>> thank you for the briefing. can you please explain to us the psychological impact that the alleged chemical weapons attack has had on the syrian population and also on humanitarian workers who are trying to get their work done? >> well, i can only speak from what i have been told from the staff that i have spoken to. people feel very uncertain. in terms of the people i have spoken to, they continue to express concerns to me that the international community has abandoned them and that they would like to see actions, that they would like to see the international community come together and agree on action which would lead to a political solution inside of syria. it is very hard for me to speak about the psychology, but i can say that people remain fearful, and a lot of people are just fearful because the future remains so uncertain. >> i know you have a number of things on your schedule. do you have time for one or two more questions? there are still a few hands up. >> i've about two minutes, so if i take two questions together? >> two questions together. >> my question is regarding the influx towards turkey. 6.6 million seniors pay less for prescription drugs as the law begins to close the so-called donut hole in the medicare program. 105 million americans have seen the limits, the lifetime limits on their insurance coverage abolished and preventive care is less costly for them. 17 million children with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage or charged higher rates for it. almost 26 million women and almost 26 million men -- 27 women and 26 million men have been extended preventive benefits with no cost sharing including mammograms, colorectal treating, cholesterol and blood pressure tests, stop smoking programs, and regular child visits. 12 million people have received rebates from insurance companies because companies must now spend 80 to 85% of your premiums on your health care. not keep them for profits and promotions. this has also been a major factor in keeping rates lower than they would have otherwise been and slowing the rate of increase. total savings from rebates and lower insurance have been estimated to have been $3.9 billion. what does this mean for arkansas where nearly 500,000 people are uninsured, including about 25% of our working age people? well, 865,000 people no longer have lifetime limits, more than 32,000 seniors have seen a reduction in their drug costs, 35,000 young people are now covered on their parents' plans, more than 1 million people are eligible for preventive services, and more than 120,000 arkansasens have received about $3.r5 million in rebates from their insurance policy. now what? what's next? in january, insurance companies in the individual and small group markets will no longer be able to charge higher rates or deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. this affects a lot more people than you think. it is estimated that 129 million americans under age 65, roughly one in two of us, are at risk because of preexisting conditions and therefore pay some higher insurance rates. but let's be realistic. people who pay or can't get coverage at all are a much smaller percentage of that. but there are still a good number and i'll bet everybody in this audience knows somebody with a severe preexisting condition that makes them uninsureable or increase their rates. so after january, this group and the most severe conditions are concentrated in the people age 50-64, all those irresponsible young people. it's amazing what you can get away with saying when you're 67. anyway, they're concentrated there. they can't be charged higher rates. which is an opportunity and a challenge. i'll talk more about that in a minute. also, women can no longer be charged higher rates than men, which was a common practice before. and 8.7 million of them with individual coverage will have maternity services for the first time. now, what about the uninsured? how are they going to get insurance? how will it be more affordable? how will it affect small business? currently, more than 41 million americans, mostly low and moderate income americans, have no health insurance. roughly 22-1/2 million men and 18-1/2 million women. the racial breakdown is something like this. there are a little over 10 million latinos, nearly 7 million african americans, about 13 million whites, and the rest are native americans, asians, pacific islanders. included here are 1.3 million american veterans not currently enrolled in the v.a. what about them? ople with incomes up to 138% ,000 poverty line, $18 for individuals, will receive support for their coverage through medicaid payments to the state -- and i'll come back to what arkansas did in a minute. people with incomes between 138% of the poverty line and 400% of the federal poverty line will be eligible for tax credits for individual and family policies on a sliding scale, the lower your income, the higher your credit. here's how it works. on an uninsured person can log on to a national site, health care.gov, or a state site, and shop for the most affordable and appropriate policy. the prices, which includes the discount for the tax credit, will be shown. and when a policy is ordered, the tax credit will actually be automatically be sent by the government to the insuror so there's no other hassle for the person who is buying the insurance. you just pay what the computer screen says you owe. to get this done, you do have to sign up. on the state or federal web site or at a designated call center, between october 1 and march 31. that's