Editor's note: Nathaniel Frank is author of "Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America" and is senior research fellow at the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that has focused on gender, sexuality and the military. He also teaches on the adjunct faculty at New York University.

Nathaniel Frank says there's no evidence that letting gays serve openly would harm the military.

(CNN) --   This week, four senior retired officers wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post predicting "grave harm" to the military if President Obama moves forward with his vow to let gays serve openly.

"Our experience," they wrote, "and that of more than 1,000 retired flag and general officers," suggest that lifting the ban would harm unit cohesion, recruitment and retention, and would ultimately "break the All-Volunteer Force."

The argument is an old one, and was an effective canard in defeating President Clinton's move to lift the ban in 1993. But it has never been rooted in fact or evidence, and the effort of these officers to defeat equal treatment this time around will face mountains of opposing data and a dramatically changed cultural landscape.

The officers who oppose openly gay service do not base their arguments on any new information. In addition to their own experience -- an impressive credential that's nevertheless too vague to hang an argument on -- the officers rely on a single poll.

They cite an unscientific survey -- it does not draw from a representative sampling but from newspaper subscribers -- indicating that 58 percent of the military oppose lifting the ban and that, if it's lifted, 24 percent claim they will leave or consider leaving after their tour ends.

But it's naïve at best, and disingenuous at worst, to confuse this opinion survey with a sound prediction of actual behavior. When both Britain and Canada proposed lifting their gay bans in the 1990s, similar opinion surveys found much higher numbers -- about two-thirds in both cases -- claiming they, too, would leave. In each case, no more than three departures were attributed to the policy change. Three.

In fact, the evidence showing that openly gay service works is overwhelming. Since 1957, when the U.S. military began doing its own studies on gays in the military, every last bit of research has shown that openly gay service works.

Studies of foreign militaries include a 1993 Government Accountability Office study of allied nations that found that "the presence of homosexuals in the military is not an issue and has not created problems in the functioning of military units"; a 1994 assessment by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences finding that predicted negative consequences of ending gay exclusion in the Canadian Forces never materialized; the 2000 assessment of the British Ministry of Defense, calling its new policy of equal treatment "a solid achievement" with "no discernible impact" on recruitment or other critical variables; and four academic studies conducted by the Palm Center, where I work, finding that lifting bans in Britain, Israel, Canada and Australia had no negative impact on military readiness, including on recruitment and retention.

The officers writing in The Washington Post question the relevance of foreign militaries to this debate, mocking the idea that the U.S. military "must emulate Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada." But they failed to note that 24 of our closest allies let gays serve openly, including Britain, whose combat-tested soldiers and sailors serve shoulder to shoulder with U.S. forces.

While our military and culture are unique in the world, it's an astonishing vote of no-confidence in American troops to say that they are not capable of doing what 24 other militaries have done successfully. Ours is a professional, disciplined fighting force, and the assertion that a diverse military would lack order and discipline is, as Rep. Patrick Murphy, an Iraq War veteran, has said, "an insult" to him and the entire U.S. military.

But it's not just foreign militaries that provide real evidence on gay service. A majority of U.S. troops

Question: Who oppose letting gay troops serve?

Question: who are accepted widely today in military?

Answer: 58 percent of the military

Answer: gays

Summary:
Nathaniel Frank: Some retired military officers oppose letting gay troops serve .
He says they don't understand wide acceptance of gays today in military .
He says many other nations have approved gay service without harm .
Frank: Polls vastly exaggerate number of officers who might leave .


Editor's note: Nell Minow is editor and chairwoman of the Corporate Library, an independent research company, and was named one of the 20 most influential people in corporate governance by Directorship magazine and "the queen of good corporate governance" by BusinessWeek Online. She has co-written three books. Nell Minow says AIG's board must be held accountable for the $160 million in bonus payments. (CNN) -- The stories about the outrageous $160 million bonus payments at AIG have all omitted the most important names. They are the members of AIG's Board of Directors Compensation Committee. These people should have been on the hot seat before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, alongside CEO Ed Liddy. Although there is a lot of blame to go around, ultimately the buck stops -- or, I should say, the bucks should have stopped -- with them. Why haven't we learned that it is the boards who are responsible for the massive failures of strategy and risk management at these companies? Regulators, journalists, securities analysts and investors routinely ignore the most obvious indicators of investment risk that are presented by bad boards of directors. This is particularly obvious in the case of AIG, which has been a serial offender in corporate governance, especially in executive compensation. Those of us who remember former CEO Hank Greenberg's departure from AIG in 2005, after a corporate governance meltdown that included excessive compensation, appreciate the irony of his comment to ABC News that the retention bonuses were "mind-boggling." Mr. Kettle, Pot is on line 1. Compensation committees are not responsible for individual pay packages below the CEO, but they are responsible for determining their overall structure -- and for making sure that the CEO's job includes effective management on compensation issues. Retention of employees may be a legitimate goal of a compensation program, but it can be accomplished in a way that is both effective and credible by being tied to performance goals and by delaying vesting until after the bailout funds are returned to taxpayers. The Corporate Library released a report in February about the boards of the bailout companies, many of which were outliers in their governance and compensation practices. Some of these were clear indicators of investment and liability risk. In several cases, we found individuals who not only sat on more than four corporate boards but also sat on more than one of these particularly troubled boards during this period. Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, for example, served on the boards of Morgan Stanley, General Motors and Wachovia -- and at various times was also a director at Merck, VF Corp., Krispy Kreme and Cousins Properties. Several other directors from these troubled boards also sat on either five or six boards altogether. We call the phenomenon of directors who serve on four or more corporate boards "overboarding." Overboarding can limit the time and attention a director has for each board. It can also be an indicator of -- or a contributor to -- so many relationships and connections that it makes it more difficult to provide the respectful skepticism necessary for independent oversight. In all, 11 of the 27 companies we identified as "troubled" had at least one overboarded director. Six had more than one; at Merrill Lynch, there were five. By comparison, fewer than 30 percent of S&P 500 companies have even a single overboarded director, and fewer than 5 percent have more than one. Another key finding from our analysis: Shareholders at these companies were well aware of the relative weakness of these boards and had expressed their dissatisfaction by withholding votes from many of these individuals the year before these companies collapsed. At least 13 individual directors, all of whom sat on at least three corporate boards during this period, had received a 13 percent or higher negative vote. The highest of these was a 38.58 percent negative vote received by Sir Winfried F.W. Bischoff at McGraw-Hill, where he sat on the compensation committee. Bischoff also served on the boards at Citigroup (as chairman and interim CEO), Eli Lilly and Prudential. Although the businesses of

Question: who should be held to account?

Question: who  is ultimately responsible for the firm's mistakes?

Question: what does she say about finance firm board members ?

Question: what is it that Nell Minow say people overlook

Answer: AIG's board

Answer: the boards

Answer: must be held accountable for the $160 million in bonus payments.

Answer: obvious indicators of investment risk

Summary:
Nell Minow: People often overlook crucial role of company board of directors .
She says AIG's board is ultimately responsible for the firm's mistakes .
Minow: Compensation committee members should be held to account .
She says many finance firm board members are too busy on other boards .


Editor's note: On CNN's "State of the Union," host and Chief National Correspondent John King goes outside the Beltway to report on the issues affecting communities across the country. Joe Ray, left, says the cost of providing full-time workers with health care is worth it. PORTLAND, Maine (CNN) -- Joe Ray has no complaints about the economy but plenty of worries about what he sees and hears in Washington. His company, Free Range Fish & Lobster, processes 8 million pounds of fish a year, plus shellfish and lobsters. A recession means restaurant sales are down some, but that decline is more than offset by the surge in people looking for seafood as they eat more meals at home. "We're up about 30 percent," Ray said during a tour of the operation along the Portland waterfront. He says the cost of providing full-time workers with health care is expensive but worth it. "To keep good employees," he said. "So you don't have to keep changing the flow of people that are coming in and out. It costs money to do that, too." But when it comes to the debate over national health care reform, Ray sees the price as out of line with what the country can afford right now.  Watch CNN's John King preview Sunday's show from a dock in Maine » "I think I'd rather just be left alone," Ray said. "Just pay my bill and try to deal with it that way." A fiscal conservative, he has a simple view of President Obama. "Right now, he is just spending, spending, spending, and I just hope it helps the country," Ray says. Paul Hogan is on the other end of the country's health care tug-of-war "It is just a crazy system, and it needs to be fixed," said Hogan, a retired attorney who held a party at his Kennebunkport home Wednesday evening to watch Obama's speech to Congress. He posted notice of his viewing party on the Obama political organization Web site but in the end watched the speech with a half-dozen friends and neighbors. No strangers signed up, as was common at such events during the Web-driven Obama presidential campaign. "I think it is much harder to get people involved in an issue," Hogan said. "I think there are lots of people who will get involved every two years or every four years and will talk to their neighbors for elections." Maine is an interesting stage in the health care debate for a number of reasons. Consider just these two: • The decline in support for Obama's handling of health care has been pronounced among Americans who consider themselves political independents, and in Maine, nearly four out of every 10 voters is "unenrolled" or independent of any political party. In the latest CNN polling, for example, 45 percent of all Americans disapproved of how Obama is handling his job as president. Among independents, his disapproval rating was 53 percent. And specifically on health care, 44 percent of all Americans approve of Obama's handling of the health care issue, while 53 percent disapprove. Among independents, only 33 percent approve of the president's handling of health care, while 61 percent disapprove. • Maine's two U.S. senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, are among the handful of realistic Republican targets as the White House tries to get at least modest GOP support. Snowe, in particular, has a crucial voice at the moment because of her seat on the Senate Finance Committee. We visited Snowe's Portland office the morning after the president's speech, and it was clear that she was getting mixed advice. "No gov't h c.," an office worker scribbled on a legal pad as she took one of the dozens of morning calls. "Supp Publ Opt," is another notation made during a call a few minutes later, shorthand for supporting the public option that Obama and most Democrats would prefer

Question: Who travels to Maine?

