll be straining, but we’ll be all right. [applause]

Question: …With the growing threat of Iran and nuclear weapons what can you suggest in detail as far as a long term solution?

Richard Armitage: Well I think the long term solution in Iran comes from a realization that, look, the Iranians, uh, they don’t dislike the United States rank and file and they don’t want to be just like us. Uh, we’ve got, we’ve about two million Iranian Americans that come and go back and forth all the time, so we know a lot about what’s going on. I think we’ve got to use Russia who has a fair relationship and has made some very fine offers to the Iranians about their fuel cycle. Uh, we’ve got to, uh, make sure that we keep our European friends on side so that Iran cannot put new investments into their dilapidated oil structures. They’re not realizing, uh, the very big percentage of what they should realize out of their oil revenue because they haven’t put any money, because of sanctions, into their oil, uh, infrastructure. So, I think if we’re patient, long term, and steady, keep all our friends on side, we can actually work that one out. I think we can. Uh, North Korea is a much more difficult situation. [applause]

Question: …You spoke of how you had many, uh, mistakes in your career. And many of them were big. What I’d like to know is, what do you do to cope with the stress and, uh, guilt that you had after making those mistakes?

Richard Armitage: Well each one was, was somewhat different. With my family, uh, I need to tell you the worst one. My daughter one day came to me and she said, “Dad, nobody ever wished their tombstone was inscribed, ‘I wish I’d worked another day at the office.'” And she really hit me right between the eyes with that. And I realize that she was saying that I’d ignored my family for my career. You know what? She was right. Uh, so I tried to rectify this. I tried to be more aware, spend more time. My wife and I were very fortunate we were able to adopt six children in addition to two biological children. And at least in my mind I was a much better in that home [garbled] for those six. Now maybe they wished they had it like the other two, and I’d be gone. I’ll let you ask them.

Uh, each one, each problem is sui generis. The one consistency is, always told the truth. This is the most important thing. Didn’t excuse it off on anyone else. It’s my problem and I have to fix it.

In terms of dealing with the stress of it, uh, I have a wife, I could talk to her. I exercised. That’s what I did. And I, I resolved in my mind, and I’m gonna make plenty of mistakes, and by the way, so are you. Each of you. Let’s not make the same one twice. That’s where you really say you screwed up. [applause]

Question: …India and China have disputed territory in northern India…I was wondering what America’s role is in, regarding this conflict, and since the territory’s been with India for fifty plus years, how do you think, with our tenuous relationship with both countries, how do you think America’s role should be in either using diplomacy or other measures in regard to [garbled].

Richard Armitage: Are you talking about the relation between Russia and India [garbled]? Or China, China, India rather?

Question: Northern India conflict.

Richard Armitage: Well China, in, um, two thousand three [garbled] actually negotiated an agreement with India on their disputed border area. The reason is, I mentioned in answering another question, China has such a need for stability they didn’t want to have external instability while they’re trying to maintain internal stability. That’s held pretty much. But I, uh, recently was in Delhi and, uh, the leader of the Congress of Indian Industries told me, he asked me, “How much foreign direct investment from China do you think we have in India?” And I said, “Why, I haven’t a clue.” He said, “Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.” And that’s deliberate. In other words, nothing. Nothing. They’re trying to keep China excluded. I think our role is, although we’ve developed a very close relationship, as is understandable with a democracy, with India, uh, is not to get in between the two. Uh, historically, uh, we have played a role, in nineteen eighty-nine, right after the, the election of George Bush, but before his inauguration, myself and a colleague were sent by Bush forty-one, uh, to China and India. The Chinese actually gave us a message to take to them, Rajiv Ghandi, who was the prime minister of India. We took it and then gave his answer back to the Chinese. And that’s a traditional role to the United States between those two countries. Sort of passing a message we feel we can be a friend to both though we’re not equal friendships. [applause]

Question: …When we imposed the economic sanctions on North Korea and the U.N. imposed them, we allowed China to ignore them and still give Korea the food, the supplies they needed to run the country. Why has the U.S. not taken a sta
nd on this in the U.N. , in general allowed China to do this?