what is about to happen, that's what all the folks have been concerned about. the toll free national number 567 and the 21 website is health care.gov. look how arkansas is handling this. currently, there's a massive education and outreach program to the half million people who don't is have insurance. about half of them are at or below 138% of the federal poverty level. they are eligible for arkansas' unique private option plan. this was a bipartisan initiative led by the governor, supports by the leaders of the house and senate, and other republicans, to replace traditional medicaid expansion with a plan to use the federal dollars to help eligible arkansasens to buy private insurance through the arkansas marketplace. ensuring lower income working families will help not only them but as anybody who has ever worked in a hospital or been on a hospital board knows, it will dramatically reduce the burden of unexo compensated care to health care providers. that burden was $338 million in arkansas in 2010. today, that burden all over america is just normally shifted as a matter of requirement to people who have insurance, which means it's kind of a hidden tax. you pay higher insurance rates to pay for the uncompensated care that your health care providers are giving to people that they can't bear to turn away. nobody wants to turn them away, but they ought to be reimbursed in a more direct and fair fashion. now, whether or not you agree with the affordable care act, arkansas' citizens are going to pay for it just like citizens of every other state. so in decide wlg you support the fact that this private option is set up and will later have to be funded by the legislator i think in february, you should consider what turning back the money means. and keep in mind, some states have done this. but as the governor said to me, this doesn't make any more sense than turning back federal highway funds. we pay federal gas tax. how would you feel if somebody gave a speech saying, i don't really like some of the requirements that the federal highway administration puts on us when we take this federal money. so why don't we just not take t and send our money to texas? you would think if somebody said that they were three bricks shy of a full load. it doesn't make any sense for us to do that. and it will aggravate the burden of uncompensated care substantially. now, by 2015, small businesses with more than 50 employees also have to provide insurance for their employees or face paying a penalty. without this private option, a lot of our small businesses, most of whom have far fewer than 50 employees, but the ones that are covered without this private option, they couldn't afford to provide insurance. and there's a bunch of people with fewer than 50 employees that would like to provide insurance and without the private option there is no way in the wide world they could do this. a real boon. but there's something else. if you've got more than 50 employees, you've got to pay a penalty in 2015 if you don't provide the health care. the aggregate cost of those small business penalties is $38 million. is that right? that's what i thought. i think i remembered that. that's like a $38 million small business tax if you don't embrace the private option. so my view is that arkansas did a good thing, a bipartisan thing, a practical thing. it will help a lot of people and the rest of us ought to get behind them and help them to stay with the program. now, what about people who who are uninsured who won't be covered by the private option because their incomes are above the poverty line? if they're between 138% and 400%, they can go to the national website, health care.gov, or the state site called rar health connector.org, and there's a phone number for people who don't have a computer. 8552834483, and you just shop for the best valued policies. the buyers are eligible for tax credits, which will be reported automatically to insurers once they make a decision, as i just said, to simplify the selection process individual and family options are organized by categories. bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. it's like the olympics. the bronze prices policies have the lowest costs and the least coverage. silver is next, then gold. and platinum has the highest cost and the most coverage. there's also, for young buyers who are just over 26, a special catastrophic option. but it's not eligible for the tax credit. so most young buyers would be better off picking a bronze option and picking a tax credit. it will probably prove out to be cheaper than the catastrophic option. what about small businesses? although businesses with 50 or more employees aren't required to cover their employees until 2015, they can do so because they'll have their own market place called shop, small business health insurance options. or if they already offer insurance, they can just keep their present plans. there are tax credits for small business based on average wages, which go up to 35% this year and up to 50% next year. but beginning next year, it's only for those who participate in the marketplace. and that's something i think that congress needs to reevaluate, as well as the size of the crets. i'll say more about that later. now, if you put all these people in coverage, won't it drive up the price of health care? so far, given the significant improvements that have already been implemented that i mentioned earlier, the answer is no. for the last three years, the average increase in national health care spending and in health care spending here