Partners. The irony is where brazil and india governments are, the bottom line is reforms need to happen internally that are about legal questions, but theres also a strategic level of interest that needs to go on here. [inaudible] do you think there is a possibility of a parallel within the United States . Great question. In the book, there is a chapter on the chinese approach. One of the key aspects besides the Massive Campaign of intellectual property theft, you have how this links into an assassins doctrine where youre looking at a potential enemy and saying, im going to turn their strengths into a weakness. The ability to mobilize massive Human Capital behind it. This is used to describe the internal selfcensoring model, the human flesh Search Engine is how it translates. When you talk about the number of folks involved, a mix of cyber militia and patriotic hacker communities, the scale is enormous. It is measuring and hundreds of thousands of folks. Most of those are people who are not all that talented. When you combine the massive scale and weak defenses, it is a dangerous mix. It is challenging for the Chinese Government because how it controls it is challenging it. That is why we stop the hacker communities rolled into militias. What is the u. S. Approach to it . We do have a patriotic hacker community. It has been mostly focused in recent years on counterterrorism. One of my favorite stories in the book, which shows the power of cyber counterterrorism, one of the best folks at going after terrorist websites that post propaganda and videos and the like is a private citizen who is better known for his day job. He was the gentleman who invented the housewife nextdoor genre of internet porn. For the most part, we corporatized it. A lot of those capabilities in other nations are held within patriotic hacker communities or in the case of russia, you have a mix of organized crime and cyber which has been deployed in operations against estonia or georgia. And there is a good and a bad. On the one hand, it means it is more organized. On the other hand, maybe it cost you a lot more and you have the strange market incentives that play. Just like there is a management problem that china ran into during there was the episode in 2001 where one of our Navy Patrol Planes bumped with a hot dogging chinese fighter and there was an online back and forth between communities and how you control that. How do they rein in that nationalism side . On the corporate side, the recent proliferation of hacked back as a Business Model. The best way i will protect you is by hacking back the people going after you. It is a great Business Model for that company. It is not a good Business Model for the clients and it may be even worse for the nation. For the client, you are paying someone to go after an attacker. For the nation, you could have companies for private reasons getting involved in things with political ramifications. A lot of lessons to learn from the real world side of private military firms. Peter, thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible] thank you. You have written a book. We have another one for you to read as a token of our appreciation for you being here. Those of you who are interested, peter has a box full of his books back there if you would like to get an autograph and write him a check. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] coming up on cspan, tom friedman talks about National Security and freedom of the press. President obama is traveling to mexico today. On washington journal, we look at the impact of the north American Free trade agreement. Washington journal is live each morning at 7 00 eastern. This morning, the Farm Foundation has a discussion about food safety and the food safety modernization act. Live coverage at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. Later, deputy secretary of state will talk about americas relationship with arab countries in the persian gulf. That is at the center for strategic and international studies. The creation museum, we are only too willing to admit our beliefs are based on the bible. The difference between beliefs and what one can observe. Peopleve we are teaching to think critically and think in the right terms about science. I believe it is the creationists who should be educating the kids out there because we are teaching them the right way to think. We are based upon the bible. I am challenging evolutionists to admit the belief aspects of evolution. I encourage you to explain to us why we should accept your word for it that natural law changed just 4000 years ago, completely, and there is no record of it. There are pyramids that are older than that. There are human populations that are far older than that with traditions that go back farther than that. It is not reasonable to me that everything changed for thousand years ago. Species, the surface of the , and, the stars in the sky the relationship of all of the other living things on earth to humans. It is not reasonable to me. Evolution versus creationism. Ye and ken hamm debate wednesday night. Next, Thomas Friedman talks about National Security and freedom of the press. The three temple at surprise d. Nner was interviewed by cohosted by George Washington university and harvard university. From the National Press club in washington dc. [applause] hello and welcome to the National Press club. A conversation with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman about freedom. Over the past 20 years i have had the pleasure and privilege of speaking with some of the best herbalists in the country. Some have even won a pulitzer prize, which is the highest compliment in the newspaper world. None, except our guest tonight, has ever won three pulitzer prizes, two for his reporting from the middle east and one for his commentary. Tom friedman joined the times in 1981. He was bureau chief in beirut and jerusalem. He has been the chief Diplomatic Correspondent and chief white house correspondent. Columniste became a a Foreign Affairs columnist for the paper. He does that twice a week. And somehow, he still finds time to write six bestselling books, to host Six Television documentaries, numerous seminars, and conferences, and to be with us here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] are subject is freedom. A big word. I would like to start by asking what is your definition of freedom . It is granted to be with you. You and your brother, bernie, were always great. People i admire as a young journalist. A treat to be with you here today. You know, let me think. I am not a philosopher, i am a journalist. Let me answer your question in the context of journalism. If you started this story this evening by asking me, what was the greatest story you ever told . I just turned 60 and i have been at a few times for 33 years. What was the one that really the most amazing . I would tell you it was tire your Square Tahrir square for the original revolution that overthrew president mubarak. When i came home and people asked me about it and i would say this was the most amazing story i ever covered and they will say why . Because it was the most apolitical political event i ever covered. Meaning . Meaning that at some level, it was about this very deep Human Emotion of im somebody i am somebody. If you ask me what is freedom . The ability, desire, aspiration to live in a context where i can realize my full potential as a human being. I think what the square was about it is very grouped root was a political aspiration, young people where they can see how everybody was living in wanting to live in a contest where they could relies their full potential. It had to do with mubarak and corruption and a context that have been built where they cannot realize their full but tension. They lived in a rigged game. Freedom is not