there are two different one. first term in the second term. we see more african-american president. he knows who he is and he s not ashamed. first term he had to be strategic. there was a fight in the white house. he was the president who gave the payout after waiting for that money. he was the president who did that but at the same time it wasn t necessarily i m going to do it. it took tactics. are you surprised that barack obama didn t make a stronger case in his first? know because looking back he had to be who he was. you can watch this and other us online at tv.org. ofat the chief of staff of the air force assembles a list of books he recommends for servicemen and women. here s the 2015 list. we rarely see politicians on the left as contributing to this in fact we usually see them as the champions, right? at the time the congress was charging .-full-stop had for steam ahead with this law and order approach, then the senator joe biden basically not only cheere
general ham let me start with you. sort of going in proposition with africom in many ways is you re not going to have large amounts of american troops under your command on the ground, if any. did you feel at times that you were a general in charge of the contractor army? no, not at all. there is a proper role i think for the contractors but there s also a proper role for the uniformed military. like the other combatant commanders and the service chiefs i was part of a discussion with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and secretary of defense that yielded the defense strategic guidance of 20 to which was approved by the president, and conduct with regard to advocate says they will seek a light footprint innovative and it reads low-cost, approach to africa. not only because i was part of that discussion but i think that is the right approach. i don t think there is a need for a large standing u.s. uniformed military presence in africa. but there is a role and there a
good afternoon everybody. for good evening. my name is katie willard and i m part of the events staff at politics and prose. what a crowd. before we begin let me go over a few quickthings. first, please silence your dicell phones and other devices . we are audio and video recording this evening and e you do not want to be the one whose phone goes off on c-span. secondly during our question and answer portion in the interest of being able to hear everyone please ask your questions at this microphone. that way there s no understanding for our recording and lastly please for your chairs and place them against here, our staff would greatly appreciate that. i m pleased to introduce lynne olson to politics and prose. she is the author of those angry days, trouble some young men and citizens of london as well as several other books and has previously worked as a journalist for the associated press . in her new book madame fourcadeb daring young woman war: the who franceb against
wrote this their diaries, saw charles dickens in the street today. this is what he looks like. and you could follow their descriptions, which was great. i used him partly because it was the 200th anniversary, and my publisher taught it would be a great idea, but that was a little part. what he actually said to me was all your books are a disguised love letter to dickens, why don t you just let your head go and really use him? so i did. host: was he right? guest: he was right. host: why? guest: i think dickens was one of the greatest writers ever. horrible man. horrible man. but one of the greatest writers ever. i reread his books more than almost anything. host: is there a typical, for that book, is there a typical life that you can describe, a victorian life? guest: um, i think that the typical lives, if you want, are the lives of what in those days would have either been called the working poor or the lower middle classes. one of the things that was so remarkabl
he includes beautiful facts about his life including growing up in the northwest. he worked in senator eugene mccarthy s office right on the hill and it must ve been the catalyst is a love of investigative reporting. she began her lifelong career as a prolific writer of best-selling books in the uproar that came with them come including subjects like jackie kennedy onassis, the royals, elizabeth taylor, opera, and of course, my favorite an unauthorized biography called his weight, of frank sinatra. her most recent book is focused on iconic images of the kennedys. books mean a lot more to me when it is well researched. never failing to raise a few eyebrows in doing such a wonderful job of reminding us that these characters are very human. please welcome kitty kelley. [applause] i don t know that my writing is prolific, but thank you so much. [laughter] prolific as a turtle, it takes me four years usually on each book. but this book was a labor of love. because stanley was we