The Ricochet Podcast - Things Gonna Change

Episode Date: March 20, 2014

Our first 2.0 Ricochet Podcast! This week, 2.0 is here (lots of talk about that), where’s MH370, Fox News’ James Rosen on Ukraine and his impressions of Obama and Hillary, the mysterious power and influence of the Dalai Lama, Rob does his downward dog, and the White House gets its just desserts. Music from this week’s episode: Chill Out (Things Gonna Change) by John Lee Hooker The Ricochet Podcast... Source

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Innovate. The IT solutions people. Activate program. More than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. Well, I'm not a crook. I'll never tell a lie. But I am not a bully. I'm the king of the world! Wow! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lilacs, and our guest today is James Rosen, Washington correspondent for Fox. Putin, Crimea, Ukraine, 370, and oh yeah, that 2.0 thing, how's that going? Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again. Yes, folks, this is the Ricochet Podcast number 206. And yes, the number 206 has the numbers 2.0 in it, but we'll get to that in just a second. It's brought to you as ever by Audible.com, the leading provider of spoken audio information and entertainment. You can listen to audiobooks wherever, whenever you want.

Just go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet and get your free audiobook and a 30-day trial. We're also brought to you, of course, by Ricochet, which has more brio and enthusiasm now more than ever because 2.0 has

brought out, shall we say, the critics, the fans, the commutarian, the well, let's let Rob and Peter tell you. Welcome, guys. This would be the place where you say, hey, give us some money. So, Rob, give it a shot. Hey, look.

We have launched Ricochet 2.0. No, no. Yes. And if you were listening to this for the first time if you are not a member of ricochet you should go to ricochet.com you should become a member we now have three different levels of membership all of them interesting all of them with lots of goodies all of them worth uh checking out if you are a member of ricochet a member along with us me and peter and james we thank you we're pleased to have you with us. And we thank you for your forbearance during the period of time, the next 48, 72 hours when we slowly – slower than we expected, but these things always happen.

Slower than expected. The last time I saw that many bad gateways, it was a movie about Checkpoint Charlie. Hi-yo! Okay. All right. Oh, God. This is going to be a long one, isn't it? We are slowly getting there, and we are fixing the things that don't work. We move from one system to another. That is actually harder than moving a house. It's harder than moving everything.

Every single thing that's ever been written or thought or said or recorded on Ricochet needs to be translated into a new content management system. And it is slowly being done. And the thing is you can't do it before you do it. So we're doing it now. The new system is great. The site looks beautiful. I know that there are people who have issues with some of the design choices we've made. That's okay. We'll get there.

We're going to fiddle around with it for now, and we're going to kind of see what we like, and all of us together, and see what we don't like, and then we're going to fix it. And we're going to fix it on the fly. It's easy to fix it now. Our content management system is WordPress. It's very solid.

It's got a million different versions. It's incredibly stable. There's plenty of ways to fix it, and fix it without busting the site. And we're going to do that. Yes? James? James is in abeyance at the moment. No, I'm here.

For a minute. We know you're there, but you're still just listening. Here's the point I think that I myself would like to stress. The old system was called what, Rob? It had a name. What was it called? Easy Press, wasn't it? Easy something.

And it wasn't easy. And it turned out that it turned out that it roughly the moment we put up Ricochet 1.0. What would that be? A little over two years ago now, almost everybody else in the world stopped using that platform. We were nearly alone. This is, well, I'm overstating the case a little, but only a little. And it turned out that the only people we could find to fix the problems and manage the site, and this is not made up.

This is not made up. Lived in Central Europe. They were not on our time zone. They were not absolutely entirely conversant with American politics, let alone the language we spoke. And what that meant was that although very, very slowly we ended up with a pretty good system in Ricochet 1.0, the ceiling – we had already bumped into the ceiling. There was not going to be any way to improve it, to make experiments, to test this, to test that. And furthermore, the only people on the face of the planet who knew how to maintain the site were one day going to retire. It just was not tenable.

So we have moved to this new platform, WordPress. So it's like moving from a Univac to an Apple. The whole world uses this software. No, it's a brilliant design. And I'm very happy that you've hired Tartar Consulting and Sevastopol and all the servers that are in Crimea. I can't see how this is possibly going to go wrong in the future. No, you're right. WordPress is a stable, mature platform into which any number of widgets and changes can be made.

It's not like you have to sit down and reinvent the wheel. So here's the difference. Over to you in a moment, James. I just want to finish this thought. Here is the difference. On Ricochet 1.0, and I'm not making this up. Rob will attest to this. Every so often, a member would make a comment or suggestion about the site and about how the site ran.

And you know, before not too many months had passed, we stopped reading them because we couldn't try these suggestions. There was just nowhere to go. And now we have, let's see, I have Ricochet open. Ricochet 2.0 has been up for 72 hours. There's a feed called Report Issues and Give Us Feedback. At the moment, it has 595 comments. Rob and I and Blue Yeti and Troy and the design folks have read all 595 comments at least three times.

We're paying attention. We're going to be able to make experiments and improve and adjust and try things out in this new platform. So all I'm saying is what Rob said when it comes right down to it. Thank you for your forbearance. I just wanted to add a little color there. That's right. Well, people come to love a site despite its deficiencies and sometimes because of its deficiencies. There's a certain cruft that accumulates and people get used to a cluttered look. And if you're living amongst clutter, piles of tauntering magazines, cats up in the bureau

peering down, and then you go away for two weeks and your kids come in and get rid of all the stuff that you've – when you walk in, there's going to be a shock. Oh my – what have you done to the way things were? And that's the initial shock that people are having. I understand that. I, where's my Sarah fonts? Darn it. Uh, how come I can't find this? Dang it. That old thing that everyone was used to eventually the familiarity comes back with a new design. And I, I think what people are responding to though, is not just the newness, the crispness, the, uh, the clarity of the new version. I think they're responding to

the fact that before, when you went to Ricochet, right away at the top of the page, you saw that something was new and you read it. That's right. And now it's work. Now there's a carousel. Now there are boxes. Now there's another box before you get down to what it is. And so while I understand designers love carousels and they love the boxes and I, I get all of those things and there are things you have to do to tell people this is a going concern from 2014. I'm a big fan of the single column as opposed to the two as to giving them more meat on the front page than giving them just a bunch of stuff. And somebody's smoke alarm just went off.