just about the ability to write or say anything or travel. There is something deeply personal. To live in a situation where i can be the fullest person. Do you feel people all over the world share the same sentiment . It is a very interesting question. I have thought about a lot as an arab spring. One of my teachers, you know, the freedom of from and freedom to, positive and negative. So much of the arab spring was about initially was freedom from. People wanted their freedom from the various autocratic regimes. What often happens in the next stage was freedom from a was great, but there is freedom to, too. What did you want to be free to do . You have to build a context to enable people to be free. It turned out some people wanted to be free to be more islamist. Some people wanted to be free to be more sectarian. Some people wanted to be free in the democratic cents to be equal citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. Or is this something that we acquire because we live the United States with the idea of freedom . Im trying to get from you a sense of the majesty of freedom, not a choice. I do believe that everybody wants to live in a context that enables and powers that allow them to realize their full potential. The aspiration for freedom to live in a context where i can do all of those things is universal. As you said before, some people in the middle east today would have a quarrel about that in the sense that in the United States we grow up believing it is due us. The people in egypt and yemen do not grow with that. It is not universal. You can also fall into the opposite trap, to think that somehow we have got a and it is unique to us, and it is not an aspiration that other people necessarily want. I am only speaking from my own expense. Experience. Once we lifted the lid in that part of the world, it turned out that people wanted to be free. Maybe it was to live more within their own sect. So it is going to be different for different people, but ive found in my own travels and experience there, it remains a very, powerful and deep emotion. The First Amendment lays out certain principles. Congress cannot to do anything to abridge our freedom of religion, spree each speech, press, peaceably assemble, and petition our government. They are laid out there. They are large concepts. The underpinnings for the society. They have been described as godgiven. Im wondering if you share that view. Gosh, i confess i have never thought about, you know, whether they are godgiven, but again, when i think of our own society i will give you the journalistic response. Thats a duck. No, it is because i am not a philosopher. I always, when ever people tell me chinas stealing our secrets, my answer always is, look, i dont encourage industrial theft or cyber theft, but only when they still a bill of rights. Tell me when they steal the constitution. Tell me when they steal the words off the lincoln and jefferson in washington memorials. Then they will have stolen something. All the things that are worth stealing in this country are hiding in plain sight, because as long as we have got those, we can always come up with another secret, another industrial advance, another innovation and breakthrough. And so those are the things that i think are of great value. And we sometimes, i find myself bristling at times when i hear our own lawmakers trashing our institutions. What would people in russia today give for one day of the sec . What would people in china today give for one day of the Justice DepartmentHuman Rights Division . You know, we kick this country around like it is a football sometimes. It is not a football. It is a faberge egg. And it is one that a lot of people around the world would appreciate in terms of these bureaucrats washington, d. C. These institutions are precisely what enable our freedom to, to do all these things. How do you think we got those . And this takes me to to origin once again. How do you think it happened that this country has the First Amendment that it does . Does it have anything to do, for example, with the fact that there is written into the First Commandment of the bible the idea that i am the lord who brought you out of the house of bondage. That there is something there having to do with an almighty force, liberating people from bondage, from bondage to what . You are talking about fromto. The early settlers in many ways were reenacting their own version of the exodus story. In leaving what they thought was a tyranny, a monarchical tyranny in europe and coming to the shores as part of our core dna. And so in terms of origin you are not going to go with me to any particular path . Im going to stay away from that path. Is it really possible in this country and in others to separate church and state . You know, that reminds me, that question, marvin, of is it possible to be an objective journalist . I am not dodging your question. Because whenever i am asked that, i always answer, i havent asked that. I have gotten that. Question before i will go to the next one then. And the answer to me is always that objectivity is not the thing. It is attention. The tension between understanding and disinterest. I cannot possibly write an objective story about you unless at some level i really try to understand you almost see the world through your eyes. At the same time i cannot write an objective and story if i were to only see the world through your eyes. Objectivity is a tension. Sometimes in the middle east you have to think about these things a lot. And sometimes i may be a little bit too understanding of you, sometimes too disinterested. Judge me over a period, but its a tension. In a country like ours founded by people escaping religious freedom but also inspired by their own religious ethic, there is always going to be a tension between church and state. You hear in the state of the union when the president says God Bless America and whatnot. As long as there is a tension, i have no problem with it. Since 9 11, there has been a lot of tension certainly in this country and in other parts of the world as well. Do you feel, as both a journalist and a citizen of this country, that since 9 11 you have lost any of your freedoms . Gosh, i i dont feel that. But i do feel that, um, i feel that, and what i wrote about 9 11 at the time was i do believe it was one of the most, maybe the most dangerous challenge to our open society in this sense that what this generation of terrorists were doing were taking objects from our daily life the backpack, the car, the airplane and turning them into weapons. And when you take objects from daily life, literally human beings at the end and turning them into weapons, what you do is you erode the very thing that keeps an open society open and that is trust. We trusted that everyone came in this room tonight, was not wrapped in the suicide vest or carrying a bomb in their shoe or purse, in their pen. Trust is the very lifeblood of an open society. And what is so dangerous about this generation of terrorism is that what it tries to do is attack that very thing. So that we close ourselves off. We search everybody. I went to a lecture this morning at Johns Hopkins on tunisia. It was just a lecture. I had to show my drivers license to sign in. Show my drivers license to a private security guard. There are those kinds of things that i find them they are still at the level of annoyance. Because you have written that if there were another 9 11, you would fearful that that would be the end of the open society. What i deeply worry about is another attack on the scale of 9 11. Because i fear then Many Americans would say, do whatever you need to do, do whatever you need to do. And i think our response to 9 11 in many ways has been remarkably restrained. Lets remember, how many years was that after 9 11, we