Richard Armitage: Uh, because of the structure of the U.N. Security Council. In order to get, uh,where any permanent member can veto, China being a permanent member and Russia, they both have very strong views on the sanctions regime.  They think to some extent it’s necessary to show the North Koreans we’re all angry, but they don’t want to put too much pressure, they think it’s counterproductive. So they negotiated with us to change the sanctions from being mandatory to being, uh, suggested or whatever is the proper, I forget the word, to get the resolution. We acceded to that because we wanted the unanimous resolution. To veto it would just give sort of aid and comfort to the North Koreans. And I think in diplomatic terms, which is pretty warm beer generally, that’s not bad. That’s not bad. Uh, but when saying why do we let them get away with it, well, what are we going to do about it? They have a border area. We don’t. They, their view is, uh, they need stability in North Korea more than they need nuclear weapons out of North Korea. So they’re gonna do it. We have more influence over South Korea, but as I indicated in answer to the previous question, apparently the two previous governments spent a lot more money in North Korea than we had, we had come to know by a factor of about six. Uh, and that’s where ought to be putting our leverage, on somebody that we can have effect with, rather than China which we have little [garbled]. [applause]

Question: …Earlier you put extreme importance on our military bases in Japan.

Richard Armitage: Yeah.

Question: Um, however, some people, uh, believe that the reason we have so much military influence there, um, is because Japan’s own constitution prohibits, uh, [garbled] of military force. And I was wondering if they were able to amend that and have their own strong, uh, military if you think that our presence would or should, uh, change there.

Richard Armitage: Well, first of all, our presence in Japan hasn’t gotten anything to do with what people used to refer to as the cork in the bottle. That is, if China, excuse me, Japan would remilitarize if we weren’t on those bases. And so we stay at those bases just to cork their military capabilities. We’re there because it allows us to effect security cooperation throughout all of Asia. And we do. From those bases. Second, uh, the debate on what’s called Article Nine in the Constitution of Japan, which prohibits collective self defense, considered to be the antiwar clause, is being chipped away gradually and right now it’s very legitimate to speak publicly about getting rid of the prohibition on collective self defense. Ten years ago you couldn’t have done that. And most recently the lower house of Japan last week voted to allow Japanese maritime self defense force ships to go off the coast of Somalia. And not only to defend Japanese citizens and Japanese ships and Japanese goods, but also to defend foreigners and foreign goods. That’s as close to getting rid of that prohibition as you can imagine. Finally, if you look at the military forces of Japan today, they have more destroyers in their fleet than we have in our Pacific navies. And they’ve got more high performance aircraft in their air fleets than we have in the Pacific. So they’re already a competent military force. In terms of overall military spending we’re number one, they’re number seven, but it’s still pretty considerable. [applause]

Thank you all very much. [applause]

Governor Jay Nixon addressed the participants at Missouri Boys last evening in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. After his opening remarks he took questions for over fifty minutes in a session, much like those that he has participated in at Boys State over the past fifteen years, that was freewheeling and addressed a wide number of subjects.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) at Missouri Boys State.

One of the evening’s remarkable exchanges was on the subject of compassion:

…Question: …Down where I come from…we have a crisis center that’s actually having a really rough time. I’ve witnessed the director actually give food out of her own pantry to make sure someone has food for a complete month. Or give money out of her own pocket to pay for someone’s utility or rent bill. My question is, if anything, what are you planning to do to help out the local crises centers around the state?

Governor Jay Nixon: Yeah, I mean. First of all, [pause] it makes me feel good that you know.

Question: Okay.

Governor Jay Nixon: ‘Cause there’s a whole bunch of subjects, and you know, goofballs all across the state [audience reaction], that don’t know. Okay? First of all, you should not under, underestimate how valuable it is to have that basic sense of compassion for your fellow human being. And that understanding that certain people get bad breaks, okay? Whether it’s being born with less skills than some of you, or getting t-boned by some car at an intersection, or losing a job through no fault of their own. I mean, you shouldn’t be in this, you shouldn’t have come up here for this week and I shouldn’t be doing what I, what I’m doing if you don’t have a basic sense of compassion for those who have not been as lucky at this time in life as you have. [applause]

If  basic human compassion ever goes out of this country or this state then I’ll be as, as wild as the guy that I, I tried to inspire to, to revolution over here…

…So, so, what do we do? First of all, we’re trying to, to make sure that we use the, the aforementioned Recovery Act. We’ve been given about an additional one point seven million dollars of Recovery Act funds that will go in to, to the food banks and crises centers.