Question: What is the name of John King's show on CNN?

Question: What state does Olympia Snowe represent?

Answer: John King

Answer: "State of the Union,"

Answer: Maine's

Summary:
CNN's State of the Union with John King airs Sunday at 9 a.m. ET .
King travels to Maine to get voters' take on health care reform .
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, has been a key figure in health care negotiations .


Editor's note: On CNN's "State of the Union," host and chief national correspondent John King goes outside the Beltway to report on issues affecting communities across the country. County administrator Brenda T. Buck is trying hard to help create eight to 10 sawmill jobs for Jefferson County. FAYETTE, Mississippi (CNN) -- The odds are against Brenda T. Buck, and she knows it. So she counts on what she calls the Sandwich Philosophy: "Take it one bite at a time." Buck is the county administrator in Jefferson County, a rural area in southwest Mississippi dotted with small churches, modest homes and markers noting a Civil War skirmish. "It is a great small town, and everybody knows everybody," Buck says. If you look through the statistics, three things jump out: • The Census Bureau lists the population of Jefferson County as 86 percent African American, the highest percentage of any county in the United States. • It is the fourth-poorest county in the United States, with a median income of $15,037. • The unemployment rate in August was 18.6 percent, the highest of Mississippi's 82 counties. "It has not always been this way," says Angelia Shelvy, a single mother of three who is among the unemployed. "I think we are forgotten." Shelvy had a job making $10,000 a year as a teacher's assistant, but she left it to take a job paying twice as much, signing on with a union that provides workers to nuclear power plants. Her parents agreed to care for her children when she had to travel, for months at a time, as far away as Arizona. Shelvy thought it was the right thing to do for her family, but phone calls to home at bedtime proved otherwise. Her 4-year-old, especially, had a rough time adjusting. "I'm like, 'You have Granny.' He's like, 'No, I don't want Granny; I want you to hold me,' " Shelvy told us. "I missed Mother's Day twice; for two years I missed it. ... So I decided that it was more important for me to be here with my children." Back home now, she has been searching for work since March, looking as far as 90 minutes away from Fayette. "I did Internet searching, different jobs, hospitals, different schools," she said. "They're not hiring. They either say they are not hiring, or I'm not qualified. I don't have enough years of experience. 'We'll call you later.' 'Get back with us.' And it's been stressful for me." Buck spends hours a day trying to help, and most of her time with the Board of Supervisors is spent debating economic development ideas. At home, too, she is reminded of the bleak local jobs market. Her husband isn't there. He's working 900 miles away, at the moment, in Indiana. "He works with a company that has been going into a lot of the car plants" during refittings and downsizing, Buck said. "We have four kids. ... He is here basically maybe a total combination of, maybe, two months out of the year." The county got a modest amount of federal money to buy new police cruisers. But its requests for stimulus money to improve its roads have been ignored, at least to date, and as Buck continues to press those requests, she also is pushing smaller economic development grants. Reliable Mat LLC is her current obsession. The screeching hum of a giant saw greets visitors, and inside the warehouse are dozens of pallets of neatly stacked firewood, waiting to be loaded on 18-wheelers and distributed across the country for the coming winter. On the grounds, there are 10 workers, some running giant logs through the saw, others stacking and wrapping the wood for shipment. On average, the men make about $100 day, and Paul Southerland, the company's general

Question: What is the fourth-poorest county?

Question: What are breadwinners forced to do sometimes?

Question: Who is the county administrator?

Question: What state is Jefferson County in?

Question: What is Brenda T. Buck's job title?

Question: Who is working to bring jobs to Jefferson County?

Answer: Jefferson

Answer: travel,

Answer: Brenda T. Buck

Answer: southwest Mississippi

Answer: County administrator

Answer: Brenda T. Buck

Summary:
Jefferson County is fourth-poorest in U.S.; the recession came late but hit hard .
Sometimes, breadwinners must leave state, and their families, to scrape by .
County administrator Brenda T. Buck wants to bring jobs close to home .
She considers every new job created in her county a small victory .


Editor's note: On CNN's "State of the Union," host and chief national correspondent John King goes outside the Beltway to report on issues affecting communities across the country. Pope McLean Jr. tells CNN's John King that a lot of farms are hurting because of the global recession. LEXINGTON, Kentucky (CNN) -- Crestwood Farm is tucked into the rolling hillsides of Kentucky's legendary bluegrass country. Kipling and Unbridled Energy are among the stallions critical to the reputation -- and the bottom line -- of the McLean family business. And just how do the stallions prove their value? "When their progeny does well on the race track," Pope McLean Jr. said. "Can't bluff that. That's when they prove what they are worth." Pope McLean Sr. got into the horse business in college and took over Crestwood Farm in 1970. His son worked on the farm while growing up. After college he took a job in the financial sector, but in 1991 he returned to Crestwood. His brother Marc returned a few years later, and their younger sister Grandison joined after she graduated from college. "It's been pretty much a family business since that point," Pope McLean Jr. said during a tour of the 1,000 acre property. Kentucky is to horse racing what Michigan is to the domestic auto industry. Racing and breeding thoroughbreds is a multibillion-dollar business in the state and the source of some 100,000 jobs. But "The Sport of Kings" is hardly exempt from these painful economic times, and in fact is taking a severe blow in the global recession. "It's truly an international industry, so we have people, a lot of buyers, from Europe come in. And they have dialed back," McLean said. "Domestic buyers have dialed back their participation, as well. The good horses are still bringing decent money, but everyone has to lower their expectations." At this year's Keeneland September Yearling Sale, which McLean calls the horse industry's version of the NBA draft, the gross was down more than 41 percent from last year, the largest year-to-year drop in the 66-year history of the auction. "The prices are down, and our production costs increased with commodity prices going up and so forth, so it definitely puts a squeeze on commercial breeding operations," McLean said. "A lot of farms are hurting. And then you have the credit squeeze that has hurt a lot of farms, too." McLean sees another lean year next year, and then hopes for a rebound because of an odd twist to the laws of supply and demand. In 2008, when the stock market was plummeting, 30 percent fewer mares were bred, so the supply of horses available at auction the year after next will be smaller. "I think people just decided to pull back," McLean said. "So the supply of horses available at auction will be reduced and that should start to help market conditions." At Crestwood, McLean predicts an "about even" year. "We're down at bit," at the moment, he says. "I feel pretty sure there will be quite a few farms that will go out of business." Out of business is an all too common theme in Hazard, a coal country town in Eastern Kentucky's Appalachia region about 120 miles away from Lexington and horse country. Statewide, the unemployment rate in Kentucky is 11.1 percent. Hazard is the county seat in Perry County, where the jobless rate has been on a steady climb and is 12.7 percent. On Main Street, a clothing and novelty store is closing down, along with an adjacent print and copying shop. Fallout, locals say, from the closing of a uniform plant that had employed more than 140 people, and then a Weyerhaeuser lumber facility that employed 180. Joanne Caron knew there were problems when Weyerhaeuser canceled weekend shifts, "but we didn't think it would be that drastic." The bad news came suddenly in March when workers were told their jobs were

Question: How many jobs does the horse racing industry create?

Question: What is the source of 100,000 jobs in Kentucky?

Question: What have the domestic and international buyers dialed back?

Question: What is the Kentucky unemployment rate?

Question: Who has dialed back participation?

Question: What is the unemployment rate in Kentucky?

Answer: 100,000

Answer: Racing and breeding thoroughbreds

Answer: their participation,

Answer: 11.1 percent.

Answer: "Domestic buyers

Answer: 11.1 percent.