elected an africanamerican whose middle name was hussein, whose grandfather was a muslim, who defeated a woman to run against the mormon. [laughter] ok . Who does that . Ok . [laughter] that was an amazing thing. Now, we have learned since then that we still have a lot of work to do, you know. When you see some of the racial antipathy that has been subtly and overtly directed at the president , but in many ways, the fact that we did that was the greatest repudiation of bin laden. And yet, the tools that the bin ladens use remains such a threat that you can imagine and and to our society as we know it, were there another major attack. I do not think it is a joke. Before i came over, i was reading the news. It is an amazing, perverse, bizarre story a suicide bomber trainee in iraq blew himself and 22 other trainees up, blew up 22 trainees who he was teaching and preparing how to build a suicide vest. This is not a joke. You know, there were things that we see in the middle east in the last five or six years that that kind of thing, that you have to take it seriously. Absolute. Ly. Lets talk a little bit about modern technology, of which i am not an expert. Then you have really got the wrong guy. You are pretty good at this stuff. But a number of people of my point of view might look at all of that modern technology and say, ech, leave me alone. I want to go back to an old typewriter. Modern technology to you is a good thing, and inspiring thing, and uplifting thing, or is it simply too heavy to lift . What is your sense of it and what is it doing at this point in our national lives to the issue of privacy, which i would like to get your gut feeling about . Oh, so i do not know where to dive in exactly. Due to privacy. Do the privacy. I read the israeli newspaper i read the israeli newspaper every day, and as some of you may know, i am a golfer. A couple months ago i buy golf clubs online occasionally. I pick up the israeli newspaper and there is an ad for golf clubs in the middle of the front page. How did that get there . You put it there. How did that get from golf smith threw some cookies onto my front page . And so i find that a little creepy. They knew you were a golfer. That somehow golfsmith sold my data, so when i went to the israeli newspaper an ad for a golf swing comes up on the front page. I am reading the beirut daily. Column about a site about womens apparel, and then i call up the politico and there is an ad for them. What does it all mean in terms of you have given an illustration of how they have moved into your privacy in the area of golf. Ok. What is it any purchase. It couldve been anything. What is it about modern technology that would allow Something Like twitter, if my information is right here, to find out where you are on any given time of the day . Are there no limits any longer. Because i have a feeling that a certain generation of the American People have no problem with yielding privacy. In fact, are quite happening happy about telling everything about themselves. What is that . And what is the danger if any exist at all . I do not have a facebook page, and the times tweaked my my column. So im really not, i try to limit my, because i would be overwhelmed a little bit. I cannot deal with people wanting to friend me or whatever every hour. I can write my column or answer the mail, but it is one of the other. It cannot be both. It has been said by many people, privacy is over. Get used to it. And i was, you know, having breakfast at up in new york with a middle east diplomat friend of mine from the arab world, and um, at a hotel, and a couple days later, he emailed me and said, whats this . And it was a blog post from i would say an antiarab site that Thomas Friedman giving his instructions from a middle east diplomat. It was like somebody was there with a cell phone, took a picture. I did not know was going on. Boom, and you just have got to go with it. I do not know how to fight it. Is there a danger, and this thought just occurred to me, that at a certain point if you lose x amount of your privacy you are also yielding aspects of your freedom . Oh, there is no question about it because it is on your mind all the time. You start to edit yourself. Im doing that right now. In the sense that, you know, i know if i slip up now that there is no such thing as local anymore, ok . When we did this seven years ago or we had done this 20 years ago, you know, if i mixed up something if i make a mistake, make a full of myself or Say Something angry, whatever it would, maybe somebody would tell somebody. There is no such thing as local anymore. You are in a Search Engine. Marvin kalb, bam. And you just, you got a live with it. I do not particularly like it but it has upsides. You can learn about, youre in contact with more people all the time. I have just sort of given up on privacy in that sense. Edward snowden. You have written that from your point of view you would like him to come back to United States, stand trial, and lets see what happens. He would be given a fair trial. Does that mean that you consider that he has committed some kind of crime . You know, i have not really delved into that issue. What you just referred to is about as much as i have written. There is a reason for that because i find every week i read another set of revelations, and i read another set of arguments, pro and con, that make me feel one week one thing about him and one week another. This idea of traitor or whistleblower . Clearly, what he has exposed to me in the mega sense is the fact that the technology has gone way ahead of, you know, i think some of both the Legal Protections and even societys understanding of what it can do on one side. I think what he is also expose, though, there has been no specific case of abuse unless you count listening to angelo merkels cell phone. Someone at the nsa saying, i want to know what my exgirlfriend is doing. We have had several investigations that have also shown us that. I think it is a very vital case that was inevitably going to happen, and i think it is helping that it happened healthy that it has happened. I also believe we do need protection from these rising threats, and i find myself really torn. And what i said in that one column is that i also trust the fairness of the American People. And that i do believe, if snowden came back, and got a trial where he could properly make his case, it was not done in secret and could actually present his evidence, i just trust the judgment of the American People. I do not know how it would come out, but i think that trial could be a huge teaching moment and one that would trigger a healthy debate and reform. Tom, i want to ask you a question about the relationship of journalism, as you have practiced it and i and many others, if a journalist comes upon the big story, he did not know it was there, he discovers that. And writes a big story. And that is terrific. That is what it is all about. But supposing you come upon the story in the sense that you know someone who has a lot of secrets, like snowden with the nsa. And you participate with that source in the way in which that information is going to be given to the public, which the number of reporters in the snowden case actually did. Are those reporters, not the others, are those complicit in what may be a crime . And im going to give you a very unsatisfactory answer. I am not going to play the hypothetical game. That is not hypothetical. That actually did i realize that. And my answer is, i will answer for my own reporting and my own judgments, but i am not going to sit in judgment on others, especially in this case where my own newspaper was involved. Ok. I want to take a minute now to identify ourselves for our radio and television audiences. This is the kalb report. I am marvin kalb. And im here talking with