So, uh, that was, that was my little front door, but yeah, but okay. That's what I said. All right.

Do you want to get into the single column thing here, Rob? No, I don't because we need to talk about other things and we can probably take this elsewhere. But again, I've only been designing web pages since 1996. Don't listen to me. Don't. So lots of stuff going on here. And let me ask you, Peter, first. Are you tired of 370?

Do you want more 370? Can you get of 370? Do you want more 370? Can you get enough 370? Do you think you know what happened? And then we're going to go to Rob on that one because we've got James Rosen coming up here. Oh, the airliner. The airliner. Yes. I've lost interest in that.

In fact, to tell you, to be perfectly honest, after the second day, it stopped interesting me because it ceased to be a good mystery story as soon as it became clear that the Malaysian government tracking agencies in all of that were picking up, had sort of reached a dead end, that their information gathering was so rudimentary and they'd made so many mistakes that we just didn't have, we weren't going to be able to follow leads in a reasonable way. I sort of lost interest. I hope those people pop up somewhere. I hope that the thing was hijacked. But by comparison with what's going on in Crimea, Russia, Europe, all of that, I've sort of lost interest. I'm sorry to say. Is that a deficiency on my part? Probably. No. Rob, would you rather see news about 370 in a single column or a two column or a three column format? I'm not answering that because I know it's a trick question. I am also bored of it.

I understand though why it's interesting. It's good TV. What I find amazing is that now here breathlessly CNN keeps releasing these fantastic press releases showing the one or two days it beats Fox News – beats O'Reilly on Fox News, talking about the airplane. Talking about the airplane is now a show. That's a show on news. And the news channels release – press releases talk about the ratings they get talking about the airplane. So it's amazing how many hours of TV you can fill talking about something in which there is zero new information and keep talking about it and then say things like, well, we're just speculating. But could it have been aliens?

We're going to go to an alien expert soon. I mean it shows the extraordinary ability of our news – and I should be careful because, of course, we have a representative from the most successful news channel ever, but it does show their ability to talk about nothing endlessly. Well, and someone in Hollywood no doubt is kicking themselves saying, this would make a great television show, wouldn't it? Jet disappears and what happens to the people and they go, oh man, that's been done. Unless our attention span is so little it's time for a reboot of Lost. I'm not tired of it. One of the things that I enjoy is learning new things, fixing on a point of information that you never knew before, convincing yourself now that you have a level of expertise you didn't have before, and then walking around discussing the theory only to have it debunked and shot down the next day by people who know incrementally more than you do. I love this continuum of knowledge that we have. And every day somebody has got to come out with

why this new theory you believe you're wrong. The usual bossy finger pointing of the web is on full display here. I still think it was a fire. I still think that Occam's razor applies. It's either the simplest thing, the simplest explanation, or somebody named Occam with a razor got into the cockpit and slit their throats, as I said elsewhere. But I think that there was an accident and that's all there is to it. And the idea that this thing is sitting somewhere in a jungle being retrofitted with a nuclear bomb strikes me as preposterous. Not implausible, but it strikes me as preposterous. So do we move on from this then? Do we just get the idea that we'll never know and be satisfied with that?

I think we will because, look, UNU's shiny thing over there, we're easily distracted. To talk about this and not talk about the Crimea seems a perfect example of the fact that we'll stop talking about this when there's something else to talk about. Well, I think we're talking about this because it's a perfect thing for everyone to talk about when they don't have to talk about how lousy this particular president is and how amazingly incompetent he and his foreign policy team are. So this is a perfect thing to talk about because it's kind of a universal theme. It seems kind of like, well, you know how the universe works. It's just crazy. And no one has to talk about the fact that there is a new belligerent power rising in the east and we are shrugging our shoulders and letting it happen.

Rob, the 80s called. Yeah. They would like to lend you their foreign policy. You know, if it even delivered the joke right, I wouldn't be so – I mean you are referring to the famous put down that wasn't even very well delivered. I was considering that Obama could do much better to Mitt Romney in the 2012 campaign in which he accused Mitt Romney of being a cold warrior, of a throwback to an old time. And that, to me, I mean I'm not sure I understand why that is not – that clip is not being played over and over. Steve Manisek had a piece up on Ricochet. I think it was – it went up yesterday, although it's still – although because it's –

Hold on a second. Yes, go ahead. Can I ask you to hold that thought? You may indeed. We will get to Steve in just a second. But as long as we're talking about experts and what they know, let's have one. We've got one. James Rosen joined the Fox News Channel in 1999. A lot of history to discuss.

He's currently serving as the chief Washington correspondent and host of the online show The Foxhole. We welcome him to the podcast. Welcome, James. So great to be with you guys. Thanks for having me. Well, we were just talking about 370, a subject of which the world may indeed be tiring. And it seems to me that the real story might be Ukraine asking the United States that we have some treaty obligations. Can you guys help us out? Where's that going? Well, it was interesting to see Vice President Biden taking the diplomatic lead this week. He made a brief tour of Eastern European capitals, which included Poland and Lithuania. And in Vilnius yesterday, Vice President Biden said that under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, NATO will respond to any act of aggression against any NATO member, which was obviously designed to reassure the Ukrainians that the upcoming NATO summit in South Wales

as a forum where the United States could secure concrete commitments from the various NATO members as to the collective action that they would all coordinate in taking against any such action. Now, that upcoming NATO summit in South Wales, I looked it up, is going to take place on September 4 and 5, almost six months away. And I can't imagine that it was of great reassurance to the Ukrainians that these commitments from the various NATO members could be secured six months from now. James, Peter Robinson here. Welcome to Ricochet. Thank you for having me, Peter.