Editor's note: On CNN's "State of the Union," host and chief national correspondent John King goes outside the Beltway to report on the issues affecting communities across the country. Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, and her partner, Kim Catullo, talk to John King. NEW YORK (CNN)  -- As she lobbies members of the New York Senate these days, the politician in Christine Quinn can understand what the gay rights activist in her sometimes cannot. "The fear of the unknown," is how she describes it. "This is a vote they've never cast before. And they don't know how people are going to react. You are in a position where people's reaction to you is the key to your success. And the unknown creates fear and fear often creates paralysis." Quinn is the openly gay speaker of the New York City Council, and a proponent of legalizing same sex marriage in New York state. "It is really encouraging to see what's happening around the country in places where you really wouldn't expect it, like Iowa," says Quinn's longtime partner, Kim Catullo. "To be in a place like New York and not have it just doesn't seem to make sense." The New York Assembly passed legislation allowing same-sex marriages earlier this month, and the question now is whether there are enough votes in the state Senate to pass the legislation before the legislature adjourns for the year. Go behind the scenes with John King as he discusses his report from New York Quinn, who spent time in Albany this past week meeting with undecided senators, is cautiously optimistic. "It was amazing how much openness there was," she said of private meetings with lawmakers who are undecided and even a few who have said they are likely to oppose the legislation. "We just all have to create a moment for them to step forward. So I really think it is going to happen this month, before the legislative session is over." Maggie Gallagher sees the Senate math quite differently. "We are now working in 24 Senate districts," says Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriages. "We know we have generated thousands of phone calls to legislators. I don't think they will be passing a gay marriage bill this session."  Watch both sides assess chances of passing same-sex marriage bill » The New York legislation is part of a growing national debate, and one which will gain even more attention because of the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy and the nomination of federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill it. "Not tomorrow. Not likely in the coming year unless the courts move dramatically faster than we are used to seeing them move," is how Columbia Law School Professor Suzanne Goldberg answers when asked when the issue of same-sex marriage is likely to make the Supreme Court docket. "But certainly some time in the next couple of years we're likely to see the Supreme Court issue a position or two on this issue." Goldberg knows Sotomayer well; the judge is also a lecturer at Columbia. "We've never spoken about the issue," Goldberg told us. "I have no inside information about her views. What I would say is that she is both a wise person and a thoughtful person and being wise and thoughtful are the right ingredients for reaching what to me is the right answer on this issue, which to me is that equality applies to all people." The likelihood of the issue reaching the Supreme Court in the next year or two raises the stakes in the state battles. Opponents of California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage vow to try again in 2010 in hopes of a different result. A new federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 was filed this week and could well be among the cases that make it to the Supreme Court eventually. Five states now allow same-sex marriage: Maine, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts

Question: what was the bill about

Question: What did the N.Y. Assembly pass?

Question: Who hopes President Obama will change mind?

Question: when was the bill passed

Question: Who is lobbying hard against same-sex marriages?

Question: Who passed bill allowing same-sex marriages?

Question: Who's an openly gay politician?

Question: Name the openly gay politician

Answer: legalizing same sex marriage

Answer: allowing same-sex marriages

Answer: Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, and her partner, Kim Catullo,

Answer: earlier this month,

Answer: Gallagher,

Answer: The New York Assembly

Answer: Quinn

Answer: Christine Quinn

Summary:
N.Y. Assembly passed bill allowing same-sex marriages; willl state Senate pass it?
Christine Quinn, openly gay politician, optimistic; says opponents fear the unknown .
National Organization for Marriage lobbying hard against it, head thinks it won't pass .
Proponents hope President Obama will change mind, support issue .


Editor's note: Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House.

Paul Begala says Republicans are failing to respond to the real economic pain felt throughout the U.S.

(CNN) -- As the fight over President Obama's economic recovery package heats up, the two sides are beginning to define themselves with admirable clarity.

The president says we have a crisis that is heading toward a catastrophe.

In announcing his new Economic Recovery Advisory Board, President Obama declared, "The situation could not be more serious. These [new unemployment] numbers demand action. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay, or politics as usual, while millions of Americans are being put out of work."

The Republicans, on the other hand, have honed their economic message: Denial, Delay, Do Nothing.

Denial

It begins with denial. Former Bush adviser Karl Rove and Fox News host Bill O'Reilly opined in December that it's the media's fault. The said the press is overhyping bad news; the economy, they suggested, is not really all that bad. "So you are agreeing with me," O'Reilly said, "that there is a conscious effort on the part of The New York Times and other liberal media to basically paint as drastic a picture as possible, so that when Barack Obama takes office, that anything is better than what we have now?"

"Yes," said Mr. Rove.

OK. I guess if you're wealthy like Mr. Rove and Mr. O'Reilly you can afford to pretend the recession is a vast media conspiracy. But for the 3.7 million Americans who have lost their jobs in the Bush-Republican recession, Messrs. Rove and O'Reilly seem dangerously out of touch.

Delay

"Let's slow down. Let's take our time," said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Nebraska). "Few things are going to be as important as this." Generally that's good advice. But with the economy losing 19,000 jobs a day, is delay really a wise strategy? Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) seems to think so. He told CNN's John King, "We could shelf this bill and start again. That's what we really need to do."

Do Nothing

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is widely considered a rising star in the GOP. He was even mentioned as a potential running mate for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain. His strategy, again articulated to John King on "State of the Union," is to do nothing -- let companies, communities and families fail.

"We're going to go through a process of deleveraging," Sanford said. "And it will be painful. The question is, do we apply a bunch of different Band-Aids that lengthen and prolong this pain or do we take the Band-Aid off? I believe very strongly: Let's get this thing over with, let's not drag it on."

Set aside the callousness of Sanford's metaphor -- that joblessness at the highest level since the Great Depression is somehow like a scratch that doesn't even need a Band-Aid.

Focus instead on Sanford's substantive message: You're on your own. Write if you get work. This befits a party which has high-ranking members who deny the effectiveness of the New Deal. What's next, denying that the federal government put a man on the moon?

What Bipartisanship?

Given the GOP's combination of flat-earth economics and scorched-earth politics, it should come as no surprise that it looks like 98.6 percent of Washington Republicans oppose President Obama's economic recovery package. They either do not understand the depth of the recession or they do not realize the results of the recent election.

I don't know what more President Obama can do. He has named three prominent Republicans to his Cabinet (Robert Gates at Defense, Ray LaHood at Transportation and Judd Gregg at

Question: Who did Paul Begala criticize?

Question: What is the attitude of some in the GOP?

Answer: Republicans

Answer: Do Nothing

Summary:
Begala: McCain's VP choice unqualified to be heartbeat from the presidency .
Choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is "shockingly irresponsible," he says .
Begala says choice makes McCain's age, health, and judgment central issues .


Editor's note: Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House. Begala is not a paid political consultant for any politicians or candidates.  Click here for a rival view Paul Begala says McCain's VP choice,  Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is completely unqualified to be president. (CNN) -- John McCain needs what Kinky Friedman calls "a checkup from the neck up." In choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate, he is not thinking "outside the box," as some have said. More like out of his mind. Palin a first-term governor of a state with more reindeer than people, will have to put on a few pounds just to be a lightweight. Her personal story is impressive: former fisherman, mother of five. But that hardly qualifies her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. For a man who is 72 years old and has had four bouts with cancer to have chosen someone so completely unqualified to become president is shockingly irresponsible. Suddenly, McCain's age and health become central issues in the campaign, as does his judgment. In choosing this featherweight, McCain passed over Tom Ridge, a decorated combat hero, a Cabinet secretary and the former two-term governor of the large, complex state of Pennsylvania. iReport.com: 'McCain pick might be a gimmick' He passed over Mitt Romney, who ran a big state, Massachusetts; a big company, Bain Capital; and a big event, the Olympics. He passed over Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas senator who is knowledgeable about the military, good on television and -- obviously -- a woman. He passed over Joe Lieberman, his best friend in the Senate and fellow Iraq Kool-Aid drinker. He passed over former congressman, trade negotiator and budget director Rob Portman. And he also passed over Mike Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas. For months, the McCainiacs have said they will run on his judgment and experience. In his first presidential decision, John McCain has shown that he is willing to endanger his country, potentially leaving it in the hands of someone who simply has no business being a heartbeat away from the most powerful, complicated, difficult job in human history. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

Question: what did begala say

Answer: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is completely unqualified to be president.


Editor's note: Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House. He was a co-host of "Crossfire" on CNN with Robert Novak from 2002 to 2005. Paul Begala says he admired Robert Novak for his skepticism about authority, work ethic and faith in his beliefs. (CNN) -- In our innumerable debates, I delighted in calling Bob Novak "the finest mind of the 12th century." One time, though, he scowled and growled, "I prefer the 15th century. Spanish Inquisition. Those were the days." Novak left this world on Tuesday, but he also left his mark. Needless to say I disagreed with Bob about virtually every political issue, and sometimes our on-air debates continued as profanity-laced shouting matches after the show ended. Despite our profound differences, though, we were friends. Here's why: Bob was an iconoclast. He loved poking conventional wisdom in the eye. If all the media elite were perched on the same wire, Bob would land on the opposite wire and gleefully squawk at them. Bob was an ideologue more than a partisan. One of the many sources of tension between us was the fact that I am a partisan Democrat who believes that, from time to time, my personal ideological agenda must take a backseat to advancing a broader progressive agenda carried by my party. Not Bob. He was a conservative first, last and always, and when he felt the Republican Party had strayed from his hard-core anti-tax, anti-government ideology he would hammer the GOP with the same withering ridicule he usually dispensed to Democrats. Bob was deeply skeptical of authority. He was a lowly lieutenant in the United States Army, and he instinctively distrusted big shots -- a rarity in a town that is often dazzled by rank. For a guy who said he preferred business to government, he was not afraid to show his contempt for network executives with whom he disagreed. Bob had a remarkable work ethic. In the predawn hours after the 2004 presidential debate in Miami, Bob slipped in the shower, breaking his hip. The injury was terribly painful, and Bob was rushed to the hospital. Within 24 hours he was propped up in bed, working the phones and banging out a column on his laptop. Bob was an old-school reporter. Most pundits (your humble author included) devour the reporting of others and regurgitate our opinions. While strongly opinionated, Bob also reported. His sources, especially in the GOP, were wide and deep. When I was a White House official, one of my most dreaded responsibilities was dealing with Bob. He didn't support much of anything we were trying to do, but he never lied to me, never broke his word, and tried his hardest to get things right. Accuracy mattered enormously. Bob could be civil. This will astonish some, because Bob could also be rude. But he taught me at least one lesson in civility. On "Crossfire," I carried a debate over into the commercial break. I badgered and hectored and attacked the guest who was on the right. I was angry and I let him have it. "Wait just a #*& $@#^ minute," Bob screamed at me. "You're out of line. You're being rude. Get off his back. He's come here on our show to make his case and you're abusing him. We call them 'guests' for a reason, Paul." He was right. Bob loved sports. One tiny island of common ground Bob and I could share was a love of sports. When James Carville and I joined "Crossfire" in 2002, CNN had a much-hyped debut planned for April 1. Bob didn't care. Maryland was playing for the NCAA basketball championship and he was going to be there. Producers pleaded, but Bob was unmoved. He did the show via satellite from Atlanta, Georgia,

Question: What did Paul Begala say?