the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Very frustrating only on certain issues. You have been at this for a long time. 33 years with the times. Upi before that. If you had it to do all over again, would you still do it as a journalist . Oh, god, this is the most fun you can have legally that i know of. [laughter] growing up i only wanted to be david aversham, i got to meet him. I have had, this is been the most amazing run. I have never had a bad day, and i have never gotten up in the morning and said, you know, i just do not want to do this anymore. It has been an amazing privilege to do this for the New York Times, and the people i met along the way, the experiences i had some tragic and some uplifting i would not have traded a moment for it, and i wish i could be 30 again. That is marvelous. That is wonderful. I heard that and still are i hear that you still are perhaps a very good golfer. I do play golf, yes. But i am on the staff of golf digest. Did you ever consider being a golfer is your number one goal . When i was young i did want to be a professional golfer. Rodriguez gigi chi chi rodriguez. It was one of my great experiences in life. I always tell people the story that back then, it was a time, it was an amazing time when you think about before sports was so professionalized, that in the u. S. Open, you can not bring a pro caddy. What they did is they took caddies from each club and brought them to haseltine and they had a big bowl and all the names of the 179 players, and you stuck your hand in that bowl, and you couldve picked jack nicholas, arnold palmer, and i picked chi chi rodriguez. He made the cup. We won all four days. 20 years later, some Family Friends of ours were down in puerto rico which was his home course, and they ran into them in the pro shop and they said, chi chi, do you remember who caddied for you . And without missing a beat, he said tommy. As Family Friends will do, they said do you know he is more famous than you are today . [laughter] chi chi said, not in puerto rico. [laughter] you have done every other bit of journalism. Have you ever considered at this point in your career shifting over and being a sports columnist . I have. I am literally on the staff of golf digest. Because they are owned by the New York Times, and for while they are owned by conde naste, so i write for them regularly. I have thought about it. Ive always wanted to write a golf book. After i wrote a book, my publisher came to me and said, what do you want to write for your next book . And i said, john, i really want to write a book on golf. And he said, the persian gulf . [laughter] i said, no, i want to write a golf book. Now, you have been a columnist for almost 20 years. Yes. What are the changes that you have felt and experienced over the last 20 years being a columnist . Is it the same now as it was 20 years ago . Um, you know, the nothing has changed in the craft, marvin, of how you write a column. That is still, you know, you got to get an idea, you got to report it out, i believe i write a very reported colin, i think the best columnists are reporters or bring heart to their column. Bring reporting to their column. What changes is a couple things one is your reach. Through the web, we have 20 million unique visitors. That is huge compared to the 1. 6 million on sunday for the New York Times. You reach, even through syndication, farther. You have comments on your column now. So theres your opinion and there are 300 more or less every day of readers. Everyone is in a twoway conversation now, columnists. Do you have to answer the tweets or the messages that come into you . Maybe some people do. I dont because it is just too exhausting. I have mixed feelings about the comments if they are anonymous. So people can be disparaging and but i find if you dive into them and sometimes i have time to and sometimes i dont, you always find one or two just amazing gems, also. The kernel for a news story. Or things or i say, that is just so smart. That is a big difference. And, when you think about it, i, so i inherited James Restons office, the office he used his last office in the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. When i became a columnist in 1995. What a great honor to inherit his office. This great editor and columnist for the times. I often tell people, you know, when mr. Reston was doing his column, im sure he came in and said, i wonder what my seven competitors are going to write today. And he knew them all personally. I knew them all. Walter lipton, tony lewis. I do the same thing. I come into the same bill safires office now, and i say, i wonder what my 70 million competitors are going to write. I feel ive got 70 million competitors. But that doesnt change how you approach your responsibility or what it is that youre actually writing . No. But it does, you know, i did a book with Michael Mandelbaum that used to be us. And we have a chapter in the book called averages over, and and it is is over, about robots that can be above average. Average is over for everybody, including me. In the example i gave is a, i have 70 million competitors now. And hopefully i was never writing average columns, but i am just saying, i go to china, been going to china once a year for the last 22 years. And you know, when it probably when i probably first started going to china, i had one goal in mind and that was to write something that my motherinlaw in chicago would not know about china, something that she my motherinlaw in chicago back then had never been to china. So the truth is, i can go to china. I could hopefully i never did, but, they have panda bears here. People use chopsticks. I could really write an average column. Today, the New York Times you have the nytimes. Com in chinese. You can click on it right, front sight. So when i go to china now, i have a different goal, and that is to tell people in china they people in chengdu something they dont know about china. You want to pick up and distribute it in china. Right now we are shut down because we reported that wen jiabaos mother is worth 2. 7 billion. You cannot get it in china unless you can get it through the firewall. If you go to New York Times. Com, youll notice one says international. That is the Old International herald tribune. And over the next one is in chinese letters. It is our chinese edition. That is a great thrill for me to have my column twice a week in chinese. And i am so frustrated that we are shut out of their. Shut out of their bank. But there are a lot of chinese speakers outside of china and there are chinese who know how there to find their way into the site. But i am keenly aware when i write about china now i am being read not but just by my motherinlaw but by chinese. And i think that does raise your game. Again, i hope by it takes me back to a question that you sort of ducked earlier on new technology and the effect that has. The New York Times benefited from the wikileaks story. The New York Times decided that it would send a team of reporters to another newspaper in england where the information already was, so it was no act of journalistic genius to go over there and pick up that information and then put it into the times. So what does that mean about the times and a fitting from the times benefiting from wikileaks . Is that a good thing . Are they to be proud of the fact that they made that decision . You should really ask Arthur Sulzberger that. Bill keller. He was seated here, and i did ask him. What did he say . He made an effort to answer it, which is more than you are doing. [laughter] you see, im trying to understand. The reason i am dodging this question and i am dodging it is because did you notice . Is because it is a hugely complicated question, and i have not dealt with the raw material, the legal bit. I have not been deeply involved