Oh, a pleasure. You went with Secretary of State Kerry to Kiev. What was that last week, as I recall? I think it was the Secretary's first visit abroad since the Crimean crisis became a crisis. Can I ask, describe Kiev? What was the mood in Kiev? They just replaced a president. there was a new government, the Russians were causing trouble, and Secretary of State was there to reassure them. What was that like, James? Well, it was very raw still. You've accurately placed the visit in its context, which was that the military seizure of Crimea by the Russian Federation had just unfolded. It was not clear then, as it still isn't now

uh... exactly what else vladimir putin had in mind to accomplish militarily or otherwise uh... and the secretary spent about three to four hours uh... in kiev before proceeding on to paris and i was on his plane with him and his aids uh... he went to yet to stop primarily one was my down square in central kiev where of the protesters had been mowed down by the security forces loyal to the

ex-president victory on the college uh... and it was an extraordinary scene peter uh... all you first of all was a very foggy damp afternoon so it was very poor visibility and you're in this enormous square which goes on for several football field flight and as far as your i can see uh... there is poor visibility and you're in this enormous square which goes on for several football fields of light and as far as your i can see

uh... there is rubber tires uh... flower shrines twisted metal wreckage the whole place smelled of smoke and still burning rubber uh... and really of heartbreak and tragedy

and carry was truly mobbed by ordinary Ukrainians. I've been doing these VIP trips with presidents, vice presidents, secretaries of state and defense for 15 years now. And in fact, I visited that same square with President Clinton back in 2000 when 100,000 Ukrainians turned out with American flags to welcome the American president. And in this case uh... i have never seen since nine eleven anyway uh... a principal of the i've been u s v i p

so immersed in a crowd of ordinary and therefore unscreened citizens of another country frankly was worsen to me uh... but he'd nonetheless uh... i'm speaking to a reporter for sky news which is sister organization of fox news who i recognize saw in the crowd. And he told me that the British foreign secretary, William Hague, had been in the same spot making the same tour of the shrines in Maidan Square, and only about three or four people turned out to see him.

So that's a testament, whatever one thinks of John Kerry or Barack Obama and their politics, to the enduring power of the United States symbolically around the world. And these people crowded in to John Kerry to tell him, please help us. Please be with us. Hey, James, extraordinary sight. Hey, James, it's Rob Long in Los Angeles. Thank you for joining us. So what happens to all those people when we don't help them?

Well, there is a school of thought that, and this has been attributed to this Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. I can't confirm that it's his view, but it's been attributed to him, and it frankly sounds like him, that what Russia needs to do now

is not mount any broader invasion, but simply wait, that the West, meaning the United States and the EU, will tire but simply wait, that the West, meaning the United States and the EU, will tire of the financial commitment that Ukraine requires, and that over time, and not too great a period of time, Ukrainians will simply be forced to return to the bosom of Mother Russia for capital and energy, and that if they just bide their time, they will in effect see this country restored to the Russian orbit.

That is what could be the answer to your question. Yeah, that does seem actually plausible, right? I mean that's actually the most sophisticated analysis of the situation right now I've heard. I mean it's far away. It's not really a strategic interest of the United States. It's a country that represents now a proxy for holding the line against a more expansive and more belligerent Putin. But I mean does any – I mean you're in Washington. Is there any sense in Washington that they believe that Americans are exercised by this? I mean we started the podcast talking more about that missing Malaysia air flight than about Ukraine.

I mean is there – how much appetite is there? At any given time, no matter what's dominating the headlines, we know that a large swath of Americans are more apt to be concerned with who's winning on the biggest loser or what's transpiring amongst and between the Kardashians. Hey, something happened to the Kardashians? Exactly. Let's hold that. Yeah. But so no, there is no mass movement in the United States demandingS. foreign aid that has gone to Eastern Europe over the last decade has declined from 14% to 3%. So this entire episode has been a wake-up call to a lot of people and a reminder that Europe matters. did about trying to toe the line of an expansionist ideology, not because it directly impacts

U.S. national security, but because of the symbolic aspects of it or the credibility of U.S. deterrent. That sounds an awful lot like the terminology we heard during the Cold War. One of the senators from the Foreign Relations Committee who traveled to Kiev this past week to meet with the new interim government there, came back and told me on a background basis, so I can't disclose this individual's name, that there's a lot of unreal thinking going on in Washington, similar, this individual said, to the past decade where we didn't want a war against al-Qaeda, but guess what? They were at war against us. And this individual said, I hate to say it,

but Vladimir Putin is engaged in his own Cold War with us. So it's a question of whether or not we want to engage. And as you say, it's also about assessing our strategic interest there. James, Peter here. Oh, may I? Okay, it's good. It's your show. You can do anything you want. Yeah, no, no. But no, you have no idea no idea. If I step on James Lilac's questions, you have no idea the price I'll pay, James. So let me get a couple of questions and then turn you over to – He is an expert in information. We know this.

He is an expert. That's one of his many areas of expertise. All right. A few more or less rapid-fire questions. Is the Crimea gone? The former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates gates said so on fox news sunday and you know when you hear joe biden referring to alluding to a nato summit that's six months from now as a place where actions may be decided uh it certainly sounds like the obama administration has conceded it at least for – but they're in for a long stretch here. I think it's gone. Trevor Burrus Okay. So Jack Matlock, former national security – a member of the national security staff during the Reagan years.