Question: What did Bob Bovak work hard at?

Question: What were Bob Novak's political beliefs?

Question: Who says Bob Novak was a friend even though they differed on many issues?

Question: What relation was Bob novak to Paul Begala?

Answer: he admired Robert Novak for his skepticism about authority, work ethic and faith in his beliefs.

Answer: hardest to get things right.

Answer: conservative

Answer: Paul Begala

Answer: co-host of "Crossfire" on CNN with Robert


Editor's note: Peggy Wallace Kennedy is the daughter of George C. Wallace and Lurleen Wallace, who both were governors of Alabama. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with her husband, Mark Kennedy, a retired state Supreme Court justice. They have two sons, Leigh, a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, and Burns, a college sophomore.

Peggy Wallace Kennedy says her father sought absolution for his segregationist views.

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) -- I heard a car door slam behind me and turned to see an elderly but spry woman heading my way.

The night before, a gang of vandals had swept through the cemetery desecrating graves, crushing headstones and stealing funereal objects.

My parents' graves, situated on a wind-swept hill overlooking the cemetery, had not been spared. A large marble urn that stood between two granite columns had been pried loose and spirited away, leaving faded silk flowers strewn on the ground.

I was holding a bouquet of them in my arms when the woman walked up and gave me a crushing hug. "Honey," she said, "you don't know me, but when I saw you standing up here on this hill, I knew that you must be one of the girls and I couldn't help myself but to drive up here and let you know how much me and my whole family loved both of your parents. They were real special people."

I thanked her for her kind words as we stood side by side gazing down at the graves of Govs. George Wallace and Lurleen Wallace.

After a few moments, the woman leaned into me and spoke almost in a conspiratorial whisper. "I never thought I would live to see the day when a black would be running for president. I know your daddy must be rolling over in his grave."

Not having the heart or the energy to respond, I gave her bony arm a slight squeeze, turned and walked away. As I put the remnants of the graveyard spray in the trunk of my car, I assumed that she had not bothered to notice the Barack Obama sticker on my bumper.

When I was a young voter and had little interest in politics, my father would mark my ballot for me. As I thought about the woman in the cemetery, I mused that if he were alive and I had made the same request for this election, there would be a substantial chance, though not a certainty, that he would put an "X" by Obama's name.

Perhaps it would be the last chapter in his search for inner peace that became so important to him after becoming a victim of hatred and violence himself when he was shot and gravely injured in a Laurel, Maryland, shopping center parking lot. Perhaps it would be a way of reconciling in his own mind that what he once stood for did not prevent freedom of opportunity and self-advancement from coming full circle; his final absolution.

George Wallace and other Southern governors of his ilk stood defiantly in the 1950s and '60s in support of racial segregation, a culture of repression, violence and denial of basic human rights.

Their actions and the stark images of their consequences that spread across the world galvanized the nation and gave rise to a cry for an end to the American apartheid. The firestorms that were lit in Birmingham, Oxford, Memphis, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Little Rock and Selma were a call to arms to which the people responded.

And now a new call to arms has sounded as Americans face another assault on freedom. For if the stand in the schoolhouse door was a defining moment for George Wallace, then surely the aftermath of Katrina and the invasion of Iraq will be the same for George W. Bush.

The trampling of individual freedoms and his blatant contempt for the rights of the average American may not have been as obvious as an ax-handle-wielding governor, but Bush's insidiousness and piety have made him much more dangerous.

Healing must come, hope will be our lodestar, humility will reshape the American conscience, and honesty in both word and deed

Question: what does the daughter says about Wallace?

Question: what does Peggy Wallace Kennedy says about his dad?

Question: Ex-segregationist Wallact sought absolution for what?

Question: Peggy Wallace Kennedy says what?

Answer: her father sought absolution for his segregationist views.

Answer: her father sought absolution for

Answer: his segregationist views.

Answer: her father sought absolution for his segregationist views.

Summary:
Peggy Wallace Kennedy: My dad, George Wallace, might have backed Barack Obama .
Ex-segregationist Wallace sought absolution for his earlier views, daughter says .
She says Obama will help heal the nation after wounds of Katrina and Iraq war .


Editor's note: Penn Jillette -- the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller -- is a magician, comedian, actor, author and producer. Obama and McCain both promise a government that will watch over us ... "I don't like that," says Penn Jillette. (CNN) -- Everyone I talk to seems to think the president of the United States right now is stupid. The Bush presidency is stupid speeches, stupid high gas prices, stupid bad economy, stupid war on terrorism, stupid war on drugs, stupid hurricane fixing, stupid global warming, stupid war -- stupid, stupid, stupid. They all seem to think we need to get a smarter guy in the White House fast, and Bush is so stupid, that task shouldn't be too hard. Not me. I'd like to say that I believe every president in United States history, including the stupid one we have now, is smarter than me. My alma mater is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth Clown College, so I'm damning with faint praise, but I'm stupider than this here stupid president. Maybe I'm less stupider than Bush than I'm stupider than Jefferson. But I'm stupider than all the stupid in both of them put together. The idea, especially from the Democrats that I know, is, we just get a smarter guy in the White House, and all the problems will go away. We'll have smart speeches, smart high gas prices, smart bad economy, smart war on terrorism, smart war on drugs, smart hurricanes, smart global warming, smart war in Georgia -- smart, smart, smart. Barack Obama is way smarter than Bush -- so way, way smarter than me. Obama is way more charismatic than me. He did his big speech for about 80,000 people; I'll do my show tonight in Vegas for about 1,000 people. He's more ambitious than I; he's going to be the next president of the United States, and I couldn't even get to week three of "Dancing with the Stars." Obama is a great leader. He can fire people up and get them to do what he wants. He does smart speeches that promise everyone everything they need and make us feel good about our country and how much greater our government could be. But I don't think our next president being a great leader is a good thing. I'm worried about someone smarter than Bush taking over that tremendous power. Charisma and ambition increase my fear exponentially, and a great leader scares me to death. We need someone stupid enough to understand that the president of the United States can't solve many problems without taking away freedom and therefore shouldn't try. The only reason John McCain scares me a little less is because I think he's a little less likely to win. They both promise a government that will watch over us, and I don't like that. I don't want anyone as president who promises to take care of me. I may be stupid, but I want a chance to try to be a grown-up and take care of my family. Freedom means the freedom to be stupid, and that's what I want. I don't want anyone to feel my pain or tell me to ask what we can do for our country, or give us all money and take care of us. Gene Healy at the Cato Institute explains that the Founding Fathers wanted the president "to faithfully execute the laws, defend the country from attack and check Congress with the veto power whenever it exceeded its constitutional bounds." That sounds like plenty to me. You gotta be smarter than me to do all that, but you don't have to be as smart as Obama, and you sure don't have to be a great leader. Our first seven presidents averaged a bit more than three public speeches a year, and they didn't promise jobs for everyone, day care, dental exams and free stuff. It's really hard to find someone

Question: What did Penn Jillette say?

Question: What everyone is thinking according to Penn Jillette ?

Question: What's Jillette stance on Obama ?

Question: For what reason does McCain scare Jillette less?

Question: What does Jillette say about Obama?

Answer: "I don't like that,"

Answer: seems

Answer: is a great leader.

Answer: likely to win.

Answer: is way smarter than Bush

Summary:
Everyone thinks we need to get a smarter guy in the White House, says Penn Jillette .
Jillette: Obama is a great leader who fires people up, gets them to do what he wants .
McCain scares Jillette a little less because he's a little less likely to win .
Ron Paul, Bob Barr say they want much smaller government .


Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst and a fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington and at New York University's Center on Law and Security. His most recent book is "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader." Peter Bergen says it's crucial to correctly frame the nature of a war before beginning it. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama and his foreign policy advisers and speechwriters are wrestling with one of the most important speeches of his presidency, his inaugural address. One of their toughest conceptual challenges is how to describe and recast what the Bush administration has consistently termed the "war on terror." The dean of military strategists, Carl von Clausewitz, explains the importance of this decision-making in his treatise "On War": "The first, the supreme, the most decisive act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish...the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to its nature." Clausewitz's excellent advice about the absolute necessity of properly defining the war upon which a nation is about to embark was ignored by Bush administration officials who instead declared an open-ended and ambiguous "war on terror" after the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001. Bush took the nation to war against a tactic, rather than a war against a specific enemy, which was obviously al Qaeda and anyone allied to it. When the United States went to war against the Nazis and the Japanese during World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt and his congressional supporters did not declare war against U-boats and kamikaze pilots, but on the Nazi state and Imperial Japan. The war on terror, sometimes known as the "Global War on Terror" or by the clunky acronym GWOT, became the lens through which the Bush administration judged almost all of its foreign policy decisions. That proved to be dangerously counterproductive on several levels. The GWOT framework propelled the Bush administration into its disastrous entanglement in Iraq. It had nothing to do with 9/11 but was launched under the rubric of the war on terror and the erroneous claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The theory was that he might give such weapons to terrorists, including al Qaeda to whom he was supposedly allied, and that he therefore threatened American interests. None of this, of course, turned out to be true. The Bush administration's approach to the war on terror collided badly with another of its doctrines, spreading democracy in the Middle East as a panacea to reduce radicalism. It pushed for elections in the Palestinian territories in which, in early 2006, the more radical Hamas won a resounding victory, propelled to power on a wave of popular revulsion for the incompetence and corruption of the Fatah party that had dominated Palestinian politics since the 1960s. Imprisoned by its war on terror framework, the Bush administration supported Israel in a disastrous war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Hezbollah is not only a terrorist group but is also part of the rickety Lebanese government and runs social welfare services across the country, yet for the Bush administration its involvement in terrorism was all that mattered. As is now widely understood in Israel, the war against Hezbollah was a moral and tactical defeat for the Israeli military and government. Events in the current Israeli incursion in Gaza will determine whether history repeats itself. Under the banner of the war on terror, the Bush administration also tied itself in conceptual knots conflating the threat from al Qaeda with Shiite groups like Hezbollah and the ayatollahs in Iran. In 2006, for instance, President Bush claimed that "the Sunni and Shiite extremist represent different faces of the same threat." In reality, Sunni and Shiite extremists have been killing each other in large numbers for years in countries from Pakistan to Iraq. The groups have differing attitudes toward the United States, which Sunni extremists attacked in 1993 and again on 9/11, while Shiite militants have never done so. So

Question: Who never correctly framed the "global war on terror"?

Question: What President is being criticized here?

Question: What does Bergen say the president went to war against?

Question: Who never correctly framed the war?

Question: Who went to war against the tactic of terrorism?

Question: What did Bergen say the president actually went to war against (what "tactic")?

Question: What should the war be lead aganst?

Answer: Bush administration officials

Answer: Bush

Answer: a tactic,

Answer: Bush administration officials

Answer: Bush

Answer: on terror,

Answer: terror."

Summary:
Peter Bergen: Bush never correctly framed the "global war on terror"
He says the president went to war against the tactic of terrorism .
Instead, Bergen says, the U.S. should be leading a war vs. al Qaeda .
Bergen: al Qaeda is a formidable enemy, but not the equivalent of fascism .


Editor's note: Peter Bergen is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum and at New York University's Center on Law and Security. He's the author of "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader." Peter Bergen says deals with the Taliban could further destabilize the situation in Afghanistan. (CNN) -- It is a longstanding cliché that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, only a political one. Linked to this is the newer, related notion, rapidly becoming a cliché, that the United States should start making deals with elements of the "reconcilable" Taliban. As with many clichés, there is some truth to both these notions, but neither of these comforting ideas are a substitute for a strategy that is connected to what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sunday's New York Times ran an interview with President Obama in which he said that, just as the U.S. had made peace agreements with Sunni militias in Iraq, "There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region." He also cautioned that this could be "more complex" than was the case in Iraq. It's not only going to be more complex, but doing deals with the Taliban today could further destabilize Afghanistan. Before getting to why that is the case, let's stipulate first that there are always going to be some local commanders of the Taliban who can be bribed, coerced or otherwise persuaded to lay down their arms. In fact, the Afghan government already has had an amnesty program in place for Taliban fighters for four years. Thousands of the Taliban already have taken advantage of the amnesty, a fact that tends to be glossed over in most of the recent discussions of the issue. That being said, there are nine reasons why doing deals with most of the various factions of the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are labeled "the Taliban" are more in the realm of fantasy than a sustainable policy. First, the Afghan government is a sovereign entity and any agreements with the Taliban must be made by it. Right now the weak and ineffectual Afghan government is in no position to negotiate with the Taliban, other than to make significant concessions of either territory or principle, or both. Second, while Obama didn't talk about dealing with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, it is worth pointing out the Taliban leadership, including Mullah Omar, has in the past several months taken every opportunity to say that it has no interest in a deal with the Afghan government. And just last week, Mullah Omar urged the Pakistani Taliban to refocus their efforts on attacking U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Those statements should be taken at face value. Third, Mullah Omar's intransigence is utterly predictable. He was prepared to sacrifice his regime on the point of principle that he would not hand over Osama bin Laden after 9/11. And he did. This does not suggest a Kissingerian realism about negotiations, but rather a fanatical devotion to his cause. Fourth, the Taliban believe they may be winning in Afghanistan, and they also are confident that they are not losing, which for an insurgent movement amounts to the same thing. They see no need to negotiate today when they can get a better deal down the road. Fifth, the Taliban leadership is largely in Pakistan. Side deals done with the Afghan Taliban will have little or no effect on the fact that the command and control of the insurgency is in another country. Sixth, when Pakistan's government has done "peace" deals with the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal regions in 2005 and 2006 and in the northern region of Swat earlier this year, they were made following military setbacks by Pakistan's army. Those deals then allowed the militants to regroup and extend their control over greater swaths of Pakistani territory. Why would new agreements with the Taliban on either side of the Afghan-Pakistan border yield different results? Seventh, "reconcilable" Afghan Taliban leaders have already reconciled to the

Question: Who does Bergen say is too weak?

Question: What government is too weak?

Question: Who thinks it's winning the war?

Question: Who said Taliban is gaining more support?

Answer: Afghan government

Answer: Afghan

Answer: Taliban

Answer: Peter Bergen

Summary:
Peter Bergen: Idea of dealing with moderate Taliban is gaining more support .
Bergen says it's not likely to be a strategy for success in the Aghanistan war .
Taliban leadership thinks it's winning the war and won't cut a deal, he says .
Bergen: Afghan government too weak to engage in meaningful talks .


Editor's note: Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum, and at New York University's Center on Law and Security. He's the author of "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader." Peter Bergen says Osama bin Laden is still alive and still significant eight years after September 11. HELMAND, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Eight years after September 11, the "war on terror" has gone the way of the dodo. And President Obama talks instead about a war against al Qaeda and its allies. What, then, of al Qaeda's enigmatic leader, Osama bin Laden, who has vanished like a wisp of smoke? And does he even matter now? The U.S. government hadn't had a solid lead on al Qaeda's leader since the battle of Tora Bora in winter 2001. Although there are informed hypotheses that today he is in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on the Afghan border, perhaps in one of the more northerly areas such as Bajaur, these are essentially guesses, not "actionable" intelligence. A longtime American counterterrorism analyst explained to me, "There is very limited collection on him personally." That's intelligence community shorthand for the fact that the usual avenues of "collection" on a target such as bin Laden are yielding little or no information about him. Those avenues typically include signal intercepts of phone calls and e-mails, as well as human intelligence from spies. Given the hundreds of billions of dollars that the "war on terror" has consumed, the failure to capture or kill al Qaeda's leader is one of its signal failures. Does it even matter whether bin Laden is found? Yes, it does. First, there is the matter of justice for the almost 3,000 people who died in the September 11 attacks and for the thousands of other victims of al Qaeda's attacks around the world. Second, every day that bin Laden remains at liberty is a propaganda victory for al Qaeda. Third, although bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri aren't managing al Qaeda's operations on a daily basis they guide the overall direction of the jihadist movement around the world, even while they are in hiding. Those messages from al Qaeda's leaders have reached untold millions worldwide via television, the Internet and newspapers. The tapes have not only instructed al Qaeda's followers to continue to kill Westerners and Jews, but some also carried specific instructions that militant cells then acted on. In March 2008, for instance, the al Qaeda leader denounced the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper as a "catastrophe" for which punishment would soon be meted out. Three months later, an al Qaeda suicide attacker bombed the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, killing six. Some reading this may think: But what's the proof that the al Qaeda leader is still alive? Plenty. Since September 11, bin Laden has released a slew of video and audiotapes, many of which discuss current events. After a nine-month silence, for instance, bin Laden released a 22-minute audiotape on March 14, sharply condemning the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza. Are these tapes real? Not one of the dozens of tapes released by bin Laden after 9/11 has been a fake. Indeed the U.S. government has authenticated many of them using bin Laden's distinctive voiceprint. And what about the persistent reports that he is ill? In 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden had kidney disease, for which he required a dialysis machine, and was therefore likely dead. But the stories of bin Laden's life-threatening kidney problems are false, judging by his appearance in videos that he released in 2004 and again in 2007, in which he showed no signs of illness. On the 2007 tape, the al Qaeda leader had even dyed his white-flecked beard black, suggesting that as the Saudi militant entered his fifth decade, he was not

Question: The war on terror has failed to capture who?

Question: Who still inspires al Qaeda?

Question: Who has yet to be captured?