than i do not want to freelance on it. Ok. Then i will put it this way. [laughter] tomorrow morning, you are sitting in your office, and you get a call from the guardian in london and the guardian says, hey, tom, you are one of the greatest columnists ever and we want to bring you in on something. We have just received from bin ladens motherinlaw who does not live in chicago, should live she leaves lives somewhere else in the middle east, and she has his personal plans for taking over the world. This is what he was going to do. We want to bring you in on that. You have to come over here and take a look at it and then run with it. Would you do that . I would definitely go over there and take a look at it. Whether i would run with it would depend on the veracity of it. Would depend on what the real content was. The journalist in me get would definitely do that. Lets move along. The New York Times. I love to pick it up in the morning. Ten years from now, will i have that privilege . Dont know. Really dont know. You know, one of the themes of my columns in the last seven or eight years has really, what i call, i think we are in a gutenberg scale moment of change. That is, i believe that were in a moment that is a kin to gutenbergs invention of the Printing Press when the way in which information is generated, turned into knowledge and transforms into products and services has undergone a massive transformation. I always tell people, someone was alive when gutenberg invented the printing priest. Press. Some monk said to some priests, now this is cool. I do not have to use this quill anymore. We can stamp these things out, holy mackerel i believe we are at a similar moment, and i call it the move from connected to hyper connected. And it happened just in the last decade or a little bit more, and it was completely disguised by the subprime crisis and post9 11. We are living it. We are living all of the innovations that it is throwing off, all the incredibly rapid change. But no one is really describing it. My sound bite on this, you may of heard me say is that when i sat down to write that used to be us, the first thing i did was go back and get the First Edition of the world is flat to remind myself what i said. I started that book in 2004. So i opened it up to the index. I looked under abcdef facebook was not in it. So when i was running around the world, last time we talked, and saying the world is flat. We are all connected. Facebook did not exist. Twitter was still a sound. The cloud was still in the sky. 4g was a parking place. Linkedin was a prison. Applications are what you sent to college. Big data was a rap star and skype was a typo. Ok, so all of that happened after i wrote the world is flat. What does that tell you . It tells you something really big just happened in the plumbing of the world. We went from connected to hyper connected, and it is changing every job, every workplace. How is it changing journalism . Is that a good thing . What would you say . We now have when nytimes. Com, we have the most email lists. So we are using big data, to track most tweeted. Most blogged. On the one hand, any the New York Times journalist who says, i do not look at the list is lying to you. How do my columns do . Am i on the list . Do they go up or down. But it also is very, that can be dangerous, because i write about Foreign Affairs. And um, there are times when i should write about Foreign Affairs issues that may not make the list at all. You can tell. There are certain issues that just do not make the list. You write a political, sizzling piece about you know governor chris christie, goes to the top of the list. But if you write about the problem of water in chad, you are not going to make the list. As a journalist, as a columnist, do you start saying, i am not going to write about this whole set of issues because they are not going to make, most tweeted. Most viewed, whatever. So what do i do . I write about them and despite that. Some days it does not go up the list. There is a perverse look the , New York Times is going to have more of a lefty readership, and the New York Times online will have more of a young and left readership. Just by its nature. If you were to write a progeorge w. Bush column, it is not good to make the list, baby. It is not going to get near. In the way you would a proobama one. Dan rather sitting here a couple of years ago said that in his judgment what rules ina newsroom these day is fear. He was talking about the consequences of 9 11, and the way in which journalism covers these events. You have introduced the cause of because of my question, you have introduced an element now having to do with the new way in which journalism has to be mindful of the new technology. Right. Does the new technology, in your view, pervert or force you into places you would not want to be dealing with stories that you would not want to deal with . Simply in order to get the ratings boost . Um, i think it is an important question to be asking. I cannot give you a specific example right now, but what i can tell you is that you sit where i sit, it is just incredibly noisy now. And um, you know, i find that more and more, im shrinking my aperture. I got to filter out a lot of stuff. You are constantly being written about, basically. If you take too much of that in, it is really paralyzing and i start to write for you, and that is really. Dangerous i think this applies to young journalist, old journalist. I remember my daughter was in college, and she called me one day, there is an issue on campus that had disturbed her. And i said, honey, why dont you blog about it . In the campus newspaper. And she said no, everyone will blog about me. It really stuck in my mind. And so, to now be, i think a columnist at a place like the New York Times, wall street journal, you need a thick skin, but you have to keep your balance. But it is also immediate and it comes at you so you really have to keep your balance, i find. If you could imagine yourself being a very important politician for example responsible for making decisions affecting all of us, the question that the feedback loop is so fast now. And so immediate. People tracking, twitter. I stay away from that stuff because i do not want to get knocked off my game. But that has to affect, if you are a politician, the way in which you think about voters, getting votes, saying certain things to attract certain constituencies. Have you in your coverage, so i am putting you as a journalist going to be hard for you to duck it please. Have you met a president since you have been doing these Opinion Pieces who is a great man . Um, you know, thats i think all the president s i have covered have had moments of greatness and a lot of moments of not greatness. But i have a lot of affection, this may come as a surprise, i dont know, for george bush, the elder, the father, who i covered as a reporter. I was the Diplomatic Correspondent for the times at the time. And the reason i have such Great Respect for him has to do with a very specific achievement that i think he forged that he was central in that so affected everyone that he has never quite gotten credit for. He brought the end of the cold war two germanies. The unification of germany and he brought the soviet union for a soft landing, and other than the one incident did he do that or gorbachev . He, gorbachev, that whole generation i think was amazing. He, margaret thatcher, gorbachev. But he was there and had it not gone well, he wouldve gotten the blame. And i think his role in that, the decisions he made were really, helped pave the way for the world that came afterward. Are you optimistic maybe that is not quite the right word are you positive in your feeling that the current generation a political leader in this country can cope with the dimension of challenge