Peter Robinson Ambassador to Russia. Trevor Burrus Ambassador to Russia in the final years of the Reagan administration and under George H.W. Bush had a piece up on the internet the other day saying – I believe it was on Newsweek. I think Newsweek – It was Washington Post and it was terrific. I read it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for saving me there, James. All right. In any event, Jack Matlock said in effect, look, we're all – we have to complain about the Crimea because what Putin did, simply rolling in and taking it by force is not acceptable. On the other hand, the truth is

it was a distraction. It does hold a special place in Russian history. It was of all Ukrainian territory, the most heavily Russian. Now that it's gone, let it go and get on with the business of building a modern pro-Western Ukraine. Does that sound plausible? And do you think that just beneath the surface of complaining about Ukraine, of attempting to find some ground on which at least to rhetorically stand up to Putin, is that really the position where the senator you spoke to, where the State Department, is that really where Washington is coming down? One way of answering this, Peter, is simply to say that I don't think that there's any significant senior official in any branch of the United States government who now believes that Vladimir Putin is going to roll back the invasion as we have pro forma demanded. So, yes, Crimea is effectively gone. this crisis, this episode, presents some opportunity for the United States.

And whether the Obama administration's policymakers understand that is more up for debate, it seems to me. And whether, as you say, they are seeing this episode as a chance to create a more reliable Western ally, not only in Ukraine, but perhaps in surrounding countries. Whether they have the fortitude to pull it off, that's all still remains to be seen. I hate to use that stock newsman's phrase of time will tell. Last question for me. Is there any feeling in Washington, you've said that Vladimir Putin is waging his own Cold War. Russia is now expansionist. We have to be realistic.

What's next? Odessa is well within the rest of Ukrainian territory and yet still that's one more Russian city. You've got the Baltic states, which have 25 or 30 percent Russian populations. You've got the Turkish Straits, the Bosporus, for goodness sakes. That's still ruled under the Montreux Convention of 1926, which the Soviets have objected to since the 1930s. Still object to, as I understand. So is there some sense about where Putin is likely to push next? I wouldn't want to be engaged in that business.

I'm reminded of a press conference I attended in Riyadh a number of years ago with the Saudi oil minister, in which I posed the question, are the days, sir, when Americans could pay $ who tried to predict the price of gasoline. He said, if I knew this answer, I would be in Las Vegas. And it was the biggest brush off I ever received in a press conference setting that got the most pickup, because that's the quote that everyone used. So I wouldn't want to be engaged in the business of predicting Putin's next move. But suffice to say that in general game theory terms, when aggression goes unchecked, it tends to continue. One concern I have had in watching this episode unfold has been the commitment of President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry to a course of gradualism, which of course we know that Lyndon Johnson tried in tried uh... in his uh... escalation in vietnam which of course was a a superpower confrontation

in a localized setting between united states in the u s s r uh... when you impose costs on an adversary such as president obama continually tells us he's seeking to do with with with prudence uh... and the goal of those of the of the imposition of those costs uh... is to uh... compel your adversary to do something or to cease doing something. The application of the pain or costs in a gradual or incremental fashion,

generally history has told us this only serves to acclimate your adversary to the acceptance of marginal increases in the pain that he has already been absorbing. And if the application of pain isn't dramatic and truly devastating in some way, the enemy has already absorbed this level of pain, and the marginal increase doesn't feel markedly different to him and gives him no real reason to disembark from his present course. And I think that's what we're seeing here. And we just saw President Obama give a statement just a few minutes ago announcing the application of sanctions to a marginally expanded list of Russian senior officials and one bank. And again, whether this is sufficient to dissuade a character like Putin from an expansionist

course seems to me very much open to question. Mr. Rosen, James Lalix here in Minnesota, which is right by the Saudi Arabia of America, where they're just turning out all kinds of gas. And you'd like to think we could have a buck 50 gas. When I was growing up in the 70s, we believed, of course, that America had about three gallons of gasoline left, period, total, and we were all going to run out. And now, of course, we're swimming in this stuff. When you mentioned that most people are interested in the Kardashians as opposed to the Ukrainians, you're right. But if you take polls and ask these folks, should we drill more? Should we build a keystone?

Should we make our energy sector even more vital? People will say, well, yeah, because it's jobs that would seem to make sense. One of the things that we could do to apply pressure to Russia would be to expedite the shipment of LNG, of liquefied natural gas, to Europe to wean them off of the Russian teat. But yet the administration seems to be, from this position here at least, hewing more to a line that carbon, anything that burns, is bad. Global warming is why we have to have all-night Senate sessions, and we're not going to assist the energy sector any more than necessary. This seems like a tool they have in their arsenal that they decline to use for ideological reasons. And I'm curious, does the

Washington Press Corps themselves generally share the idea that global warming is really the predominant issue of our time and the administration's right to focus on it? Or do they regard that as sort of the unrealistic thinking that we also see applying in foreign affairs? I can't say the Washington Press Corps sees that point of view, which has been articulated by Secretary Kerry recently in the formulation that global warming is the greatest national security threat of our times i can't say the washington press corps subscribes that wholeheartedly but

might by senses that the washington press corps agrees on most points that with the administration that global warming is a is a great crisis and one that is probably derived most entirely from man-made action i myself sh shchew all debates about global warming simply because it's beyond my intellectual ken. I don't pretend to understand climatology,

and I won't play a climatologist on TV. But I would say that in fairness to the president and his administration, they claim at least that they are pursuing an all-of-the-above policy with respect to energy. Whether that's truly borne out by their actions, again, is probably suspect. But, you know, it was interesting in the early days of the Keystone Pipeline application process, then-Secretary of State Clinton indicated that the pipeline would, quote, likely be approved. As she said at the time, we're going to get our dirty oil either from the Mideast or from

Canada. We might as well get it from Canada. And President Obama gave a heralded speech at Georgetown a few years back, again, when the pipeline process was still early on, saying that we need to turn increasingly to our neighbors in Mexico and Canada for our energy alternatives. But then the left made Keystone a cause celeb. People like Julia Louis-Dreyfus got involved on YouTube, and there was a market change in the administration's view on the matter.