I’ve been personally working to, to volunteer myself. And work with the, with folks at, at food banks across the state. Tomorrow, Friday, excuse me, the First Lady will be in Kansas City… We’ve been trying to set the tone out there… When I was in the legislature, twenty some odd years ago, I was the one that, that worked hard to get school lunches, excuse me, school breakfasts for kids [garbled] that didn’t have, have food.

I mean, I, I just, all I ask is that at your church and your community and everything that you do, you, you all here, I mean you may feel like you’re, you’re poor…but there are people out there that are really, really hurting. And when they do, it’s not just government that solves this problems.  It’s not just a, a check from Washington or check from Jefferson City that, that solves this problems. Sometimes it requires, just like you said, you taking a dollar out of your own pocket or taking something that’s on your table and giving it to your fellow man and helping them with a hand up so that they can succeed. I’m not talking about hand outs. I’m talking about helping people when they’re really in need.

I hope that, that we never lose, and our faith doesn’t ever allow us to lose the basic unrest that we all should feel when someone, through no fault of their own, is hurting….But when people are really hurting we’ve gotta count on communities to help us, too. [applause]

Our previous coverage of former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage speaking at Missouri Boys State last evening:

Richard Armitage at Missouri Boys State: via Twitter

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage speaking at Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.

….Question: …I have two questions. My first one was, is that, as you know, a lot of what we sell, er, buy comes from China and Japan and the Asian countries. Uh, you can’t really pick up anything without seeing ‘made in China’, Japan, Korea there. Do you think this affects anything at all, like our economy, or do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing? What are your thoughts?

Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State: That’s the first one, what about the second question?

Question: And the second one was, what is Persepodas? You said that, uh, the Persians, when you cut them and bleed, they bleed Persepodas, or something like that, and we wanted to know what that was.

Richard Armitage: Okay. The question of, when we buy cheap goods from China, it’s, used to be from Japan, not, not much anymore, theirs are kind of high tech goods. Uh, I don’t think it bothers us much. We’re not doing the manufacturing. Uh, we’ve benefited immensely of, uh, of the Chinese products that we were buying here before. Now exports are way down.

What does have a big effect on our economy is the number of treasury bills that China holds. China, Japan hold enormous amounts of our treasury. I think the image that you should have of the three of us is of three people in sort of a circle, each with a gun at the other’s head. If China pulls out their t-bills our economy falters terribly, but their bills are not worth very much. The same is true of Japan. So, they kind of have to keep us rocking along to keep the value in the treasury bills. So, I think at this point in time, uh, we’re still all, in the words of, uh, Ben Franklin, gonna have to hang together or else we’ll hang separately on this…

…On the question of Persepolis and the Iranians, you wanted me to develop it a little more? Is that what it was?

Question: Just to kind of explain what it was. A couple of us had a question about what it was. [crosstalk]

Richard Armitage: Well, uh, twenty-five hundred years ago with the time of Darius and Cyrus the Great, the great kings of Persia, uh, Persia was dominant throughout the whole Arabian Gulf. They were a tremendous power. Uh, they’ve obviously fallen from favor since then. Uh, but none of the Persian interlocutives with whom I worked had anything but that moment in history in their frontal lobes. They remember the glory that was theirs, that was Persia’s. And they wanted to recover, to some extent, that position on the world stage. And I think to some extent, in some minds, having nuclear weapons is one of the keys to get back on that world stage. After all, from their point of view, a third rate nation like North Korea is able to make us dance around pretty well. What about a great, historically great nation like Persia?

Over here.

Question: …I just wanted to ask, like, when we’re leaders of the country, or when we’re in your spot, like after Iran, North Korea, and the Middle East, what do you think are the future national threats to the United States, or challenges we’ll face?

