By these low academic conferences i have a book coming out. [laughter] the book is relevant. Its called the working title is from cicero to snookie how the culture shapes the president. And its with the president s have read, watch, listen to, attended over the years and what books, what kind of books influenced them, shoot them, how information came to the president and the type of technology we have available. Our founders were limited to performances onstage or work on paper. They didnt have twitter and all the stuff we have today that they were still huge consumers of information. The argument i want to make today is the information president consumed in the Program Since the beginning of the state of israel has helped shape their approach to israel, and also we can understand a little bit about what the president , what kind of president somebody is going to be by the type of material they read or take advantage of. So in a way, although the program says im talking about the two bushs, talking about how books shape policies towards the people of the book and with the president s of rwanda israel and its been important on how the president s approach israel and we have to start i know youre going to have a separate conversation but we do really have to start with harry truman. If you go back to 1948 and 47, 48, it wasnt clear that the United States was going to be an ally of israel and its not clear the u. S. Was going to support a creative state and the u. S. Was going to recognize israel. These are open questions that in fact many of the questions the state department was not in the right place. A big shock for anybody that follows the state department. The state apartment wasnt in the right place and wasnt as supportive as israel, and in fact the secretary of state threatened to resign if truman went ahead with proisrael position. They did have the u. S. Approach to create the partition. He had the u. S. Recognize israel and these are important statements that he made. One of the things i read in the recent argument in the article and i think that you can talk about this in the conversation leader is the jewish vote was important. Bye supporting israel and the way he did, harry truman helped secure the jewish vote to the Democratic Party for a long time during Going Forward. There are a lot of reasons why jewish vote democrats but among a number of them was that early on the Democratic Party, democratic president truman was supportive of the creation of the states, and that really helped Democrats Gain the jewish vote. There are other historical reasons and lord knows they taught them a lot. That was an important step. The question is why it harry truman do this beyond the jewish vote harry truman was a huge leader, she was the last president not to have graduated college. Think about it a president but didnt graduate college is something dole today. Today, you know, no matter who wins the president ial election, every president dating back from the post 1980 election will have had a degree from even harvard or yale or george w. Bushs case, both. But back then you want to get george w. Bush on not, right . Laughter, but back then it was in the case. Harry truman as i said did not have a cause to read what he was a huge reader. Started as a child whose parents strongly encouraged his reading. In fact at one point his father talked about how he saved a whole bunch of money to buy a set of mark twains books and the read the bible over and over again. His frequent reading in the bible theres another book that really influenced truman thats called a great men and famous women. It was this book about the great figures in history. And one of the people featured in the book, i guess it wasnt a great men section because his name included cyrus the great, the persian king who allowed the israelites to return after the babylonian exile in 586 b. C. Blamed the demise of the business of andrew jackson. How could that be . Jackson died of 100 years before the business even began. But what happened was jacobsen recalled that instead of treating intending to the customers, truman was spending all this time reading biographies of andrew jackson. So he blamed Amber Jackson for the demise of the business. When jacobsen introduced truman at this event, he called truman the leader that helped create israel. Remember the assisting verb. Helped create. Truman was indignant at this beauty set, which even helped create . I am cyrus. I am cyrus. He said it twice. The truman had cyrus on the brain. Enduring us, obviously was beneficial to zero in the jewish people because it helped create truman would kill a paper grave. It also does that help secure the jewish vote for the democrats for a long time to come. Again come with other factors. So lets fast forward a number of years. The kind of rule of thumb for a long time Going Forward after that point was that the democrats were more proisrael, associate a president ial level than the republicans. Bush is to stem that the democrats were more proisrael. In fact, i was just reading a book about the secret service that we fear honda fascinated Robert Kennedy, a palestinian who is mentally deranged. What the reasons he assassinated Robert Kennedy was because he didnt want the more proisrael to get the presidency. These days you wouldnt really assassinate a president ial candidate because for the most part, president ial candidates are proisrael. It was a question. I wasnt quite that clear. So you have this situation about what the Republican Party was not seen as proisrael and the republicans in congress. Obviously nixon in the 73 yom kippur war did get crucial arms and we are met to the israelis, although it took a while is officially over the objections of the jewish adviser, henry kissinger. But eisenhower had insisted that israel cannot do the 564, journal for did not have relations with israel. And certainly in congress, Scoop Jackson who were strong producer of democrats. And then come in the 70s happens. 