Answer: Osama bin Laden

Answer: Osama bin Laden

Answer: Osama bin Laden

Summary:
Peter Bergen: Osama bin Laden still inspires al Qaeda .
He says 8 years after 9/11, the "war on terror" has failed to capture him .
He says law of averages suggests bin Laden will eventually be caught or killed .


Editor's note: Peter Bregman is chief executive of Bregman Partners Inc., a global management consulting firm, and the author of "Point B: A Short Guide to Leading a Big Change". He writes a weekly column, How We Work, for HarvardBusiness.org. Peter Bregman says good times persuaded people to sacrifice what they loved for money. NEW YORK (CNN) -- I started my consulting business 11 years ago with a laptop computer in a living room. It grew quickly. The first year I made more money than I had in the previous three combined, the second year I doubled that and by the third year I began to fantasize about retiring within the decade. Then everything crashed; the dotcom revolution, the financial services industry and my business. I had a large number of subcontractors and a small number of employees who had become friends. I also had a bad feeling things wouldn't turn around quickly. My wife and I were in a tough spot. We had one child and another on the way, bills that were accumulating and hopes for the future that were moving out of reach. However bad it was then, these days it's worse. Back then the recession hit certain sectors and left other ones alone. Home prices were going up, so people felt protected, and there were loans to help. Today, everything's been hit, nothing's going up and credit is frozen. Many have already lost jobs, homes, self-identities, luxuries and necessities. And there's more to come. That's especially true for many older Americans, who might not have 10 years to recover and who don't have sources of income other than their savings -- which have dwindled dramatically. They don't deserve to live with the fear they now feel. I'm still living in a rental apartment because I didn't want to take out a loan I couldn't pay back. I saved money. Invested it. And now my investments are down 70 percent. But it is what it is. And when we wake up in the morning we are left with the question, "Now what?" It's actually a great question, because in a situation in which we've lost control, it gives us a little back. "Now what?" means we have a choice, in this moment, to do something. What's it going to be? I think it's a mistake to try to rebuild what we've lost. We have less now and I think we can do better with less. Having less forces choices. And consciously making those choices can bring us closer to the things we care about. Which can make a poorer life richer than a rich one. Because the research is clear. Above a basic threshold, more money doesn't make us happier. But we think it will, so we do all sorts of things that make us unhappy in order to get it. A senior leader in an investment bank called to tell me she was leaving her job. She realized she wouldn't make much money in the next few years and didn't want to miss her children growing up. Did you get that? She was willing to miss her children growing up if the money was good enough. People act in ways they'd rather not in order to make money that doesn't make them happy. Maybe, if we do this downturn right, we can get out of that cycle. So, what makes you happy? Is it spending time with people you love? Working on a pet project? Having the time to exercise? Being part of a community and feeling cared for? Knowing the answer enables you to make decisions that will prioritize those things. Of course, losing money can break people apart; we fight about money, people lose jobs and get depressed; tension rises as mortgage bills sit on the kitchen table unpaid; resentment builds when one person doesn't live up to his own and others' expectations. But I am also seeing the opposite. Losing money can bring you

Question: People sacrificed what for money?

Question: Who is Peter Bregman?

Question: What did Peter Bregman say people during the boom sacrifice to obtain more money?

Question: What does Peter Bregman suggest people should do during hard times?

Question: Does Bregman think money increases happiness?

Answer: they loved

Answer: chief executive of

Answer: good times

Answer: sacrifice

Answer: doesn't make us happier.

Summary:
Peter Bregman: In the boom, people sacrificed their joys for more money .
He says beyond a certain point, money doesn't increase happiness .
Bregman: Use hard times to evaluate what makes you happy and pursue it .


Editor's note: Peter Bregman is chief executive of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global management consulting firm, and the author of "Point B: A Short Guide to Leading a Big Change". He writes a weekly column, How We Work, for HarvardBusiness.org.

Peter Bregman says recession is an opportunity to reorient the focus of your working life to what you love to do.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A friend of mine, a senior leader in a pharmaceutical company, spends all her spare time doing yoga, taking classes in comparative religions, reading about spirituality, speaking with others about their beliefs. Just talking about it energizes her.

Which is not how she feels about her day job.

"Why don't you leave your job and do something with this full time?" I asked her.

"I've thought about it. But I could never make the kind of money I make now."

She might be right. But the question isn't whether she could make as much money. Even if she stays in her job she's unlikely to do that in this economy.

The question is far broader and more interesting. What would her life look like -- in every dimension she values -- if she decided to pursue her passion full time?

She needs to consider the contribution she'd make. The relationships she'd foster. The fun she'd have. The feelings she'd carry with her throughout the day. Her engagement in her work. In short, what her life would mean.

And, of course, also the money. Which, as it turns out, might actually be greater if she were more engaged in her work. Gallup has collected data on 5.4 million employees in over 137 countries and concluded that engaged employees are more productive and customer-focused. And more profitable. Which could mean more money for her.

But why are we even having this conversation during the worst downturn this country has seen in the last 70 years? Isn't she lucky simply to have a job?

Yes. And, because of that, she's also stuck. For better and worse, she probably won't leave.

But maybe you're not so lucky -- you've been laid off or might be soon; you're a student coming into the job market; or like several people I know, you've been thinking about a change.

Well, this is your opportunity. You didn't want to risk a change when things were going well. There was too much to lose.

But this downturn, this economic mess we're in, could be your chance. When everything was going well, we spent money we didn't have thinking we would make more tomorrow. Well, tomorrow came. It's easy to point a finger at Bernie Madoff (and he deserves the finger), but the truth is, it's not just him. We're all victims of our own little Ponzi Schemes. But now we know.

The life we've been living, the debt we've been incurring, is unsustainable. Maybe the layoff is a favor. You were treated as expendable. But were you, working those long hours to keep a job you didn't love, treating your self as expendable too?

Depressing? Sure. But now that we know, we can do something about it.

I don't want to be cavalier; I know food on the table is a necessity. We still need work and money. Here are our new rules for finding it:

Rule #1: Don't spend too much time looking for your next job. As I discuss in my article for Harvard Business, "Need to Find a Job? Stop Looking So Hard," searching for a job more than 1-2 hours a day will actually make it less likely you'll find one.

Rule #2: Focus your time on what you're truly passionate about. Get more training. Expand your comfort zone with new activities, new people. Studies show that 80 percent of jobs are found through networking.

Question: People have to rethink what?

Question: What provides an opportunity and a challenge?

Question: What gives you time to rethink what you do?

Question: What to do when laid off?

Answer: reorient the focus of your working life

Answer: recession

Answer: recession

Answer: you're truly passionate about. Get more training. Expand your comfort zone with new activities, new people.

Summary:
Peter Bregman: The recession provides an opportunity as well as a challenge .
He says people who were working just for money now can rethink what they do .
He says, if you were laid off, focus your time on what you love doing .
Bregman: Spending time with people is best route to fulfilling new job .


Editor's note: President Lyndon B. Johnson secured passage of Medicare, the Voting Rights Act and other milestone legislation. Tom Johnson, who served as one of LBJ's White House press secretaries, is former chief executive of CNN News Group and former publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He is an associate member of the board of visitors of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Tom Johnson says President Lyndon Johnson would have used every tool to get Congress to pass a health care bill. (CNN) -- LBJ would: Have a list of every member of Congress on his desk. He would be on the telephone with members (and their key staffers) constantly: "Your president really needs your vote on this bill." He would have a list of every special request every member wanted -- from White House tours to appointments to federal jobs and commissions. He would make a phone call or have a personal visit with every member -- individually or in a group. Charts, graphs, coffee. They would get the "Johnson Treatment" as nobody else could give it. He would have a willingness to horse-trade with every member. He would keep a list of people who support each member financially. A call to each to tell them to get the vote of that representative. He would have Billy Graham calling Baptists, Cardinal Cushing calling Catholics, Dr. Martin Luther King calling blacks, Henry Gonzales calling Hispanics, Henry Ford and David Rockefeller calling Republicans. He would get Jack Valenti to call the Pope if it would help. He would have speeches written for members for the Congressional Record and hometown newspapers. He would use up White House liquor having nightcaps with the leaders and key members of BOTH parties. Each of them would take home cufflinks, watches, signed photos, and perhaps even a pledge to come raise money for their next election. He would be sending gifts to children and grandchildren of members. He would walk around the South Lawn with reporters telling them why this was important to their own families. He would send every aide in the White House to see every member of the House and Senate. He would send me to see Sen. Richard Russell and Rep. Carl Vinson because I am a Georgian. He would call media executives Kay Graham, Frank Stanton, Robert Kintner, and the heads of every network. He would go to pray at six different churches. He would do newspaper, radio and TV interviews -- especially with Merriman Smith, Hugh Sidey, Sid Davis, Forrest Boyd, Ray Scherer, Helen Thomas, Marianne Means, Walter Cronkite, Phil Potter, Bob Novak. He would threaten, cajole, flirt, flatter, hug -- and get the health care bill passed. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Tom Johnson.

Question: what would Lyndon Johnson have used to pressure legislators?

Question: what would Lyndon Johnson gained by granting lawmakers' special request?

Question: What did Tom Johnson say about Lyndon Johnson?

Question: what does Tom johnson says about Lyndon johnson?

Answer: every tool

Answer: to pass a health care bill.

Answer: would have used every tool to get Congress to pass a health care bill.

Answer: would have used every tool to get Congress to pass a health care bill.