in arkansas has hovered around 4%. that's the smallest increase in 50 years. due at the it was beginning of the three-year period, the hangover from the financial crash in 2008. but not any more. there are other things going on. the medicaid and medicare costs, for example, are going up at less than economic growth. and the governor told me the last time that happened was in 1988. that was in the dark ages when i was governor. so i think this is important to note. there is something going on here we are learning how to lower the inflation rate. for most of the last decade, the medical inflation rate was three times the overall rate of inflation. and that's how we got this huge p of spending 17.9% of our income on health care and nobody else is higher than 12. so i think there's something going on here there's also something else you should know. there is one lifetime limit which was put into this law which i like. under the new law, there is a limit on the percentage of income any person can be required to pay for insurance premiums in any given year. t goes from 9.5% for people at 0% of the poverty level or 400% of the poverty level, down o 2% for those at 100 to 133%. and that's really important. now, can this be continued? can we continue to hold these costs down? the answer to that is i think yes, but. yes, but only if we keep working together to cut unnecessary costs. a recent rand corporation study pegged unnecessary medical costs at a whopping $700 billion a year, about 30% of total spending. how are we going to do this? well, there are some impressive efforts already under way. the accountable care organizations which are cropping up all over the country as a result of attempts to come to grips with health care reform are basically proving it is possible to lower costs and improve care by base ing reimbursements on the quality of health care outcomes, not on the number of procedures performed. competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, the reduction of medical errors that the rise in the electronic medical records has spawned. new strategies to reduce readmissions to hospitals. all these things are making a difference. blood stream infections, one of the most common medical errors, are down 40% since 2008. increased sterlization requirements, which is a high-toned way of saying you've got to wash your hands than n more places than the hospital, are reducing infections all across america. in the past year, hospital readmissions under medicare lone are down 70,000 people. also in the past year, finally the national government began to publish comparative costs and outcome data. pennsylvania has been doing this for years. i read the report every year. here's what it shows in pennsylvania. there is no relationship between what something costs and the outcome you get. the closest correlation -- and let's just take surgical procedures. the closest correlation between good outcomes and a given procedure is to not the price of it but how many of those procedures are performed at a given place every year. and we now have years and years of data in pennsylvania to upport this. pennsylvania also has an interesting certified but longstanding accountable care organization which has o hundreds and hundreds of doctors which started years ago getting all of its doctors to agree, whatever their ages, to adhere to a set of best medical practices contained in a mammoth book upgraded weekly by the group of best medical practices for any kind of procedure. and essentially, it operates opt premise that medicine is both an art and a science. let's start with the science and then move to the art. that is, if you're operating on somebody and they turned out to have a bad bleeding problem, you've got to deal with that. but first, be like a pilot in the airplane, follow the check list. if for any reason anybody under heir care is in a hospital and released has, has to return to the hospital within three to six months -- i can't remember which -- they pay 100% of the cost and your premiums, copays, and deductibles cannot be raised. guess what, their medical errors have dropped to nearly zero and their profit increased as a result. they didn't make less money, they made more money because they had a fixed income for enrollment in the program. arkansas is also leading the way in doing that. this is really exciting to me. getting all the payers in the health care system -- they now have about 95% of them -- employers, insurance companies, soon the governor set this morning to get medicare -- to episodes a flat rate which basically works this way. you do away with fee for service, and you reward performance. so if you get good results and you get them in a hurry, you're going to make a lot more money. and if you get bad results slowly, you will probably lose money. but the incentives are designed to lower the cost while improving the quality. and the reason it can be done, i believe, is because this is like what you did with the public health option. you got everybody in the room with -- you get all the employers, all the inshurors, the medicaid and medicare folks, you've got a pretty broad spectrum economically, socially, and politically, and you figure out how to make it work. i'm very excited about this and i think the state deserves a lot of credit for doing this as well. ok, so that's where we are. so you can say to me, come on, bill, there's got to be something wrong with this. anything that sounds too good to be true is. this is pretty good. so what are the known and potential problems? and what