now facing Political Leadership . It is funny. I was just in israel and i was thinking about that issue. There. Can the leadership there handle the lift. I begin to wonder. You raise a very important question. First of all, i know how noisy it is if youre just writing a column for the New York Times. I cannot imagine how noisy it is for the president of the United States. Just all of the stuff coming in now. Someone checking twitter and facebook in the evening in the morning news and cable tv. And so i think that is a real problem. And i also think that the complexity of the problems you have to deal with. Think of you and your brother wrote an amazing biography of Henry Kissinger. Lets think of Henry Kissinger 19731974. He goes to the middle east to forge the first real peace agreement, disengagement agreement between egypt, israel, and syria. In egypt, he negotiates with one egyptian pharaoh named sadat, in syria, negotiates with a syrian dictator, and it is really and israel he negotiates with the Prime Minister golda maier whose majority in the knesset was so big no one had ever heard of the likud party. Lets Flash Forward now. You are john kerry. In syria, who do you negotiate with . Theres anybody who answers the phone that comes off the wall, basically. In israel, you have a kind of minority majority coalition. Netanyahu is certainly an power, but it is a really complicated set of partners. By 6 00,n common he will end his political life. Hop over to egypt, it was the generals and morsi, and a general again. Think of what a difficult time this is. I also have enormous sympathy for anyone in these jobs. You mentioned before your most recent book which is called that used to be us. Here i want to ask you about whether im right in my belief in my many years of radio that reading you that you are a very optimistic and deeply patriotic person, and yet in this book, the title as well as part of it are profoundly pessimistic. You seem to be suggesting that we are at a tipping point, and if something goes wrong, were going to be up the creek without a paddle. What happened to your optimism . So, you know, let me start with where it came from and where it might have gone. So i grew up in minnesota, in the 1950s, at a time in a place where politics the year i graduated high school, the then governor anderson was on the cover of Time Magazine holding up a walleye, holding in the headline. The state that works. Senators mondale, mccartney and humphrey. I grew up in a very liberal district i grew up in this place , where myself, the cohen brothers, al franken grew up at in the same suburb at roughly the same time. Our congressmen were liberal republicans. The companies in minnesota, 3m, Dayton Hudson thought it was their obligation to build a theater. They invented corporate social responsibility. It was not a diverse place. We had one africanamerican person in my high school. I do not want to suggest it was a perfect or a snapshot of america, but i grew up in a place where politics seem to work and solve problems, and that really formed, that was really a formative thing i am always looking for minnesota in some way in my journalism. But then i had gone off, to the middle east and obviously, that , saw some horrific things saw some horrific things in beirut and jerusalem and i covered the massacre in syria. But i have never lost that sense. One of the things that journalists have lost, a bright dividing line today sometimes, some journalists, is the line between skepticism and cynicism. You know, the skeptics i dont know. I want to check it out. I will not take anyones word for it, but i want to report it out. Show me. A cynic says, i already know who you are. One of the things that worries me is i did a call about this column about this once where i came back. I was hired by upi, and spent two years in beirut. And the times hired me in the business section. There was a reporter in the business section at that time. Nathaniel was a wonderful, looks like a choir boy and he was a bornagain christian and he loved to hear about the whole event. The holy land. So we did have lunch and talk to him about israel. When i went off to beirut for the times, he said, i am going to pray for your safety. I said, i will appreciate that. Two years later after i got out of beirut alive, he was one of the first people i called. I said, thank you. It was, i thought you were my good luck charm. And Nathaniel Nash was on ron browns airplane when it slammed into a mountain in bosnia and he died in that crash. In my mind, because he was such he was someone who taught me the difference between skepticism and cynicism and i kept that in my mind. We have got about a minute left, and i want to know whether deep down you are an optimistic about america now. Deep down i feel this that i think the most Important National foreignpolicy issue global issue in the world is the health and vitality of this country. If we go dark as a country go dark . If we are pessimistic, if we cannot emulate these values were we started freedom, opportunity, pluralism your kids will grow up in a fundamentally different world. That is why i invest so much of my time in writing about america, because i do believe it is the most amazing country in the world and the world will be a very different place if we cannot be all we need to be. I am really sorry that our time was up because i would like to continue with that saying but theme, but we have run out of time. And i want to thank our audience first and i want to thank our audience around the nation and the world by way of the internet and webs and all of that, and most important, our guest New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for sharing his thoughts, his insights about big questions. I am very grateful to you. That is it for now. I am marvin kalb. As ed morrow used to say good , night and good luck. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] we now have about 15 or 20 minutes, and we can, that is to say you can, ask tom questions and what i would like to do is suggest you come up front where there are two people with microphones, and your voice will be heard if you come right up here to the microphone. Please identify yourself. Let us know what youre associated with, university or whatever, and please ask a question and not make a speech. I am a retired navy captain, and thanks for all of the great work you do and mr. Kalb, thanks for putting this on tonight. First, i have a book from Paul Brinkley oh, good. I have a two part question. How would you rate the trust factor of america in the world right now . And two, since we are in the press club, how does the interNational Press look to the American Press and what is your assessment of that . Is are very fair question and a big question. It is hard for me to generalize about how the whole world, how much it trust us are not. Or not. If you are saudi arabia right now and your fear is that we are going to make up with iran, you do not trust us very much. If you are, if you are japan, and you are worried about china, maybe you trust us a lot because you have to. It would be really hard to generalize. But i kind of know what is behind your question and on balance, you know, the trust level, if weve got to quantify i think it is going down, not up. The second question was . The interNational Press and how they look at the American Press again, i think it really is, it really depends. And i think it depends the country, the newspaper, the tv outlet, the radio, the specific journalist i would be reluctant to generalize. There is interNational Press here. You should ask them. Thank you for that question. Yes, please . Hi, green connections. One of the issues your name . I did. Joan michelson. One of the issues is energy and Energy Security. You mention it in your book and obviously Energy