Richard Armitage: Well, look what’s happened in, in my career, the national threats have changed a lot. It used to be, of course, the cold war and all of that. And, uh, that’s all gone. And now the threats are everything from, uh, the terrorist threat from Afghan Pakistan, to nuclear proliferation, to human trafficking, to economic turmoil, to drugs, to cyber attack, uh, climate change, changing environment. So, the threat to our way of life and to us has expanded dramatically. If I had to say what might be the biggest long term threat I’d say it might be climate change. As none of us really understand, I don’t think politicians have the courage to really take dramatic steps. And in this regard, it’s interesting to note that China, it’s much easier for her to take dramatic steps, she just made an announcement that all her cars will be ‘x’ per cent more efficient in three more years. Which for us would be impossible, because of our political system, but they just do it by mandate. So I think that’s the biggest threat in the long run.

From, I’ll tell you this, when we come out of this recession, I’m sure of one thing. And, and I’m not an economist. But I’m sure that everything we’ve known in the past about economies is gonna be changed, because, as, as we come out of this, Brazil will come out of it, India out, and China. And I think it’s, although we’ll still be the most powerful nation and the richest nation in the world our relative dominance will have dropped a lot. And I don’t know if the others, the, the Brazils, the Chinas will start working as a block or not. But that’s something to really, I think, keep an eye on.

Question: …My question was, uh, China holds roughly half of, I guess, I think the number is, U.S. treasury bills. And you talked about trying to escape the, uh, recession faster than, uh, them. What would happen if they tried to recall or have us pay back all of our debt to them and what would kind of be the consequences for us?

Richard Armitage: If, if China did it? Is that what you’re saying?

Question: Yeah.

Richard Armitage: Yeah. Well, uh, our economy, I can’t say it would collapse. It would come close to collapse. They’d fall as well.

Here’s the thing with, with China, ’cause they’re so tied in with us. Unlike us, we, if we have unemployment continue to rise, inflation continue to rise, we’ll have some social demonstrations, right? The Chinese public has made an implicit bargain with their government. And that was that the government would keep the economy humming along about ten per cent, minimum eight, but ten per cent, in exchange for which, the people  will overlook the fact that the government structure in China is basically illegal. It’s not in any way chosen by the people. And would overlook, to some extent, the amount of corruption which is endemic in China. That is if all or most of the citizens could see that tomorrow will be a little bit better than today. If the t-bills, if China withdrew, they would not be able to keep that economy humming along. They would have instant social upheaval in the countryside and probably in the cities. For me, as sort of an Asian student, one of the most interesting ironies of history is that the most modern city historically in China is Shanghai. And Shanghai was the home of the Boxer rebellion, was the home of, of the, the birth of the Chinese communist party. And it’s from these most modern cities that all the troubles have come. Why is that? The cities attract people. People come and the government has not developed the infrastructure, water, medical, uh, etcetera, etcetera to service these people. And they rapidly become hotbeds of dissatisfaction, what you, what a military officer…I saw earlier today, he’d say it’s a strategic center of gravity against the sitting government. So they would be really in a world of hurt if all of a sudden they could not keep their economy at eight to ten per cent. There’d be all kinds of social upheaval. And that’s not something we want because the implication, not only for our economy, but for our friends in the region with refugees and everything else.

Question: …My question, over the past few months, uh, we’ve seen that Vice President, the former Vice President Cheney’s been doing a lot of public criticism of the new Obama administration. Uh, as a former Bush ad
ministration official yourself, do you agree with what the former vice president is saying, and also do you think he’s within his rights to be criticizing him like this, or do you think he should kind of pipe down and stay quiet like, uh, President Bush has?

Richard Armitage: I completely disagree with former Vice President Cheney. I think he should, in your word ‘pipe down’. [applause] I think it’s unseemly. [applause] I think it’s unseemly and very much admire the way President Bush has, has said he owes President Obama his silence. And that’s right. Beyond that, as a citizen, obviously Mr. Cheney has a right to his point of view, but I think the, the burden of being a former vice president trumps it. And it makes him look so mean spirited now as it, it’s, I guess Leon Panetta, uh, the CIA, said it makes Mr. Cheney look as if he’d almost want a terrorist attack to kind of show up Mr. Obama. And look, I’m an out of work Republican right now, but I don’t want our president to fail, I’ll tell you that. And it seems Mr. Cheney’s kind of seen to put a lean in that direction. I don’t like it.