could still go wrong but hasn't yet but could? like any laws, that's this complex, there are some problems that i think will have to be addressed. first, the thing that bothers me the most which i hope was just a drafting error, workers with modest incomes, like say $20,000 to $35,000, who work for a company that insures only them and not their family members. still are required by the law to provide for their families. and if their family's uninsured, they have to pay a penalty. the problem is that under the law, because they have insurance at work, they can't send their families in to the arkansas exchange and get the tax credits. it's obviously not fair. and it's bad policy. but it's not clear to me, based on what i can determine, that anybody intended this. if this is the only unintended consequence of the law, they did a pretty good job. but this has got to be fixed and it's just not fair and so i think congress should fix it. secondly, small businesses with fewer than 50 people aren't required to provide insurance. but a lot of them would like to. have , many of them access to a tax credit, a different one, and many don't. this may surprise you. for example, if you have fewer than 50 employees, you can claim a tax credit for up to 25 of them. but if you have 35 you can claim a tax credit for 25 of them. if you have 43 you can claim a tax credit for 25 of them. this is obviously just a budgetary decision based on what the estimated insurance premiums would be and what the cost of the subsidies would be. but i believe that the current tax credit is too low. it sounds good, a 50% tax credit sounds like a lot. but if you read the fine print and how it's calculated, there are relatively few companies eligible for the 50% tax credit and then it begins like, as the average wage goes up the tax credit diminishes from 50% to something lower. and what i think that the congress ought to do and it ought to be possible to get bipartisan support for them, is to come in and basically make the tax credit avebling to more firms for more employees under the 50 employee limit and actually make it more generous to more firms so more will show up. there's way more individuals wanting to sign up for this individual market than small businesses signing up for the small business market because the tax credit system just doesn't work very well for small businesses now and it needs to be improved. thirdly, and this is the third big problem and it's a whopper. but this has to be fixed at the state level where it isn't being fixed. the supreme court ruling on the affordable health care act upheld the law but said the states had the right to refuse participate in taking the medicaid expansion money and to refuse to set up their own health exchange. the law said, which was passed obviously before the supreme court reviewed it, that the federal government would run an exchange if the states didn't. but they never dreamed that anybody would turn down the medicaid money. so amazingly, about half the states have comprising more than half the eligible people, big states like texas, florida, ohio and pennsylvania so far are rejecting the money. michigan voted a couple days ago to take it. they have a republican governor and republican legislator. but here's what's going to happen. in those states working people 138 and mes of between 400% will be able to buy insurance on the exchange with subsidies. whether the exchange is run by the state or the federal government. but lower income working families with incomes at 138% or less, some of them even below 100% of the poverty line, are eligible for nothing. so you get the worst of all worlds where you say, i'm sorry but you're too -- you're working 40 hours a week but you're too poor to get help, not too rich, too poor. and this is a serious problem. there's also going to be a big jump in uncompensated care especially in urban medical centers like houston, miami, cleveland and pittsburgh. these places have amazing medical centers and they treat everybody and do wonderful work, and they're going to get hurt on this. their taxpayers' money will be spent in other states. as the governor's gas tax analogy reminds us, their uncompensated care burdens will rise. that's why michigan, new mexico, nevada, arizona, iowa, new jersey, and north dakota, all with republican governors, and most with republican legislators, are taking the medicaid expansion money. because of the supreme court decision, this is a problem that only the states can fix. so they're going to have to think about this. now, we've also heard a lot of other things about potential problems in the law. let's go through some of them. a lot of folks are worried that not enough healthy young people will sign up who are now uninsured. why does that matter? because if you let the relatively small number of people with severe preexisting conditions buy insurance at the same price as everybody else, that will run everybody else's insurance policy up unless you get a whole bunch of healthy young people come in and at least buy those bronze policies, the limited policy, which will level out the risk pool for the insurance companies. so that's a legitimate -- even though i'm however old i am, i still remember what it's like to be 27 and i was convinced i would live never and i would never get a hang nail much less have a serious accident. but -- so there's a lot to worry about this. but a recent study by the commonwealth fund at least suggests that this may not happen. first, large numbers of young people age 26 and younger have already