Summary:
Tom Johnson: Lyndon Johnson would use many tools to get action in Congress .
He would have used staff, intermediaries to pressure legislators .
He would have gained support by granting lawmakers' special requests .
He would have used every device to get the health care bill passed .


Editor's note: Rachel Motte blogs at www.evangelicaloutpost.com and writes for Wheatstone Academy, a Christian educational program for high school students. She is a graduate of Biola University and the Torrey Honors Institute. Rachel Motte says Rush Limbaugh still can animate conservative popular opinion. (CNN) -- It's no secret that liberals throughout the nation are rejoicing at Rush Limbaugh's supposed status as leader of the Republican Party. I can see why. He's easy to pick on. His rhetoric is extreme, and his personal life has at times been less than picture-perfect. I've heard some pundits refer to Vice President Joe Biden as "the gift that keeps on giving." I imagine the left feels the same way about Limbaugh. Rush was an integral part of my childhood. I must have been 6 or 7 when I started listening in the late 1980s. I remember that my parents and their friends found him refreshing, and I remember that he made them laugh. I memorized his song parodies and even tried to write a few of my own based on the events I heard him talk about. When I was 11, I once spent several hours trying to call his show, redialing after every busy signal, over and over. I never got through. It's probably just as well; I think I had planned to try to talk him into running for president. I no longer think he'd make a good president -- we're all much better off when he sits behind the EIB microphone. Rush taught me a lot about personal responsibility, the value of freedom of speech and the love of country. At 26, I've outgrown many of my childhood habits, but I never outgrew Rush. Have conservatives outgrown him? Is it time to distance ourselves by dismissing him as just "an entertainer," as Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele initially did before apologizing? My friend John Mark Reynolds wrote recently that Rush is "a shallow thinker" who will alienate today's young adults rather than draw them in. He argued that Rush's "insider lingo" and harsh demeanor are problematic at a time when the Republican Party is losing the young adult vote. Is he right? Has Rush Limbaugh outlived his usefulness to the conservative movement? Should we take a cue from the Democrats' glee and relegate El Rushbo to a back room like an aging and unpopular distant relative? Not by a long shot. Rush doesn't need to be removed as leader of the Republican Party, because he's never held that position, much as Democrats would like you to think he has. He's a vitally necessary part of the conservative movement, but he's no one's leader. Don't give him more credit than he deserves, and don't fall prey to the Democrats' carefully planned attempts to inflate his authority. Steele learned the hard way a few days ago that the opposite extreme is also not true -- Rush is not a mere entertainer. One of his most important contributions to the conservative movement has been his ability to energize the base. This is particularly vital now given the recent election results. Someone has to keep the troops from giving up, and like it or not, for now that someone is Rush. It doesn't really matter whether he's a shallow thinker. What does matter is that he knows how to prod people into action. That's all well and good, but is it sustainable? What works for me and for the many other "Rush babies" out there may not work for our younger siblings. Thanks to the Obama campaign, new activists aren't going to be as easily attracted by witty aphorisms and wordplays as previous demographics were. President Obama's impressive rhetorical skills appeared to raise the level of public discourse during the campaign. As far as I can tell he didn't actually say anything new, but so many things sounded new when he said them. I don't think he changed the content of the age-old feud between right and left, but he did change the style, providing a stark contrast to the

Question: Who did Rachel Motte grow up listening to?

Question: Who does Limbaugh appeal to?

Question: Who's style has a great appeal to conservatives?

Question: What group does Limbaugh appeal to?

Question: Motte said who set a new bar for public discourse?

Question: What did Motte say about Obama?

Question: Who did Rachel Motte listen to?

Answer: Rush

Answer: the conservative movement

Answer: Rush Limbaugh

Answer: the conservative movement

Answer: President Obama's

Answer: campaign, new activists aren't going to be as easily attracted by witty aphorisms and wordplays

Answer: Rush Limbaugh

Summary:
Rachel Motte says she grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and became a big fan .
She says Limbaugh's style still has great appeal to conservatives .
Motte: Obama has set a new bar for public discourse, winning over young voters .
Limbaugh may not appeal to the young as much, but he's still relevant, Motte says .


Editor's note: Ralph J. Begleiter teaches communication, journalism and political science at the University of Delaware. During two decades as CNN's "world affairs correspondent," Begleiter was the network's most widely traveled reporter. Ralph J. Begleiter says the Pentagon's new policy on media access to coffins of war dead is a milestone. NEWARK, Delaware (CNN) -- The reversal of two decades of policy on images of returning war casualties is an important and welcome milestone for the American people. The Pentagon's decision announced Thursday allowing media coverage of coffins of war victims returning to Dover Air Force Base -- if families agree -- restores to its rightful, honorable place the immense value of the sacrifice American troops make on behalf of their nation. It allows the American people to honor the dignified and respectful return of war casualties to home soil for the last time. Although no one should have a veto over the nation's ability to pay respects to its fallen troops, I believe most families will decide that their sons and daughters deserve to be recognized publicly for their sacrifice. These men and women enlisted in the military for their nation. They fought for their nation. They died for their nation. Their return should be respectfully and publicly acknowledged by their nation. The ban on images of returning casualties started accidentally, and without any reference to the "privacy" of the families of those who gave their lives in service to the nation. The accident of media history occurred in December 1989 when poor White House scheduling placed President George H.W. Bush before live television cameras just as the first American casualties were arriving at Dover Air Force Base from the U.S. invasion of Panama. CNN and two other major TV networks fired up their split-screen technology, showing on one side the president joking with White House reporters just before the Christmas holiday -- and on the other the sober images of flag-draped military caskets being carried ceremoniously by honor guards across the tarmac at Dover. After the holidays, the president appealed publicly to reporters to "help me" overcome a public impression that he had been insensitive on TV about the returning casualties. News media had been covering the return of war casualties since World War II. Some military personnel believe the showing of those images -- and others from the jungles of Vietnam -- contributed to a gradual growth of anti-war sentiment during the 1960s. Just days before the Gulf War began in January 1991, the new media policy was formalized in a cable sent by the Defense Department to its posts: There would be no media coverage of returning casualties at Dover or other stops along the way home. The directive made no mention of anyone's privacy but portrayed the ban on coverage of returning casualties as an effort to ease pressure on stressed families, who might feel obliged to travel to Dover to witness the return of their loved one with news media watching. Over the next decade, several exceptions were made to the ban on media coverage at Dover, including for the return of Navy personnel killed in the bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen's coast, just weeks before the election that brought the second President Bush into office. Ironically, throughout the ban on media coverage of returning casualties, the Pentagon continued documenting this important part of any war by assigning military and government contract photographers to take pictures of the flag-draped caskets. Those images, among the most poignant, respectful and dignified tributes to troops who died in service of their nation, were carefully maintained by the Defense Department. They were used for training of honor guards and for commemorating the significance of war casualties. Although taken by the government, those images were withheld from public view. From the aftermath of September 11, 2001, through the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Pentagon kept taking those pictures even as it expanded its ban on media coverage of returning casualties -- now arguing that such war images would somehow invade the privacy of families of the deceased troops. It was those images that a series of Freedom of Information Act requests pried loose in 2005 after months of legal skirmishing. (Those

Question: Who said that U.S. policy on photographing war dead was result of coincidence?

Question: What was the new policy allows?

Question: Begleiter urged the government to resume using its photographers to document what?

Answer: Ralph J. Begleiter

Answer: American people to honor the dignified and respectful return of war casualties to home soil for the last time.

Answer: take pictures of the flag-draped caskets.

Summary:
Ralph J. Begleiter: U.S. policy on photographing war dead was result of coincidence .
He says it was due to split-screen image of president joking while coffins returning .
Begleiter: New policy allows the nation to pay proper respect to war dead .
He urges government to resume using its photographers to document the toll .