Question: …as a foreign policy expert what are your opinions, if current President Ahmadinejad of Iran were to be reelected, how that, how that would affect the United States?

Richard Armitage:  Well, I, I think, in the first place, either of those two gentlemen having been elected would not grandly affect the United States. Mr. [garbled] Mousavi seems to be pretty benign, nice guy, but here’s a fellow who in his earlier years, very involved in not only the, the revolution in Iran, but the, uh, taking over of our embassy, and very involved in getting birth, giving birth to Hezbollah. So, the relative benign nature of Mousavi  vice, versus Ahmadinejad is, is something that I really question. I think they, it, it’s just a matter of degrees. Second, I , I don’t think there will be any dramatic changes in U.S. Iran relationships. We will, as Mr. Obama said, reach out the hand of friendship. That’s a good thing. They’ll have to make a decision whether to take it or not. I’m not totally hopeless that we can dissuade them from their program. Make sure that they do have nuclear power, but that they don’t, uh, misdirect it toward nuclear weapons. And I think this is gonna be something that proceeds almost a snail’s pace, no matter who is elected.

Question: …My question is a two part question, actually. North Korea was brought up in your speech earlier and the rise to power of Kim Jong-il. Recently, uh, North Korea, uh, they’ve reopened their nuclear power facility. They’ve, uh, collected enough plutonium for six to eight nuclear, uh, bombs. And they’ve sent two, uh, test [garbled] missiles, they launched them. Uh, why hasn’t the U.S. stepped in, um, we play a vital role in, um, financing, well giving them foreign aid. Do you think we could use that to [garbled], to our advantage, of stepping in and shutting down the facilities? And, uh, making, uh, would create less of a threat for world power.

Richard Armitage:  Okay, thank you. Uh, let me roll out the entire facts here. Nineteen ninety-four President Clinton negotiated called the framework agreement. And in exchange for the Yongbyon reactor to be deactivated we, the Japanese, China, south Korea, would provide assistance, primarily fuel oil and food, from the, from the United States. Uh, and for a time that Yongbyon reactor was closed and we’d made an agreement. Many of us, I’m, I’m on record, I testified to U.S, Congress back then and said that I was very happy with the framework agreement, but that it did not address unknown facilities, secret facilities. So, although North Korea could stop the Yongbyon reactor they had many other mechanisms, and if they chose they could use to make, uh, plutonium. Uh, this agreement then, that was the first sale, rather, by North Korea of the Yongbyon reactor. North Korea then started it, as you correctly indicated, sold it to Mr. Bush twice. Right now they’re getting prepared to sell it to Mr. Obama once. For a grand total of selling the same reactor four different, or trying to sell it four different times. In addition, in two thousand two, the North Koreans admitted to the Assistant Secretary of State Jim Kelly that they also had a highly enriched uranium program. It was a secret program. So, what many of us feared back in the nineties turned out to be true, they had these secret facilities. They have not agreed anywhere to stop that program. And it leaves us where the intelligence agencies estimate that they have enough, uh, uranium for, or plutonium rather, for six to ten weapons. These weapons are not mounted on missiles. They haven’t been miniaturized and put on the missiles yet so they, you wouldn’t want to call them really bombs or, uh, certainly they’re not married up to missiles. We have stopped our assistance and have, for some several years. There was a story in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper of south Korea the other day saying that South Korean governments, not the present one but the previous two, had provided between seven and nine billion dollars, dollars, of aid to North Korea in very real way. If that story is true they have funded the development of missiles and weapons which potentially could be used against South Korea. But that was the policy of the two previous governments of South Korea. Uh, right now, as far as I know, all of that has stopped. I’m having lunch with president Lee of Korea on Wednesday. He’s coming to Washington to see the president and I’ll have lunch with him after and we’ll get to the bottom of it. But I suspect that the majority of the assistance has come from China and South Korea, as much as that seems strange. We limited ourselves to NGO with fuel and, and food. You had a second part to your question? Great. Thank you.