But I agree with you that, you know, I've visited shale drilling platforms. I've been 1,000 feet over the platform on a rig in central Pennsylvania. I've seen how they operate. And I'm familiar with the claims of energy industry sources who tell you that if fully and properly exploited, with appropriate respect for environmental concerns, shale gas could satisfy American energy needs for the next 150 years. And I don't discount that. Hey, James, Rob Long again. Setting aside that that is an issue right now, what's the mood in Washington right now? I mean, we just got a report that that there are going to be some

more sanctions against Russia. So I suppose if you're in the White House right now, you kind of feel like the path is sanctions, consensus. Eventually, there'll be some kind of a talk that won't go anywhere, but it'll sort of put put the political issue to bed. What's the what's the feeling in Washington going into the midterms? These midterms seem like they're going to be, I mean, for both parties, kind of a watershed event. Does anything happen in D.C. when there's this gigantic scaffold being built in November for some, probably a great deal of people and a lot of political agenda. Well, you know, I was just about to bring up the midterms

when I was hearing the early part of your question about, you know, once this sort of the sanctions are imposed and the talk continues, and you talked about the mood, and I was going to say the mood is this is a midterm election year. And typically in electoral contests, federal contests in this country, and i was going to say the mood is this is a midterm election year and uh... typically in in in electoral contests federal contest in this country uh... and particularly in midterm elections foreign policy does not rate high

amongst those on the agenda of those who to come out to vote as you know the term election c a depressed voter turnout generally speaking as opposed to presidential years uh... and And amongst that lower turnout, foreign affairs doesn't rank highly. So I don't think that the Ukraine crisis is going to determine people's votes for their congressional representatives. More likely, we're going to see the debate focused on, you guessed it, Obamacare and the economy and jobs. And I think the question that John Boehner continues to pose is a potent one, which is where are the jobs, Mr. President?

Speaking of Mr. President. Yes, go ahead, Rob. Speaking of Mr. President, I hear that James Rosen does the best impression of Barack Obama ever. I have two questions for you. One, can we hear some of it? And two, have you ever done it for the president? Let me take your second one first. No, I've never done it for the president.

And I would be lying if I claimed that this is the best impersonation. I regard it only as serviceable and far inferior to my George W. Bush, but here's an answer to your first question, a little snippet of it. The notion that somehow me or my administration would unnecessarily

extend a sentence is false. That's pretty good, actually. That's pretty good. What we're trying to do is improve it. And now, because I touted my GWB,

and I'm not talking about the place that had the three lanes closed down for a few days. That's the George Washington Bridge. Got it, got it. Listen, appreciate you coming. Welcome to the people's house. See, one thing I like to do that sort of ticks off the TV people is I like to make a answer uneditable by speeding up at the end

and saying the name of the next reporter, Steve. There you go. That's pretty good. So, you know, when it all hits the skids, as they say, you've got a thing you can do. So who are you preparing to do

for 2016? Well, I already have a Hillary, so that's under the belt. This is someone who thinks an applause line sounds like this. Oh, that is the best Paul Lind I've heard all day. And I'll have to work on Chris Christie or Rubio. We'll see. There's time that's still there. There's time.

There's time. It needs to be mastered. That is perfect. That is perfect. All right. We'll have you on next, and I'll do my Millard Fillmore, which is better than anybody else's, and I defy anybody. In the meantime, of course, we'll watch you on Fox. We'll listen to you there as well.

And we thank you, as ever, for coming to the podcast. We hope we can get you back as soon as possible, Mr. Rosen. It was my honor to be with you guys. Thank you. Have a grand day. James, take care. A pleasure. You know, the question that I had about the oil, the gas industry,

do you guys remember when Texas was the, was the, you know, the sort of go-to mental image for, for prosperity and, and, and wells that were just wells that were shooting out. I mean,

just absolutely shooting petroleum out of the earth as though it was, the pressure was so great. The abundance was so great that the minute you even poked the crust, it came bursting out. It's the only thing I remember from the movie Giant, actually. The James Dean movie. You guys, what, you've never seen it? Yeah, no, of course you've seen it.

Was him coming in covered entirely with oil, which then in that movie was, in those times, was a symbol of prosperity and wonderful things. And now it's just poison. Well, yeah, but Jed, exactly. He was shooting for some food.

All the guy had to do was to shoot from a blunderbuss into the ground, and out came the bubble and crude. Oil, that is. Texas tea. Well, the next thing you know, Jed's a millionaire, and on they go from there. But I was curious about Giant, actually, whether or not that was from the 50s.

And it turns out it's from earlier. They actually based that thing on a book by Edna Ferber. And I got to thinking, Edna Ferber is not really thought by most people to be one of those American voices that actually defines a generation, defines a time. Am I likely to read an Edna Ferber book? No, because I like to read mysteries these days. And Rob, you know that we talked about this before. Our knowledge of North Korea comes specifically now from the Inspector No novels, right?

Yes, that and my boarded attempts to get into the country, yeah. I get it. And so the other day I was listening to a series of mysteries that were set in Scotland, in a little tiny island off the coast. Yeah. I get it. And so the other day I was listening to a series of mysteries that were set in Scotland, in a little tiny island off the coast of Scotland. And just for the fun of it, I thought, I wonder if it exists. I go on Google. It exists. Why am I surprised? I go to see if there's a satellite view. Of course it exists. Why am I surprised? I go to see if there's a street view on Google. And there is. And so now I'm reading and listening to this obscure Scottish mystery series, which is popular in Hollywood as a as a Marple like sleuth, which I would have never known if I hadn't attempted to find Edna Ferber on audible.com,

which, of course, is where you all knew this was going. Now, if you go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet, you will be able to download Edna Ferber mysteries where a guy took the most unlikely character you can probably think of and turned her into a detective. Everybody's a detective in audible.com if you look hard enough. So that would be my choice for the week. I haven't read it. I am now keenly interested to see exactly how they tease out the detecting abilities of a lady who goes to Hollywood in the midst of the blacklists. So there you have it.

