her on the communicators. thank you. guest: thank you. next, we continue our first lady programming with jacqueline kennedy. barbara perry, former judicial fellow at the u.s. supreme court, recounts the transformative effect mrs. kennedy had on the office of the first lady from her renowned celebrity to her engagement in the arts and the championing of cultural institutions. this is about an hour. thank you, don, so much for putting this series together, for that very nice introduction. thank you, too, to mary and flesh shah as well. don and i were chatting just beforehand that it s especially appropriate to talk about jacqueline kennedy at a historical society such as this because it was jacqueline kennedy who kicked off the movement to have historical societies for our branches of government. so it was the white house that had the very first historical society founded by mrs. kennedy in 1961, and then the capitol historical society, don tells me, followed just one y
this moment is all the sweeter due to the let s call them district administrative obstacles [laughter] that threaten to derail these efforts during the last eight months of planning. we nearly had to concede defeat and cancel the program when told last thursday that it was a felony to work or even volunteer our time during a federal government shutdown. happily, that situation was averted, so if you re happy and you know it, clap your hands. [applause] before i introduce our guest, i d like to highlight some individuals and share a few details to help the evening go smoothly. a huge thanks to branch manager nicholas and his tireless staff for all their energy in preparing for this night. i m grateful to my colleagues in the communications department, particularly joy mex a at the helm, martha who seems to know just who to call for any problem, george williams, and our experts, eric white and maurice smith. we couldn t have hosted this without our wonderful security folks an
all right. welcome to american morning, wednesday, april 13th. ali has the morning off. a lot of news we re following today. good to see you. you too. up first your money and probably the next generation s money as well. president obama laying out his plan to try to tackle massive mounting deficits and the national debt. he s going to be speaking today about it. dan lothian live at the white house for us. dan, the president s plan is expected to include changes to programs like medicare and medicaid. that s always risky in an election year. that s right. as you point out especially risky looking ahead to the 2012 elections as the president is trying to court those independent voters. he will be making what is a critical speech. what the white house is saying he ll be laying out a vision for this future fiscal responsibility. they re, no doubt, going to face some hits from both sides, both republicans and democrats, are offering some criticism ahead of the presid