enrolled in their parents' plans. and interestingly enough, if i remember you guys i would promote this that says either these republicans are personal responsibility. there are more young republicans enrolled than young democrats. second, the assumption that young people don't buy insurance because they don't think they need it isn't backed up by the facts. most young people surveyed said they did want insurance but they didn't earn enough to afford it. the tax credits will allow a lot of them to afford at least one of the bronze plans. and i think if young people can afford the coverage they should buy it. and contribute to a wed well-funded system with lower rates if for no other reason than they will not always be young. it is both the right and the smart thing to do. second, a lot of people worry about the computer problems. i mean, think about it. you're going to have all these state and federal computers up and running for the enrollment that opens october 1 and runs through the end of march. i think it's remarkable what these states and federal officials have done to get the computer systems up and running. now, there may be glitches. but so far there's no evidence to suggest that they won't be able to be fixed quickly. i have really been impressed just by what i've seen from what's happening both here and round the country. third, there are people who thought that because of the small business requirement or the requirement to cover all employees who work 30 hours a week or more that there would be a lot of shifting of employees from full time to part time to avoid the 30-hour requirement for coverage. so far it hasn't happened. since 2010 -- listen to this. since 2010 when the law passed, 90% of the employment gains in america have been in full-time jobs. in massachusetts where the law governor romney signed works a lot like the affordable care act will work, there was no appreciable impact on job growth and percentage of part time workers or employers dropping coverage. so so far the direst predictions for the adverse consequences have not materialized and i don't believe they will. now, this law has already done a lot of good. it's about to make 95% of us inshured with access to affordable care. it has built-in incentives to lower costs and improve quality including lots of opportunities for states to innovate. and arkansas is exbt a. you should all be very proud of what your rebttives and your governor have done. we've got to do this, because i will say again the studies show that we are number one by a country mile in the percentage of our income we devote to health care costs and ranked no better than 25th to 33rd in the health care outcomes we get. this is the country that pine nired innovation in every other area of our national life. you cannot make me believe that we have to tolerate this from now until the end of eternity. i think we will become more competitive and healthier if we do this right. look at what the rand study says about arkansas. it estimates that by 2016 arkansas will have 400,000 more people with health insurance, 2300 fewer deaths a year just in our state. a 550 million increase in g.d.p. spurred by a $430 million net increase in federal investment, leading to 6200 new jobs. for sol, so many have worked to remove barriers to quality affordable health care. faith-based organizations, doctors groups, nurses groups, unions and businesses working gether, patient advocates, they've all worked to ensure that people had good solid coverage. and all these people have got a lot at stake here. they want to preserve what's best in our system as we make the changes we need to make. so here's the bottom line to me. it seems to me that the benefits of reform can't be fully realized and the problems certainly can't be solved unless both the supporters and the opponents of the original legislation work together to implement it and address the issues that arise whenever you change a system this complex. there are always drafting errors, unintended consequences, unanticipated issues. we're going to do better working together and learning together than we will trying over and over again to repeal he law or rooting for reform to fail. and refusing to fix relatively simple matters. i hope the congress will follow by lead of the examples set many, many republicans and democrats at the state level, and try to just do the best we can to implement this law, be up front and open about the problems that develop, and deal with them. we all get paid to show up to work. and we need all hands on deck here. the health of our people, the security and stability of our families, and the strength of ur economy are all riding on getting health care reform right and doing it well. that means we have to do it together. thank you very much. [applause] >> next, a preview of our season two of first ladies. then the situation in syria with samantha power. and later "washington journal" live with your calls, tweets, and e-mails. >> you have to be honest, exactly how you feel. and i feel very strongly that it was the best thing in the world when the supreme court voted to legalize abortion and in my words bring it out of the back woods and put it in the hospitals where it belongs. >> [inaudible] which i entered before my husband was in public life. >> somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the white house as the president's spouse. and i wish him well. >> the words of three of the 21st ladies we'll be exploring in the second season of the series. good evening and thanks for being with