ceremony. this program contains language some may find offensive. ladies and gentlemen, andy borowitz. [applause] thank you very much, and ladies and gentlemen before we begin, let s have a warm round of applause for all the nominees for the 2009 national book award. we can do much better than that. [applause] i believe it was george bernard who wrote what a cluster, and i believe that sums up very well. ladies and gentlemen, i have got to tell you when i first heard the national book awards wanted me to host this evening i was like i would be so honored i would like do it for free, and it turned out they had the exact same idea. [laughter] but i think that is in the spirit of the evening because that is what publishing is all about. [laughter] a lot of hard work and then nothing. so let s hear it for publishing. we are all on this sinking ship together. yes. [applause] now i have to confess and this is true that when the letter came in the mail that said nationa
.. because, they don t really understand. not all of the congressman understood, or congress people, understand. we have as a country, we haven t really run our own ports in decades, so with the dubai port so nothing really changes on the surface. and really nothing changes on the surface is the democratic congress and the better? the democratic congress is not likely to be any different from the republican controlled congress. i don t even think they were going to be as effective. i was going to say there s a tendency for protectionism. absolutely which makes absolutely no sense but also for years democrats, in fact let me describe it, when bush, when w was elected the democrats went mad. because they lost their minds. yeah they did. for years there was this passionate hatred. i know and the motion was so intense. absolutely. in distorted a lot of judgment. i mean some good things that he did were kind of on. now that they are in power, what we are seei
right? and horace clarke to name just a few. it is a terrific read. so james parton once wrote of the young thomas jefferson that along with his command of five foreign languages he could calculate an eclipse, a survey an estate, tie an artery, plan and the state, break a horse, dance and minuet, and play the violin. in the same vein one could say that cornelius vanderbilt. design a steamship, sail it over an open ocean, open a shipping line, consolidated rail road, .. thank you amiri mattis debt including the minister of department ramallah was who are here so i just love it to make that very important thank you. that that difference, the transition is visible than the bell s levin one thing that point out vanderbilt himself with those pioneering paving than the way toward corporate future and also in some ways a representative of an older business world. with the merchant friends of the medichi mold as i put it, and by creating this huge corporation the new york central hud