Editor's note: Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest, is professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a visiting professor at Emory University. His most recent book is "God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush." Randall Balmer supports Obama's unusual broadening of a president's words to include nonbelievers. NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Obama's mention of "nonbelievers" in his inaugural address represents an important broadening of the circle of acceptability in American life, an acknowledgement of our growing diversity and a fuller embrace of the principles articulated in our nation's charter documents. One of the hallmarks of American life, dating to the 17th century, is its religious pluralism. The Atlantic seaboard during the colonial period was home to everyone from Puritans, Roman Catholics and Dutch Reformed to Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Swedish Lutherans, Anglicans, Huguenots, Mennonites and Schwenckfelders. Jews arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, refugees from South America after the Portuguese takeover of Recifé. Somehow it all worked, especially in the crucible of religious pluralism in the Middle Colonies: New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where William Penn launched his "Holy Experiment" of religious toleration. In the context of the New World, these religious groups learned to coexist with remarkably little conflict, and when it came time to configure the new nation, the founders in their wisdom elected not to designate any group as the state religion. "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," the First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads. This provision set up a kind of free market for religion in America, allowing religious groups to compete in a marketplace unfettered by government interference. Indeed, American history is littered with religious entrepreneurs (to extend the economic metaphor) who have peddled their wares in this marketplace and thereby contributed to the vigor and vitality of American religious life. The story of religion in America life has been one of expansion and ever-increasing diversity. Although Roman Catholics were present in the colonial period -- Maryland, named for the wife of Charles I, was founded by Catholics from England -- Catholics arrived in great numbers from Ireland, Germany and Italy over the course of the 19th century. Many Protestants, their hegemony threatened, resisted, sometimes with violence. Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe came as well. Most of the resistance was episodic. With notable -- albeit unfortunate -- exceptions, we Americans eventually rise to our better selves and embrace the principles of equality and toleration enshrined in our charter documents. And we can trace these changes in our rhetoric. The term "Judeo-Christian," although coined late in the 19th century, became popular in the 1930s as the clouds of war were gathering in Europe. In 1955, after World War II, when so many sons of Jewish and Catholic immigrants fought the Axis powers, sociologist Will Herberg published a book entitled "Protestant-Catholic-Jew," arguing that any of these religious expressions was legitimately "American." The following decade saw still more changes. The civil rights struggle brought the vibrancy of African-American religious life to national attention, and Lyndon Johnson's signature on the Hart-Cellar Immigration Act in 1965 removed immigration quotas. In the decades since, the arrival of people from around the world, especially from South Asia and Southeast Asia, has literally recast the religious landscape of the United States. Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, Sikh Gurdwäräs and Buddhist stupas have sprouted across the nation, from cities to the countryside. And our rhetoric has evolved as well. Whereas America might once have been described as a "Protestant" nation and then a "Christian" nation (to reflect the inclusion of Roman Catholics), we moved to "Judeo-Christian" and then "Protestant-Catholic-Jew." More recently, we have talked about the "Abrahamic Traditions," Jews, Christians and Muslims, thereby broadening the circle to include Islam, one of the three major monotheistic religions.

Question: Who said  "It's unusual for a president to include nonbelievers in his words"?

Question: What religions have been included?

Answer: Randall Balmer

Answer: Puritans, Roman Catholics and Dutch Reformed to Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Swedish Lutherans, Anglicans, Huguenots,

Summary:
Randall Balmer: It's unusual for a president to include nonbelievers in his words .
He says America has widened its circle of religion for hundreds of years .
Balmer says rhetoric has grown to include Jews, Muslims, Hindus .
The First Amendment makes it appropriate to recognize nonbelievers, he says .


Editor's note: Raquel Cepeda is an award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker and former editor of Russell Simmons' Oneworld magazine. Cepeda wrote and directed the feature documentary, "Bling: A Planet Rock," about hip-hop's obsession with diamonds and its effect on the decade-long conflict in Sierra Leone. Cepeda is based in New York, where she was born to Dominican parents. Find her at http://djalirancher.com/blog/.

Raquel Cepeda says people don't fit into the neat categories outlined by the U.S. Census.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Let's all pretend to be the astrologer Walter Mercado for a moment. Say we predict that the Obama administration's master plan to engage people of Latino/Hispanic/Spanish origin proves to be effective.

Let's say that along with strategic partners Telemundo and the Census Bureau, they somehow manage to corral the millions of "Latinos" into filling out the 2010 census forms in April. Say the idea of plot-kneading the message into an already half-baked yet inexplicably popular telenovela, "Mas Sabe el Diablo," wins over the hearts and minds of "Latinos" everywhere.

But what's a Latino?

While we all may speak a version of our Spanish colonizer's language, contrary to popular belief, we're not all Mexican. Yes, the majority of Latinos in America are of Mexican descent, but we also hail from other countries around the world.

Take the ethnically ambiguous 15 percent of us who descend from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba. An overwhelming majority of us aren't solely of Spanish, black or native origin: We're all of the above and then some (some of our ancestors migrated from Asian, Middle Eastern and an array of European countries).

With the 2010 census upon us, the time is now for the fastest-growing minority group in the country to define themselves for themselves and at the same time clear up the cultural confusion surrounding our identity. But how can we, given the perplexing racial categories on the census, coupled with our own complex identity issues, paint an accurate picture of who and how complex we are, not just what we are?

Take me, for example; I'm a first-generation American, the product of Dominican parents whose short-lived relationship could have rivaled that of Shakespeare's own telenovela, Romeo and Juliet. My family is made up of a rainbow coalition of racial chameleons.

Recently, I was told that my maternal grandmother's own abuela was Vietnamese; my maternal great-great-grandfather was Haitian; somewhere on my paternal side, we're supposedly Sephardic. As in many Dominican families in my New York neighborhood -- Washington Heights -- with ties to the motherland, blackness is rarely discussed.

When I traveled to Sierra Leone and Ghana, I was asked if I was Moroccan, Lebanese or Eritrean. In Paris, if I was Brazilian or Arabic. In fact, I've been singled out a couple of times when entering and leaving Brazil, and was once accused of having a fake American passport by an agent. Being mistaken for everything but a person of Dominican heritage has certainly piqued my desire to examine how I and other Latinos fit into our national and global communities.

When I learned that nearly eighty percent of Puerto Rico's 4 million colorful residents checked off the "white" racial box on the last census, I wasn't floored -- given the alternatives. Race in the Caribbean lies in the eye of the beholder. And the beholder, from centuries of colonization, has more often than not been socialized to reject their blackness despite our collective and direct relationship to slavery.

An association with a historically discriminated ethnic group like African-Americans somehow drives the idea that the American dream is out of reach. In the American media, people with darker complexions are often grossly stereotyped. And Spanish language television often depicts people with darker skin and so-called African features as shiftless, ignorant and at the bottom of the social barrel.

This sort exposure, along with other factors, will result in a Latino with dark skin to

Question: What does Raquel Cepeda say about the census?

Question: What does Raquel Cepeda say about the Latinos ?

Answer: people don't fit into the neat categories outlined by the U.S.

Answer: people don't fit into the neat categories outlined by the U.S. Census.

Summary:
Raquel Cepeda: The census tries to categorize people by ethnicity, race .
She says reality is Latinos have very varied, complex backgrounds .
She says many people resist being classified by simple labels .


Editor's note: Rep. Charles Boustany is a Republican who represents southwest Louisiana. Before being elected to Congress, Boustany practiced medicine as a cardiothoracic surgeon for 14 years. Rep. Charles Boustany says Democrats' health care plans don't focus on quality. (CNN) -- Americans deserve the best health care system in the world -- one that emphasizes quality, but reduces cost, so all Americans can participate. As a doctor, I saw firsthand the problems many patients face finding a doctor, navigating the system, and paying their health care bills. Unfortunately, Democrats' plans in Congress fail to focus on quality. House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, recently stated that the Democrats were proposing "a government-run nightmare operated by federal bureaucrats." If enacted, their plans would complicate the system and take more money from American pockets -- a nightmare, indeed. One report estimates more than 100 million people could drop their current health care coverage if the plans were open to all employers. One reason cited for the drop in current coverage -- businesses no longer offering private coverage -- would contradict the president's promise to allow Americans to keep their current coverage, if they like it. Imposed employer mandates could cost 4.7 million people their jobs. All of this means that many people who like their current health insurance might not be able to keep it and be forced into a new system, including a government option with lower reimbursement rates that might discourage their current doctor from continuing to treat them. Just as a doctor has the obligation to be honest and straightforward with their patients, Democrats in Washington must inform the public of the impact their plans will have on current insurance and the exact costs. As the economy struggles to recover, Americans are rightfully concerned about the potential cost of health reform, as shown by a recent CNN survey. Before we know how much it will cost and how it will affect those currently with insurance, we cannot have an open and honest debate on the merits of any proposal. While the House bill remains unscored by the Congressional Budget Office, health overhaul plans being crafted by Senate Democrats will likely cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years and could fail to cover millions of Americans. As a doctor, I know there is a better way to help all Americans achieve meaningful health care access. The president's proposed cuts in health care spending will result in limited treatment options for patients, and by shifting the burden of debt to the next generation of Americans, our children will be the ones helping to defer the outrageous costs. With our government's inability to maintain the Medicare and Medicaid programs that we currently fund, how much deeper can the hole get? The Government Accountability Office refers to Congress' failure to face Medicare's monetary difficulties as a "leadership deficit." Even some Blue Dog Democrats are asking if funding a new plan is even possible if the government cannot solve the funding problems of the current plans. Patients in these programs continue to be denied access to a doctor in many communities. A few months ago, I received an e-mail from a Medicaid patient diagnosed with a brain tumor. Doctors told her that she would likely be put on a six-month waiting list for brain surgeons currently serving Medicaid patients. For timely care, she had to borrow a neighbor's car, secure child care for her autistic child and drive four hours to a hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. Patients in government-run plans obviously deserve better than this, so is this new government-run plan going to be any better? Republicans will give all Americans the liberty to select the plan that works best for them and let those who like their health care coverage keep it. We pledge to make quality health care coverage more available and less expensive, including those with pre-existing health conditions. We want to protect Americans from losing their current health coverage because an employer drops private coverage for a government-run program. This plan should also improve American lives through effective wellness, prevention and disease management programs, while finding innovative treatments for life

Question: What could burden next generation with enormous cost?

Question: What plans are Boustany talking about?

Question: What did Boustany say about health plans?

Question: Who would be burdened with the enormous cost?

Question: What could many Americans lose?

Answer: cuts in health care spending

Answer: Democrats' health care

Answer: care

Answer: our children will

Answer: their jobs.

Summary:
Rep. Boustany: Many Americans could lose current health plans .
He says they could wind up in government system without current doctors .
Boustany: Plans could burden next generation with enormous cost .