1976, carter becomes president. He becomes president with the assistance of it later became known as the neoconservatives, the coalition for the democratic majority. These are people who are disaffected with the leftward drift of the Democratic Party. And they were looking for something different. It was kissinger in the nixon or ford administration. The 1972 mcgovern are looking for something different. Carter seemed to be the thing that was different. Hit a prohuman rights democracy can idealistic strain that appeals to these nascent neoconservatives. When they did so, they were disappointed and on a number of levels. One level they were disappointed for my personal perspective. Neoconservatives expected to get the Carter Administration and they were almost completely shut out. In fact, Elliott Abrams had this famous comment where he said we didnt get anything. All we got with the ambassadorship to micronesia. Im sorry, micronesia. Not even micronesia, but micronesia. The carter Foreign Policy was not sufficiently strong in the cold war. The neoconservatives joke was the carter Foreign Policy was this a country coming to an ethnic restaurant. The vietnam afghanistan, doubtless eat up all these ethnic restaurants popping up in washington d. C. And then, carter was also a difficult relations with israel. As president , he did not head in a 1980, Ronald Reagan was seen as an alternative, also John Andersen missing for carter, which is not the president from the jewish perspective. And so what happened in 1980 was reagan got 39 of the jewish vote. You might say he lost the jewish vote. Was so great about that . For republican to get 39 is a huge achievement. In fact, over the appear that im talking about, the High Water Mark of a 39 , belowmarket 11 . But that range of 20 in the low part of love into the high 39 is really the range of jewish support for israel. So people says remnick went to get the jewish vote . And a supporter from a come adviser to romney. Hes not going to get the jewish vote. But if he gets in the midto high 30s, thats a good sign. And so was Ronald Reagan company sought three consecutive elections, where the republicans got 30 are hired the jewish vote. Reagan, reagan and bush in 88. Its not coincidently the republicans won all elections. Reagan was outspoken in support of israel. Thats what israel is now in the cold war, which is important. Its a democracy in the middle east in an area that was largely efficient in democracies and still is. So bright and hot. Important feeling towards israel. And he also, he was a big reader. The way he found one of the neoconservatives who a prominent role in his administration was favored in commentary magazine. He read article by Jeanne Kirkpatrick called dictatorship come a double standard. A very famous article appeared in the article, kirkpatrick who is a democrat but drifting to the right and had a very strong proisrael strategy against the soviet argued that in recent history, no totalitarian administration coming to a totalitarian regime had a permit to democracy or as a third care issues are intendant correctly did move to democracy come or suggested the reagan Foreign Policy should be as tough as possible and totalitarian regimes, but work with a turing machines to turing machines to help them drift towards democracy. This is a very important a very important thing that the Reagan Administration and kirkpatrick into the administration of the number of neoconservatives were advisers asserted the administration including Elliott Abrams was upset about micronesia. He served at the leaders there at the state department. So reagan helped bring Jewish Voters to the Republican Party. Again, not a majority. The majority is now a political strategists are looking at. He did help them bring into the 30s. Now, we get after reagans administration of george h. W. Bush. George h. W. Bush got over 30 of his election in 1988. The first time he ran for president , first time his party nominee. And so, bush started off with a nice base of support in the jewish community. However, bush lost that support and he lost it hard. There are a number of reasons for this. Some of them quite famous to this day still. One was that he objected he had a packing to a disagreement about a Loan Guarantee to israel based on whether israel is building in settlements. We know the sentiment is supportive or not. And he gave feature is that im just one lonely guy out there fighting against evil army of lobbyists. That would seem a very tough shot. But even more famously was you said james baker . Goldstar. James baker, we said im not going to send the bad word. He said after jewish, theyre not going to vote for us anyway. And given the speaker is coming up this afternoon, my friend ed koch, ed koch was the one who printed that statement. He was the first to print in the daily news. It was leaked to him by jack kemp. He was the bush cabinet at hud, always had strong scheuer support and he told ed koch about this outrageous statement, which is outrageous and baker still hasnt gotten over it. And so, support for bush plummeted. Now, im not going to say the next thing is directly related, but the elder bush was not a reader. Reagan was reading commentary magazines and getting inside for not appear that was not bushs interests. There was one time when bush was going on vacation and he was asked what is going to to do on vacation. He said im going to do a lot of running, a lot of tennis, a lot of golf, a lot of poor shoes, a lot of powerboating and a little reading. I throw that out there for the intellectuals out there. Reagan was missing. There was another time he was asked about a book that influenced him in his youth when he was in school. And he said catcher in the rye. Great choice, good book, but came out 10 years after he had graduated