Guys, you would be in the position to give some book suggestions yourself. Rob? Why me? I am now finding out if the – that I'm currently trying to – here it is. OK. I have been reading off and on for the past couple of years The Raj Quartet. Oh, really? Yeah. Really?

They're great. They're really great. But why only off and on? Well, because – You don't get really engrossed or you're spacing the books? I do get engrossed but I'm spacing them and they're big. They're thick. So I kind of get bored.

And I'm right now through The Day of the Scorpion and The the scorpion is narrated it is on audible and i think that's that's i'm gonna move us more to that now the audible version because of course with whisper sync technology it syncs across the book and the thing and the listener and all that stuff so uh but i should i should be uh listening i guess to to Internet Design for Dummies, according to James. There's one that's on Audible. No, it's not on Audible because it requires pictures. So, Peter, I believe that you are now in volume 17 of Master and Commander in Space, I think. Yeah, exactly.

No, I have to confess, I have absolutely no Audible recommendation for this week because my nose is deep in Yalta, The Price of Peace by S.M. Ploche. This is Cold War stuff. And it's an academic book that just does not exist on Yalta. One of the very few books, I beg your pardon, that doesn't exist on Audible. So I come up empty. It's not that I'm not reading, but this week I'm reading one of the few books ever printed in English that is not available on Audible.

I'm sorry. One of the great things about Audible is that if you go there looking for a book on Yalta and you don't find it for some reason, whatever, you're going to get a list of recommendations, and you'll go down one of those little twisty rabbit holes until you find a book that you never thought you wanted that isn't about Yalta at all, but something completely different, and you want to listen to it because you're fascinated by the pricey. So there you go. There's absolutely no reason you shouldn't go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet and get your free 30-day trial and your free book. And do so to thank them for sponsoring this, the ricochet podcast, uh, by the way,

thank you for saving me there, James. Oh, no problem whatsoever. Let's, uh, do, do we want to go back into the 2.0 discussion?

Because I feel that, yeah, sure. Okay. Now I, I, I hate to make aspersions about, I mean,

it's a matter of preference. And when Rob says, you know, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you're in error. But the nested comets, for example. I have no problem with nested comets and these make flames shoot out of people's ears. Describe the thinking that was going into that. It's wrong to say we have

nested comments. We have... You're allowed to make two levels of a reply. Because half the time, and maybe this is just me, but I've seen other people do that, where you want to just make one little comment or one

little thought off of another thought. You have a choice now. You can do quotes or a reply or a nested reply. And some people do quotes and some people do nested reply and some people do a little bit of both. You could say, hey, have you checked this out? Or here's the answer to that question. Or you're wrong. It's actually 97 percent, not 95% or whatever it is.

And then when you want to make a larger point, you can make a quote reply or – it's just one more choice. You don't have to do it. You can do it or not. It's not rude to not. It's not rude to do it. If you really have a genuinely new thought or a larger response, you'll probably want – you probably won't want to use a nested reply. You'll probably want to use a regular comment. But it's one more choice.

The column issue on the front page is a separate deal. That's a separate problem. I wouldn't conflate them. The column idea is that we needed a little bit more life and liveliness on the front page. And we may have put too much liveliness on the front page. We might have to thin it. We'll play around with it a little bit. Which is Rob's way of saying that I'm on your side, James, but he's still thinking it over. The liveliness in the front page, as I said before, will be improved if there's a lot of

fresh content every time somebody hits it. They go every hour, every hour and a half, and there's something new at the top with a standard carousel that doesn't move unless you click it that displays one main story. There's the impression that nothing has changed since you got there. So I would – We can fix that. We can fix that. We can have more content. We can have more pot as a, as a, you know, get the whole site ported over that, you know, yes, if, if, if there,

if we I'm and get more content there, it will work. It will work. Get two comms, we can do a lot of things. You also seem to be rather intermittent in your connection. We're hearing about every four words. We're guessing what you say just as that man guessed the Wheel of Fortune thing the other day, which spread all over the Internet. I'm sure you've seen that. I don't want to ruin it for everybody, but the guy had two letters and 97 spaces left to go and he nailed it on his first attempt. And Pat's response was just

priceless. He just walked over and sort of patted him down for hidden transmission devices. And then just held up the sign that said $45,000 with that Sajak deadpan that we all know and love so well. And I was actually going to drop him a line for my newspaper blog and ask him how he felt at that moment. But you know how he felt. He's happy when people win. He's that kind of guy. Now, there was another post that was going on at Ricochet. I can't remember if it was in the top of the carousel on the side in the member field or one of the two column things.

That had to do from Rachel Liu, why Democrats are the party of science. Now, when you hit the link, it goes to the transom. And unfortunately, I don't have the access to the transom. But I assume you guys read the story. And I assume, of course, that you agree with that idea that the Democrats are the party of science, right? Oh, I'm not. Go ahead. Go ahead, Rob. Well, I'm not even sure. Go ahead.

Go ahead, Rob. Well, I don't. I mean, I put up a post on my own yesterday about how the anti-science party. No, I don't think that's true at all. I don't understand pro-science, anti-science anyway. But, you know, I live in a very left-wing part of town and every single one of my uh neighbors and radius of 10 miles everybody's a super liberal and i go to my yoga class they chant and they they you know they chant and they great universal energy all that stuff i'm not sure i understand why that's somehow less anti-science than, I don't know, somebody who believes in young earth creationism or whatever it's called.