us. for the next hour we'll be doing a preview of season two. and joining us to set the stage for this interesting season we have ahead of us are two of our academic advisers for the series. i'm going to start i think with a recap of how we left things after season one. we started of course with the woman who set the stage for everyone with martha washington mckinley.to ida over that time, how did the role of first ladies change? >> first you have to look at how it remained the same. and that was the woman as the hostess for her hushes band and for the nation. i think the role grew to encompass imaging the white house, preserving the white house, sort of crafting an image for her husband's administration, and i think a growing recognition of the position of the united states in world affairs. so that by the time you get to caroline harrison, you have somebody whose looking to revamp the white house in a major way to make it a rezzdns that is worthy of the chief executive of a major power. >> what would you add? >> i would add, the clips we three the beginning, various distinct individuals who each filled this office and defined it, in some ways reshaped it to reflect their temperament but the biggest difference between i would say the 19th and 20th century is that those opinions matter. i mean, they were of the stuff of water cooler conversation the next day. and that in turn in some ways reflects the enormous impact of the media. the single biggest difference u i think is in the 20th century everyone realizes it is a job and there's a professionalization that has taken over. in the 19th century it was seen first and foremost in traditional domestic terms. and remember, the handful of irst ladies who publicly owned up to having a policy or political or advisory role, abigail adams, sara polk, tended to attract harsh public criticism. in the 20th century, the surprise would be if they didn't have a cause or a public profile beyond that of wife and mother. >> probably also worth noting, because we've been talking about the evolution of the american woman along the way. and as we start the 20th century, women in this country still can't vote. >> no, they can't vote. but they are very active in political affairs. in the sense that they go in to reform movements that have an impact on the community, on the home, the whole progressive reform movement brings women into politics in some very vital ways even though they can't vote. and part of what happens is that because they're brought into politics and into reform and into how can we get this law passed or changed or modified, that in turn increases the impetus for their involvement in the suff raj movement. >> in some ways thinking about the role of first lady, the paralevel would be they haven't served the president, they can't vote in the larger society. t there are ways in exerting influence continues to grow. > that remains a tight rope. first ladies today certainly have access to a larger audience than ever before, they sell more books than their husbands. as a rule, their popularity ratings tend to be higher because they're not seen as mired in the day-to-day partisan politics. so although they have become political assets in ways that perhaps was not the case. >> and politically powerful. >> -- in the 19th century, they are also carrying this. >> a double-edged sword. >> very much so. >> we're going to start with our current first lady michelle obama. we have a clip where she talks about her approaches to the world and we're going to watch it and come back and talk to you. >> but i think it's all an evolutionry process. you grow into this role. and my sense is that you never get comfortable if you are always pushing for change and growth, not just in yourself but in the issues that you care about. you're never done. so there's never a point in time where you feel like, there, i am now here and i can do this the same way all the time. it's always changing. the changes given the state of the issues of the country. and you never know what those are going to be from one day to the next. so you have to be flexible and fluid. and open to evolve. >> that was recorded during the first administration. let me ask you, is michelle obama -- obviously she as precedent setter in the first african american first lady. that very important point by building on that as she approached the role is she doing it in a precedent setting way or building on the traditions of the women before her? >> i would say that in the cause that is she's chosen to champion, she has been very carefully selective of issues that would benefit the american nation. i think she realizes that she is under tremendous scrutiny and she had to choose very carefully and very wisely what she wanted to support. so i think that in many ways she's building. but as she said, touf change with the role every day. so i think she's done some of each. >> the paralevel in some ways -- parallel in some ways, let's face it in 2008 there were those who saw her as a controversial figure. and overtly a political and ideological figure. >> and maybe a little harsh. >> yeah. d so you think back to hillary clinton in 1992 a clip that we saw by the end of her eight years her cause is saving america's treasureor. the millenium program. which is about as middle of the road as you can get. so i do think that that's another kind of politics that every first lady, like it or not, has to deal with. how they are perceived by the public, how they're introduced in effect to the public and how that in turn affects their