Security and independence is critical to the future of this country being its potential and the freedomto and the freedom from. And we have stories like the clean tech crash from 60 minutes, and we have other journalism that is sometimes covering it and sometimes not, what is your assessment of the coverage, what are we missing, and can you give us your take on this component of the issue what are we missing . I have not looked at all the coverage and i am not going to make, i would not want to make a grand sweep on the coverage per se. I think it is a hugely important issue, and i think 60 minutes did that story and the next week google bought an amazing clean tech company. For over 3 billion. People really have to be careful about, i think, generalizing about some of these things. So i spent a lot of time covering climate, water, energy issues. I think it is hugely important. It is also from a journalistic point of view really interesting. You have given me a chance to make a plug that i just completed a documentary with showtime. Years of living dangerously. It begins on april 13. And i did the one on climate and environmental stresses and the arab spring, showing how underlying the arab uprising were a lot of climate, water and environmental stresses. They did not cause it but they contributed. Harrison ford did deforestation in indonesia. Arnold schwarzenegger did forest fires. Matt damon the water issue. It is an amazing series, and we hope it will be something that helps rekindle interest and debate on this. Coming over here, i mentioned to marvin at dinner, i had to start with 60 degrees in sochi today. In the winter olympics. That is why i always use the term i never use the term global warming. I try not to, because that sounds so, so cuddly. Global warming. It sounds like golf in february to me. I much prefer global weirding. What actually happens is the weather gets weird. You get two feet of snow in new york and 60 degrees in sochi. The hots get hotter and the dries get dryer. You see what is happening in california. That is what climate scientists predict will unfold. I am going to ask you to give answers that are little brief because we have got so many people. Just please. Yes, please. Thank you very much. Bryan bender with the boston globe. Um, since we are talking about freedom, i would be interested in your take on this. A lot of freedom post 9 11 was couched in terms of spreading freedom by military force. Im curious your take on the Lessons Learned of the post9 11 approach to spreading freedom. What did we do wrong . Where are we now, and what can we do to maybe improve that trust which is obviously down in part because of that reaction . Hard to give a short answer to that very valid and important question. So many things went wrong in iraq and afghanistan. Hard to know where to start. The first was obviously, one of the things i think most went wrong in iraq, which you can understand now. You are talking to someone who really wanted that war to work, who believed in the opportunity and necessity of trying to build an island of freedom in that part of the world is that if you look at the arab spring today, which ones have succeeded and which one not, and your question deserves a long answer but i will just give you this part of it. There is one common denominator that tunisia and yemen have and that is the principle of no victor, no vanquished. Somehow everyone has to be included, including the ancien regime. What we did in iraq, not only decapitate saddam hussein. We also had to deal with the baathists. We fired the whole army. We came in and created a victor and vanquished. Which is exactly the wrong principle and exactly why those arab springs that are failing is because of that, because the sunnis in iraq think they can have it all without a la whites and shiites or sunnis in iraq think they can have it all without the other i was thinking about syria in the first. That was the biggest mistake of all. Thank you. Yes, please . A former white house foreignpolicy adviser. I want to ask you about the current israelipalestinian discussions that are going on, and do you feel optimistic that they will be a final resolution to this debate that has been going on for decades . So, um, i am, im more optimistic than i have been in a while. And that means i think the chances are 50 50. You know, so that is what optimism really constitutes today. On the one hand, when i was just there last week, i just dont see how this current leadership on both sides can make the big lift, the huge concessions they have to make in order for a deal to be forged. And on the other hand, i do not see how they do not do it, because if what is really at stake to put into the context of middle east diplomacy, i truly believe, and there had to be at some point, i do believe that the kerry mission will tell us whether the two state solution is still possible. And if, john kerry, i believe, is the last train. And the next train is the one coming out them. At them. Ok, thanks, tom. Yes, please . Hi. Im working at brookings. I wanted to circle back to the freedom and freedom of the press. I did my graduate work in europe and ireland specifically, and i found that the News Coverage of the irish times was fairly different than the what we would get here. When i spoke to my peers about it they said, your press is so sensitive. Censored. My question about it is do you put any stock in that snap judgment or do you think it is more of an audience issue or just what we care about . I always try to avoid gross generalizations like our press is censored. I have heard that. I went to graduate school in england. I know what it is like to look at america from the outside in. All i can tell you is you know, like i served in beirut with a lot of european and american correspondence, and we covered those stories very differently. And i dont think there is anything i really disagreed sometimes with some take they might have. You know, you pick up the typical european prep on israel, press on israel, for instance. It is just the baseline starts at a much higher level of hostility, not just skepticism, frankly. And so they might say, well, you are censored in america. We might say that you start out with a bias. That is why like to read papers from all over the world and i like to see everybodys perspective, but i cannot pass judgment on whos censored and who is just coming at it totally straight. Thank you, tom. Yes, please. I am currently with cctv america. My question for you is about reconciling freedom. As an ideology and freedom in practice because when you look at freedom on an International Scale it is very different from what is written in the First Amendment in america. People respect freedom so much, then someone wouldve intervened in the onset of the rwanda genocide and if you look at the in theies of jscoc middle east and afghanistan and the night raids and killing of asocent people how do you a journalist reconcile that . One of the problems he always have in this job is people when you are a journalist as bad things happen all over the world all the time. And because bad things are happening, it doesnt always tell you what you should do. So, for instance, you might say, we should have intervened in rwanda. A lot of people said that at the time. I was a reporter but did not have a column. But what we already learned from some of our interventions already like and afghanistan, maybe we dont know what we are doing and sometimes intervention that gets you through day one, you stop people from doing bad things, but i think what we whole middlethe east experience is we can stop people from doing bad things but we cant always make them in fact, we rarely rarely can make them and in fact maybe we can never make them do good things. So, once you get done stopping people from doing bad things, which we did in libya, for instance, we thought what we thought was going to be a massacre in benghazi, but then we didnt go in and we could not make people do good things and they then started fighting amongst themselves. All i can tell you is my take away over the last 10 years is a lot more humility about these things, too, and if you will the ns, you better will the mea and back of the a longterm presence and good lead to a downside. Thanks. Yes, please. Thank you. Get a graduate degree at gw in international affairs. You mention your high regard for president bush and his work in international the older. Bush the elder. You also mentioned secretary is unders work in the middle east but looking at bush the elder does the high regard in the best respect also extend to the secretary of state jim baker . I covered jim baker. I was the diplomatic responded so i had very high regard for the job he did as secretary of state. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, please. Lick a list nicholas, undergraduate at gw and great admirer of your column and the writing in the kalb report. I was here in a session where ted koppel talked about the state of news. I read the New York Times a andand ive read al jazeera bbc to avoid news written by cynics and people writing watching their readership and writing for that group. How do you feel about how that like fox news we will do just one question. All i can tell you is one of the site i go to people often ask me, what do you read . I get up in the morning and of course i read the New York Times first, i read the Washington Post quotes Washington Post and the wall street journal and the financial times. But i also enjoy a real clear politics because it gives me a really wide range, and international opinion. Kind of a onestop shop of some al jazeera, beirut daily star. Piegel. R s i am a news junkie and that i am an opinion news junkie and i love reading a wide range of opinion. Every once in a while i dont have time and i am not going to do it as a habit because you have to do a lot of preparation, but al jazeera asked me last year to be on the head to head debate show filmed at the oxford union debating society. Tough, challenging debater. And the issue of debate was, is america a force for good in the world, and i took the affirmative. On al jazeera at the oxford union debating society. Now, i do that just to test myself. And i think it is really important when you sit where i sit to give people a shot at you every once in a while. Nothing like bush and cheney never did. Their idea of a public event go to the Heritage Foundation and have no questions. So it is not something i am going to do all the time, but i believe from time to time you should do that. Just have time, i think, for two questions. I want you to know that. Go ahead, please. James tyson, brookings. I mentioned early on a quote, something along the lines of those who give up their freedom to preserve the security deserve neither. One of the introducers. Anyhow. I wanted to get your take on that. I feel it is something Freedom Freedom is something we have given up in favor of security and i am wondering whether you believe there is any way, and if there is, what way people might be convinced to give up their security to preserve values . It is a very important question and all i can do is go back to what i said. My overwhelming reaction to the whole snowden affair is two things. This was inevitable and it is helpful that we have the discussion. If you see where technology is going now, it is a the world getss hyper connected so much faster than human beings can adapt and adjust. But at the same time, i think you have to be aware. Going back to why i am seeing golf swing ads in haaretz, people are voluntarily giving up or in my case not voluntarily giving up freedom and information that is being used and crammed at me. I think we have to have a very big discussion at about this. Last question. A bill clifford with the World Affairs council of america. You mention your concern if america goes dark. I would like you to assess the American Education system and how good it does a job of keeping the lights on, creating globally minded citizens, what will be the project prescription for doing a better job . That is not a question. That is a whole new kalb report. I do write about this occasionally. By the international we have work to do. I write about education a lot. I am not an educator. I just play one on tv. I am actually interested in american power, which got me interested in economics, got me interested in him industry and jobs and education. So i kind of backed into it. Say that i think we have a lot of work to do. No question about it. I think the single most important issue in my view is parenting. That parents who instill a love of learning in their kids to and hold them to high expectations. And Everything Else teacher at reform, technology, is third, fourth, and fifth as far as im concerned. And saying one things, first of all. These are great questions. I dodged as many as i could. [laughter] andthis issue of pessimism optimism has runthroughs i will leave you with a story. Fairly run in haaretz regularly and eight or nine years ago i was in israel having dinner with the editor of the paper and a said to him, why do you read my column . And he said, tom, you are the only optimist we have. I was getting up to go to the dinner table and an israeli general was at my side and he said, i know what you are an optimist. I said, why . Because youre short. I said, short . He said, you can only see that part of the glass that is half full. The truth is, i am not so short but i am still in him to miss. Thank you. Thank you all very, very much for coming. Thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] carefully going home to we have one more program to go before our season is over. The whole new www. Cspan. Org website is now mobile friendly. That means you can access our comprehensive coverage of politics, nonfiction books, and American History where you want, when you want, and how you want. Our new sites responsive design scales to fit any of your screens, from the monitor of your desktop, to your laptop, tablet, or smartphone, whether you are at home, at the office, or on the go. You can now watch cspans live coverage of washington to check our Program Schedule or search our extensive Video Library whenever and wherever you want. The news www. Cspan. Org makes it easy for you to keep an eye on what is happening in washington. Washington journal begins in a moment. Takek at todays news and your calls. You can also join the conversation on facebook and twitter. This afternoon, Energy Secretary will be at the National Press club talking about Domestic Energy supplies. That is live at 1 00 p. M. Eastern. At 2 00 p. M. , a Panel Discussion on Cyber Security infrastructure from the brookings institution. And this evening, a debate on evolution versus creationism at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. And coming up this hour, Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and robert scott of the Economic Policy institute discuss the impact of nafta. Then Michael Hirsh of National Journal on the economic recovery act five years after implementation. Later, special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction john sopko talks about concerns over u. S. Funds given directly to the afghan government. Host good morning. President obama travels to mexico city to meet with that countrys president as well as the canadian Prime Minister. In advance, a wider deal with pacific rim nations. We will talk about nafta in the program. We will get your take on the Washington Post reporting that the u. S. Is behind the scenes contemplating tops of the taliban and in taliban in afghanistan. In exchange,