I'm not sure why – Because it's spiritual. It's absolutely insane and like you're ignorant and the other is, oh, well, you know, we're going to connect to the universal energy field. I'm not quite sure I understand. Both seem to be a matter of faith. It's spiritual and it's vague and it's nonjudgmental. There are, there are no particular codified rules. There are no great parallels that have a moral importance to them. It's just feeling the goodness and the oneness and the vibration and the rest of it and the connectedness. And there's no judgment. There's no bad guy. There's no good

guy. There's just, uh, there's just your class with the people stretching. When you talk about your neighborhood though, I would gather that these people who believe themselves to be rational, empirical, party of science type folk hate the idea of fracking, hate the idea of genetically modified organisms because that's just unfair. They spend all their money at whole food because if you buy some lettuce that has been fertilized by heaped night soil of donkeys as opposed to carefully irradiated by a scientific procedure. They hate nuclear power. A lot of them probably believe that vaccines cause autism. And so when it comes to actual science like nuclear energy, pesticides, all of the things that have made the 20th century prosperous and safe, they hate them. They want the naturalness that somehow emanates from a bunch of –

from the psychological coordination of 100 yoga studios. Could I ask you guys – No. Your thoughts on the Dalai Lama in this connection? The Dalai Lama visits a lot of American universities. He was here at Stanford two or three years ago. And this institution which is dedicated to rationality and the life of the mind just erupted into – Yeah, he seems like a nice guy.

He really does and I have no brief against him but I think he's sort of regarded as the stoner pope. The stoner pope. That's a nice way. By the way, I have to confess that he has a certain appeal on our side. He was at AEI the other day and AEI gave him a great welcome. But do you know how the Dalai Lama was chosen? I read up on this at one point. When one Dalai Lama dies, some secondary or tertiary man in the Dalai Lama hierarchy starts traveling around to little boys in Tibet, or I suppose

now it'll be Tibetan families. And if the child chooses one of two smooth white pebbles or one of two blue feathers, then that child is believed to be the reincarnation, the umpty umpty reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. And you really could not ask for a more, I don't know that you want to use the reincarnation, the umpty-umpty reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. And you really could not ask for a more – I don't know that you want to use the word irrational but it is at a minimum an irrational procedure and yet this man because when he was three years old, he chose a certain pebble and a certain blue feather. We're supposed to – we great intellects of the American universities and American

intellectual life – I mean it is unscientific to the nth degree. It's like Monty Python, Holy Grail type of stuff. Some watery bent handing out scimitars is not a basis for government. I agree completely. I have no trouble with that. He seems like a nice man and a wise man. I have no trouble with that whatsoever at all. If that's what people wish to believe, I don't see the harm and I hope they enjoy their belief system and profit from it.

But you're absolutely right, Peter. This seems to be the sort of mumbo-jumbo-y, non-empirical, big father in the sky stuff that Bill Maher would happily laugh and spit upon. But no, like I said – Yeah, I mean they – It's religion is what it is. They do not offer that courtesy to religions, just this one. And what's about it is that this guy, the reason the Dalai Lama travels around, the reason he gives his speeches and his lectures, the reason he does all of that stuff is to garner support for Tibetan independence.

That's his big cause. That's why he's not back in Tibet. For the bumper sticker that you used to see in profusion everywhere and see less and less. Free Tibet, which is right up there usually next to the coexist bumper sticker. And it's a statement of moral superiority that is sufficient. As long as you say free Tibet, you need do nothing absolutely for it. That's also the problem is that here he is going around the country and everyone is loving him at Stanford. They're just applauding the one of the iPhones,

every single one of their iPads, every single one of their computers. It's all made in China. They're not boycotting China. They're not actually following through on anything. Yeah. Well, at least in a real world.

Yeah. Well, at least he gets to get out of there. He, you know, he's got a passport and he's, he's got a good gig in the traveling circuit. So he's got that going for him.

I'm curious, Peter, what brought to mind the Dalai Lama? I don't know. Oh, no. Just because when Rob was – I know what it was. It was Rob talking about his yoga class. And there was a point when I was being troubled by a bad bag when I too – this is why when Rob, I feel such an urge every time he talks about his yoga class. It just seems such a vulnerability, an opportunity to jump in and say, ha, you see?

Rhino lifestyle. But of course I can't because I attended yoga classes myself. And I did attend a yoga class where the instructor was, while you were grimacing, trying to hold some inhuman position, the instructor would try to toss in a little – I think it was semi-Buddhist or – it was some sort of a little religious – Some nonsense, yeah. And by the way, it took me three weeks before I realized

that at the end of each class, she was not saying, have a nice day. Namaste. In any event, so Rob said his yoga class and I thought, yeah, what is it about the Dalai Lama? That's all. Namaste. the instructor in three columns. And I said, no, I'm no way I'm getting into this. But also, Rob, one of the reasons, of course, people go to yoga is to work off the things that they accumulate and other pleasures of life, such as cream, butter, sugar and eggs and pastries and all those good things, which brings us to the White House chef, pastry chef who quit. Finally, somebody in this administration takes a stand on principle, and it's the pastry chef. Rabah, what do you think about that?

Well, I mean he's got a point. What he says is that in the light of Michelle Obama's sort of dietary and nutritional initiatives, she will make healthy, low-sugar, low-calorie desserts, which defeats the entire purpose of dessert. Dessert is supposed to be that thing that is not – it uses a lot of sugar, butter, and cream and high in calorie. And he was sick of it, and so he quit. And he said, I quit because of this, which I kind of like. I mean I like any chef that quits out of principle, and that seems to be a perfectly legitimate principle for a pastry chef to quit. But if you – what's interesting is if you go – if you ever go anywhere and look at White House menus, I was at some wineries recently up north, and a lot of them have – the bigger ones have had their wine served at White House dinners. And they usually have the menus sort of framed and placed on the wall.

And you look at the menus menus and it's pretty good. You eat well there. Well, they have like a little lunch or a little dinner or even a little casual dinner. But I love the lunches were great because they were just kind of lunches to celebrate something and you knew some out-of-town businessman or trade group or the winning Little League team was there. And the lunch looks great and so do the desserts. So I'm against anything that takes away the celebratory nature of dessert. I agree.