college. So obviously he was not reading that in his youth. Maybe one of the sentiment that that in their use. Bushes was in a reader. Some people are, some arent. I dont hold it against him. Fairways were shakily support for israel or even more generally Foreign Policy. Although he did in the 1992 campaign, which is going badly for him. He did talk to a tally by truman. Obviously he didnt get those necessarily, but he did creep out. Following bush, in fact in the bush election, which im sure hank is going to talk about, he plummeted from 35 bush got 211 . Thats a low watermark. Thats it. 11 of the jewish vote, which in most preobama elections, the voters about 1010 republicans. The jewish vote had gone down that low. Theyre a number of reasons. This one was on this israel policies are talked about. Second was the economy was not at all. And third he was up against the political maestro who was advised by our friend, hank sheinkopf. Clinton had a very strong proisrael background. She was he was comfortable to the jewish and both his Domestic Social policies were jewish generally tend to be more assertive democrats and on the Foreign Policy front as well. So we had the eight years of clinton and bush sons come around in 2000, looking to replace, to step in after quite retired. We had two terms that we didnt have the constitutional amendment, he might still be president based on his recent speech at the convention. But its not. We have the amendment, to terms the value to appear as though bush is running to replace him and i have a friend, a yarmulke wearing friend who is at an event with george w. Bush around 2011 before the election. Bush sought him out from the crowd, pulled him aside and grabbed him by the arm and said i want you to know im not going to be like my father was on israel. And bush is from different perspective. Bush is a w. Bush. W. Is from a different perspective. George w. Bush had should prohibit minorities, part of the establishment, the realpolitik world including henry kissinger. W. Bush was more from the south are an evangelical background. These are groups much more supportive of israel. Bush was also a huge reader, loved reading. I know people dont think that about him, but happens to be the case. He would read 80 to 90 bucks a year. Get a reading contest is karl rove. These are a serious bucks, history, biography, sometimes philosophy. Karl rove wants that in 35 years teenage george w. Bush, he never saw him without a book. The guy love to read. He did not retire sit and especially did not protest when he was running for governor in texas, when he was trying to out cowboy his opponent. His last election in 1972 dining tent camps. He was a democrat and he blistered bush for being a carpetbagger, for being a pointy hat, a northeastern harbor daniel guy. Just as george w. Bush were talking about. Bush was eviscerated on that front by a real down home texan. After that election, bush vowed, i will never be out country began. And he wasnt. So bush, even though he was a reader, didnt talk about that until late in the second term and is trying to change its reputation around. But when he turned ginger reputation, everybody or it has a perception of view, its too late. Nevertheless, the books that help shape his worldview. When he was written books about the arab world, had books about bernard lewis, as one shall make him a lot of neoconservative thinkers including jay when i could burst among Foreign Policy. Elliott who wrote the book about political leaders in general, including bengurion, but also winston churchill. Eliot cohen later came into the Bush Administration as the secretary of state, condoleezza rice. And he also must seamlessly read book on democracy. He read the sharansky book is so affected him that he gave it. He had them come in for a visit in the oval office and sharansky said afterwards, bush not only read the book, he felt it. And the idea about the promotion of democracy became an important influence for the second natural address, in which bush for development of democracy in the arab world. Some sad air of spring turned into an unpleasant winter and came from the date of termination. So we have a very proisrael president. Its both symbolic and sensitive issues. It wasnt just his reading. It goes back to 1998. And on that visit, there is not a power politician named our real sharon. Sharon offered to take push around and took them on this famous helicopter ride, we took both of israel habaneros part of israel whereas only nine miles from the Mediterranean Sea to the most and are part of the west bank. A part that can be cut off in a matter of hours. And he showed that from the helicopters days. We got drivers in texas bigger than not. So bush understood israels security concerns. He also understood something else. During that trip, with ariel sharon went out to be friendly to bush, yasir arafat took a very different approach. And in fact, arafat basically jacked bush around about whether hed be willing and able to be with you. I will come i wont come i do want to meet with you. Typical arafat slipperiness. And it ended up with all the slipperiness they did not have a meeting. Bush leaves the country and upon his departure can arafat holds a conference denouncing bush for refusing to meet with him. And at that moment, bush realized he couldnt trust his character. I would bet into the support for arafat was in his compound abundant isolated, not getting help from the u. S. Come he regretted the way he acted when bush visited. So with a shred of proisrael president , personal, ideological and intellectual reasons and he only got 19 of the jewish vote in 2000. Remember there was a jewish orthodox Vice President ial candidate running with al gore, but he got a big lump from 19 in 2002 may 24 of the jewish vote in 2004 against john kerry. That really helped the Bush Campaign in ohio and florida hold down the democr