choices, their causes, their image making. because, let's face it, that's an important part of the job. >> well, it's interesting when you hear this president go out to speak and he references michelle. he always talks about her comparative popularity to his. and how does that work with public opinion of the president, the public opinion of the spouse? >> i think it helps enormously. i think it softance whatever political image he has and i think looking like a good family man never hurt anybody. so i think it helps with his perception. >> and where in history did that start? >> that's a great question. i think first ladies, knock on wood, so far of both parties have been able to avoid a polarization that has engulfed so much of this town and the presidentsy. where did it start? well, you know, in so many ways eleanor roosevelt is the starting line. in terms of both her public presence -- she was a polarizing figure in a lot of ways but she had an enormous following. i don't know how many books she published. >> somewhere between 20 and 25, i would say. >> and of course long after she left the white house. i mean, for the rest of her life, i think 17 years she was -- >> political forefront. >> first lady of the world. >> we happen to have a clip. and in this one it's during world war ii and is soliciting public donations for the red cross. >> if we turn away from the needs of our own, denying ourselves with known force which is are bringing about this suffering and which we must eventually try to defeat. remember, in this country the gift must be based on your ability to give. nobody but you can be the judge of what you are able to do. but let it be more than you have before thought you could give to others. >> for those seeing here -- >> that's not the historical eleanor roosevelt. that's not the history making eleanor roosevelt. that is the eleanor roosevelt performing the more traditional part of the job she dreaded before she ever filled it. the eleanor roosevelt who made history and who polarized the country in some ways and the process was the eleanor roosevelt, for example, who wanted to see marion anderson perform at the lincoln memorial after she was denied the use of constitution hall which was something that we were certainly not think controversial today. >> for people who don't know marion anderson, african american. >> that's right. but the fact is the first lady of the united states was in the middle of that very heated controversy. that alone set her apart from her predecessors and, frankly, set her apart from the red cross promoter. >> did eleanor roosevelt come into the role as an activist or did she grow into it? >> both. she had been an activist in the women's and labor movement and in the settlement house movement since she was out of high school. and so it's not correct that she only started when she got to the white house. she was very practiced in politics even before she went in to standing in for franklin in new york state when he had polio. so she had been an activist in the settlement house movement, in the women's movement, in the labor movement, and she is probably one of the few first ladies who came in to the white house with constituencies of her own, political constituencies of her own separate and apart from her husband's political constituencies. >> has that happened since? or was she unique? >> maybe with hillary, maybe. >> on a much more modest scale. you have to remember mrs. roosevelt also got away with thing that is no modern first lady would dare in terms of interests. she was very proud of the fact that she drew bigger radio audiences than her husband at the depth of the great depression. but she commercialized the role of first lady in a way that no one had ever imagined before. >> and people would come down on her with both feet today. i was going to say in reference to the film clip that we just saw that one of the things i thought was very interesting about her was how she had developed this command of all the media that were existing at the time, particularly the radio. and on the night of pearl harbor, franklin is addressing the congress and eleanor is the one on the radio addressing the american people. and talking about we're going to do anything we have to to win, we are the free and unconquerable people of the united states. and that's quite a dramatic role change, i think, and sort illustrates her ease in using the media, but also her audience that is waiting to hear what she has to say about this. >> on that note of course you often hear the expression that times make the man or in this case the woman. and he served three times, elected to a fourth. but the depression and world war ii, the public was hungry to hear from the white house. >> she rose to that occasion i think in amazing ways. >> she was i think even then by a lot of people seen as in a sense the conscience of the roosevelt administration. >> exactly. >> she had -- she was certainly to the left of f.d.r. in her politics. >> and it made it easier for him to govern because he had to keep intact his coalition with all these very conservative southern democrats or the administration would have fallen apart. so eleanor becomes his contact with the left and the liberals. and he can then tell everybody else, well, i can't do anything with my wife. >> and the famous, i don't think -- i can't imagine another first lady being entrusted with this let alone pulling it off. in 1940 f.d.r. decided he wanted a new vice president, henry wallace, who was secretary of agriculture and a darling of the