And while I would like to look at 19th century menus where you had things like pheasant aspic, I would like to think that, yes, civilized food is being served at the White House. I enjoy the fact that the chef quit. I enjoy the fact that they have had to readjust some of these decline in childhood obesity standards, which apparently they didn't have. It was kind of a statistical anomaly. And while I'm not happy that American kids continue to be fat, I am happy that anything that defeats the will of this unpleasant, grad grind, judgmental, harpy in chief, that brings warmth to my Grinch-like soul. Mainly because I find her hectoring efforts just absolutely, completely annoying. There was something that was going out the other day and I'm still trying to find out if it's a Photoshop.

It was one of those sign up for Obamacare kids, please. And it had a picture of the first lady and the president. And it said, we may be everyone's mom and dad, but we can't make you sign up for this. Get enrolled, such and such. And it didn't have the look of something that was a parody. It had that tone-deaf earnestness that they seemed to project. And I'm still trying to find out if this is real. Well, no. There was an article this week which is like they're all of our parents now. You know, our collective Americans – America's parents are Barack and Michelle.

What's bizarre about that, again, is sort of like the Dalai Lama, which is that you – at no point does anybody, even who agrees with them, say, well, that's a little weird. That's just a little weird. Instead, there's this incredible celebratory quality to this couple and their incompetence and their absolute busybodiness into our lives that – it's going to actually – it's going to come home to roost. It's sort of like the Senate rules, the nuclear option, getting rid of the filibuster. It's a greater than 50-50 chance now that the Senate is going to go Republican in November. What are they going to do then? Well, Peter, let me ask – let's ask Peter because you're breaking up again.

Peter, do you think then that when they get to – I'm very happy to know that my function is to fill in when Rob breaks up. When my Skype doesn't work. Going to technical difficulties, I'm turning to Robinson. Go ahead. I'll do my best. I'll do my best, James. I just wanted to catch that one in my mitt and throw it home as fast as possible.

Do you think that when they get the Senate back that they should restore the rules out of principle or say you changed them, now you live by them? My own personal fantasy is that – Stop right there. elected temporary because we couldn't really take it for longer than that, but temporary majority leader when the Republicans take the Senate and that for six weeks, Ted Cruz gets to do everything to the Democrats that he wants. And then Mitch McConnell returns, restores order, eases up and then restores the old set of rules. But really, really, the Democrats must be punished. They really do have to be punished in some way at some point. Maybe not permanently but they have to feel the pain. Maybe Putin lies outside our reach but we can certainly punish Harry Reid.

How's that for high-minded philosophy? Can't think of a nicer guy to have. You do. Wonderful. OK. Rob is back and he agrees and what form what form of punishment rob would you like to see go back the old way you wouldn't you just wouldn't full stop no no i would i'd leave it like this you like this leave it like this well then let's ask this question then uh should a republican retake the white

house do you believe that the that person should person should rule by executive decree – I'm sorry, executive order as much as previous presidents or make a stand to say this is contrary to the notion of our republic? No. Executive order is a bad thing. OK. But changing the Senate rules is a good thing if we can profit by it. Yeah, I think so actually. The Senate rules is the Senate rules. Ruling by executive order gets to the Constitution of the United States, which is simply on a different and much higher plane. I'm drawing distinctions here off the top of my head, but that feels right to me. Well, if it feels right, do it as we learned in the 60s and 70s.

I see your point. It brings us back to the Dalai Lama and yoga, doesn't it? I guess that it does. To pair away all non-essentials. But isn't that really what we're telling people we want to do as a party? To pair away things back to a certain pristine structure, clear out the fat, all of the things that have accumulated over the government over the last 50, 60 years. I mean to be – you can't portray this as some sort of ascetic puritanistic purging of the modern world. But I think that's one of the points that we have to make.

I mean most people – if you talk to most people, they say, what does the government spend the most money on? They'll frown and they'll scratch their head and they'll say it's probably the military. And if you say, well, no, 70 percent of the federal government consists of writing checks to somebody else. I think a lot of people would be happy if we could maybe get that down to 64, 63. They don't mean their checks sent to – Right, exactly, exactly. Those are entitlements. That's Medicare and Social Security. So those are checks sent to them. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Those are entitlements. That's Medicare and Social Security.

So those are hard things to cut. You know, conservative – I shouldn't say conservatives. Republicans. Republican – they don't like that. Well, you're absolutely right. And when it comes to cutting checks, we would like people to do that, to Ricochet. And believe me, the more you happily write that check every month or by whatever tier that you wish, the more the product will continue to improve. This is not one of those things that goes into conference and nine months later we come out with something that tweaks around the edges when people – no, this is eggheads in a huddle, as the godly Krem song said, trying to fix what you don't like and make it even better for the time to come.

No one's even thinking about Ricochet 3.0 because Ricochet 2.0 is going to rock. It already does, and it's going to get better. The very fact that you've listened to and enjoyed this podcast shows you that, you know, it's still there. It's still the thing that we love with all the folks we like. Now, we also want to thank Audible.com for sponsoring this. AudiblePodcast.com slash ricochet is where you'll get your free 30-day trial. We thank James Rose. We thank everybody at Ricochet who's been

chiming in with the 400 thousands. Oh, that thread is up to 400,000. And you guys have to read them all and read them all twice. Peter, we know you got to go. Rob, we know you have to go to yoga. And I've got to do something here and I'll figure out what it is.

Hey, thanks, everybody, for listening, and we'll see you all in the comments. Next week. Ricochet. Join the conversation. One of these days Things gonna change Your time now, baby After a while Gonna be mine, gonna be mine One of these days A morning's rolling, baby

Cry, cry It won't be long, long Things ain't gonna change Sometimes In the middle of the night I get so lonely, so lonely, so lonely Things ain't gonna change Things ain't gonna change Change, change, change

Things ain't gonna change For the home of. Shame, baby. Your time now, baby. But after a while, it's going to be my time, my time, baby. They ain't going to shame. Shame, shame, shame. Shame, shame, shame.