Question: …What do you think should be the next course of action for the U.S. in the world as we try to regenerate our educational system?

Richard Armitage:  Well, I, I don’t think it’s, uh, much to do with the world. It has much to do with ourselves. The debate that Mr. Obama is trying to encourage right now about rewarding teachers who actually care about students and actually want them to, to do well. To try to turn ourselves into a, a much more literate society. One of our problems right now, and you’ve heard about this in your schools I’m sure, you cannot find enough qualified engineers. That’s why we’re hiring so many from abroad. The problem with that is many of our high tech industries require security clearances. And some of our foreign friends it’s very difficult for them to get security clearances. So, my own view is we’ve gotta really get hot here domestically. Secondarily, uh, we’re back up to where we were before two thousand one in terms of the amount of foreign students who study at our great universities. Let’s face it, for six, six years at least after nine eleven we exported anger and fear, which is not a traditional export for the United States. We kind of deal with hope and optimism a little better. But we’re back on track I think for that now, in, in better shape. You have a follow up?

Question:  No. Thank you.

Richard Armitage: Thank you.

Question:  …Sir, as I’m sure you know, when John Adams was president the nation as a whole wanted to declare war on France. [crosstalk]

Richard Armitage: Start that. Start that again please.

Question:  When John Adams was president, sir, the [garbled] nation wanted to declare war on France, but Adams [garbled] did not [garbled] what the nation should do. So he thought it was best for the executive branch not to. And my question for you, sir, is how much do you think that the president and the executive branch should respect the will of the people and how much do you think they should just listen to them [garbled] in deciding foreign policy.

Richard Armita
ge: Well that’s a very interesting question because the only truly, uh, the only president who truly did not believe in that the United States had a role in projection of human freedoms and human rights and democracy etcetera was John Quincy Adams. He was very much a, a stay at home, look home type guy. Wanted to really eschew any foreign involvements. Uh, the president’s first duty is to protect you and me. That is his first duty. Beyond that we do like to help the world. We, all post war presidents certainly been very active in the spread of human rights and human freedom. But protection of U.S. citizens properly trumps all the rest of them. Now many of us, and I’m one of them, view the fact that if we hold ourselves and carry ourselves correctly in the world in terms of traditional respect for human freedoms and human rights, we actually lessen the possibility that the president would have to commit force to protect us. On the other hand, go around pissing everybody off all the time then we’ve got a little different problem. [audience reaction] But, uh, but my point of view, the, the men and women who were the fathers of our republic and the great architects, the great builders of our nation, those great presidents and all those [garbled] have shared a view that the world is safer when we’re engaged across the board in the protection of human freedoms and human rights. It is the manner in which we’re engaged which is important. If we try to put democracy on somebody through military force, that’s quite a different proposition. From trying to develop all the institutions, and the parties, and free press, and transparency and good governance that necessarily has to precede a competent and democracy.

Question: …What is the main thing, or the main action that you’ve taken in your whole career that you think has greatly influenced the world and America?

[long pause]

Richard Armitage: I think I’ve got two. Can I have two?

Question:  Yes. [laughter]

Richard Armitage: In two thousand and two, in summer, India and Pakistan were going to war. And Secretary Powell and I stopped it. Stopped it dead. [applause] The other thing is, is quite different. Uh, the day Saigon fell. I had been sent back to Saigon, five days, four and a half days before the fall for a particular mission for the government. I was to destroy some things and I was to make sure certain equipment didn’t fall into the hands of the communists. Well, along the way I developed with the CNO of the Vietnamese Navy a plan to get thirty-one thousand people out, but didn’t tell our government. But I was so mad at my government because I’d thought they cut and run. And I thought we owed this. And so we brought out thirty-one thousand people with, the U.S. government was furious when they found out they had a big, much bigger refugee problem than they, they had thought. But that action actually found pretty good favor in the public and in, in the Congress when it turned out that we eventually ended up taking out hundreds of thousands of refugees. Which, as far as this citizen is concerned, has dramatically helped our country. [applause]….