left. the party didn't want henry wallace. who did he send to the convention? eleanor roosevelt. she goes to the convention and impromptu utes was set of remarks, she totally recast the mood of the convention. she -- henry wallace owes his nomination to her. but it just suggests the kind of clout and stature that she had. >> and franklin seeking a third term, which was unherd of at the time, so he didn't go to the convention lest he looked too self-aggrand diesing. so he sends eleanor to do what he himself is not in a position to do. and she pulls it off. >> and we have also been talking about the personal lives throughout this, we know from so many biographies about the relationship between eleanor and franklin and how it dissolved on a personal level but it sounds like their political level >> and intellectual partnership. >> who knows. nobody ever knows the inner workings of a marriage including sometimes the people in it. but -- >> i think that's true. >> but she was surprised when e died at how much wealth. she was furious when she found out that her daughter had conniveed in bringing his old girlfriend on several occasions to the white house while she was away and all that. and that was there. but she -- i think it's a mistake to simply say after that affair that it was essentially a political arrangement that they had. >> it was much more than that. >> yeah. >> let's bring the voices of two more modern first ladies into this and their approach to the roles. what's been happening lately, you've been both involved in some of these, is that there are quite a few living former first ladies and frequently now they get together on occasions to talk both publicly and privately about their jobs. and sometimes our cameras are there. in this instance, this is both barbara bush and roz lynn carter talking about the role of first lady. >> different strokes for different folks. and i think people feel one way or another. the first lady is going to be criticized to matter what she does. if she does too long or -- does too little or does too much. i think you have to be yourself, do the best you can, and so what? that's the way it is. >> i don't know whether the public wants the first lady to make policy or not. i think there are still things that are acceptable for first ladies to do, projects and things like that. but i don't think there's any doubt that first ladies have some influence on husbands because they're close to them, they talk to them all the time, they have the president's ear. and i don't think there's any doubt. do you? >> no, i don't. >> i don't think there's any doubt about it. and i think sometimes that's policy. >> well, we have to parse this a little more. first on barbara bush. do what you need to do and so what. that seems to me a little cavalier for a political family to just say so what. >> well, i think that's in in hindsight maybe. because i think, for instance, she was very aware that there were thing that is she could not discuss and policies she could not promote when she was first lady. >> such as? >> abortion, abortion rights. it was the big one. and equal rights amendment was the other one. so the policies on women, she promised him she would not talk about while sheffs in the white house because her views conflicted with that of the party. >> how about -- so it's not just so what. she knows she can't do that. >> but we had a clip when we opened of an earlier republican first lady who was comfortable talking to cbs national news about it. >> but the party had changed. >> so she couldn't do it. >> plus, that particular first lady never dreamed that she would be first lady. through extraordinary circumstances she found herself in the white house. >> betty ford. >> and decided just to be herself. and on the one hand, the good gray political establishment -- one way of looking at 20th century first ladies is the tensions between the east wing and the west wing. sometimes it's a creative tension, sometimes it's a little more overtly hostile. but she -- this was at a time when ford was facing a challenge from the right from ronald reagan and the conventionly minded in the white house, which is usually a majority, thought that she was stepping over the line. and they were in for a surprise to realize that while they weren't paying any attention, the coats had changed all around them. >> and betty had a huge following. particularly among women, for being as outspoken as she was, on women's issues. >> speaking about spoken. i am thinking about several instances with barbara bush which her personality, which was to say what she thought, she really did seem to say, so what. catri 's a self-depp streak which works maybe better in the white house than anywhere. there's a famous line in the ladies home journal she said that there's a myth out there that i don't dress well. she said i dress fine. i just don't look so good. well, you know, millions of american women -- first they chuckled. and then they felt kind of a pinch of -- because no one looks their best all the time. and also, the delicate subject, but she was following a first lady who was perceived as very much -- >> the epitome of fashion. >> exactly. in the jackie kennedy mold. and stylesically they were two very different women. and ironically, each one worked at the time. >> barbara bush came across more as first grandmother. >> that's true. and i think she cultivated that image. >> very deliberately. >> roz lynn carter. what she's implying here is that we as spouses have the

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