can t because there s no money and all the money has gone to this darn war. and you know what? i have some stuff to say about that war. and thus, he started reading the pentagon papers out loud. and there were journalists on scene who had seen what he was trying do on the senate floor, they followed him across the street to see what he was going to try to do in his little subcommittee. nobody knew how this would end up. have your legal experts told you you re safe from prosecution or injunction as long as you read these in your function as a subcommittee chairman? that s a question yet to be decided. senator, do you have any hopes of this what they have told me is that s a question yet to be decided. that there is some possibility you could be enjoined legally yes. but mike gravel with all that uncertainty nevertheless read. he read for hours. he intended to read a lot longer than he did but about four hours into it, he became so exhausted
and part of his strategy was to get these pentagon documents to newspapers who were starting to publish them piece by piece. but as they were publishing them piece by piece they kept fighting it out and agely with each new bit of publication, in terms of each new paper in terms of injunctions and threats from the administration. but newspapers were not the only avenue that daniel ellsberg chose for releasing these documents from thing. . he also went to a number of members of congress under the idea that the speech and debate clause in the constitution might allow a sympathetic member of congress to get the pentagon papers into the public record by getting them into the congressional record, where constitutionally they probably couldn t be censored. and the american people could therefore read them. now, lots of higher-profile members of the u.s. senate reportedly turned down daniel ellsberg when he came to them with this idea 37. but mike gravel was this young guy, 41 years old freshm
look on his face and swallows a few times, smacks his lips. not like he s fixing you. sometimes you hear road noise, somebody walks by. there is action. you fast forward to 1:11 in the ad and the only thing he s done is stair in the camera but turns, walks a few steps, he goes up and picks up a big rock, he carries the big rock over to the edge of the lake and woop, boom. and then the ad keeps going for a long time thereafter. the rock hits the water at 90 seconds in and for a whole minute and a half, it s mike gravel walking away. three-minute ad. he ran for president in 2008. a weird cat. not like he didn t know ads like that were weird. he turned out to be a lot of fun in debates when he could get himself into debates but never really broke through as a presidential candidate. what his candidacy did do is
that ability for the state to have access to these federal funds. now that may not be the hallmark of what would be important in california or new york, who of course subsidize these great sums to the people of alaska. well, again, our sympathies go out to all who knew him and certainly to his family. senat senator gravel, thank you for joining us. the house just passed that $26 billion measure to save the jobs of some 160,000 teachers and other municipal workers like police officers and firemen. the final vote, 247 to 161. joining us now democratic congresswoman from texas sheila jackson lee. thank you for joining us congresswoman and your reaction
in debates when he could get himself into debates but never really broke through as a presidential candidate. what his candidacy did do in 2008 is remind everybody there is a guy in this country named mike gravel who once upon a time had a pretty phenomenal and interesting career in u.s. politics. in 1968 mike gravel was elected as a democratic senator from the state of alaska. he was sworn in 1969. and when you are a first-term senator yes, being a senator s a very prestigious job but when you re just starting out you don t get very prestigious assignments. so for mike gravel when he was a freshman senator the one thing he actually got to be in charge of in the senate, even with his party running the senate and so they re in the majority, they get all the chairmanships and everything, the one thing in the senate they put him in charge of was a subcommittee on buildings and grounds within the public works committee. it might not have been much but it was the one thing they let him run.