Transcript: I think that we have to really explain to people, and work closer to people on combating terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism – I’m getting to be a broken record on something like that – and to really go about in a far more . . . you know, concentrated manner so that we aren’t overwhelmed with it in the past. And that takes specific acts, but it also takes a general impression that, “We’re on America’s side, and America is on our side” rather than the kind of visceral hatred of at least this administration that we see in a lot of other places around the world.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well I think it’s a nice combination of lots of fields that are brought up. And there’s some attempt to have a cross-fertilization of fields. And I think that’s exceptional. But (a), you can’t beat the place. You can’t really beat the kind of dialogue it encourages not just in the sessions, but between the sessions, I think. You get the chance to meet exceptional people. And number three, a lot of it is structured in a very nice way. There’s not just one subject, but it’s a combination of subjects. And I think that’s pretty, pretty special.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: An insight on where to go; bring the future into the present; and then an ability to motivate people to really get it; and a real appreciation of symbols, and that is a tremendous gift. If I could just tell you one story. When I think of Nelson Mandela, there is about 20 episodes in his mind and life that I really . . . I think about. But the one that really got me was when Mandela was first in office, or just released . . . I don’t even know if he was president. I think he was president then. But at any rate, the Afrikaanas . . . Africans who really did resist very much . . . and it was F.W. de Clerk who really inspired them and moved them along; but they were still not comfortable with a black leader of South Africa, which I never thought would happen. Anyway, they were the worst of the Apartheid supporters. They were all rugby players and rugby fans. And there was a rugby tournament that ended up in South Africa by chance ________ by chance, unless you believe in something ________. And so the stadium basically had 100,000 screaming Africans . . . Afrikaanas there going for, cheering for the South African rugby team. And they were playing Germany, or France, or somebody like that in Johannesburg. And I’m sure there wasn’t three blacks in the crowd of 100,000. And if so they were just selling concessions or something like that. Anyway Nelson Mandela shows up that day, goes into the locker room at half time, says, “Come on. I hope you win this” and everything. And he says, “Can I wear one of your uniforms?” He puts on the uniform of the . . . of the rugby team, goes out, screams his lungs out for that. He is asked afterward, you know “How could you . . .?”

“These are our boys. These are out brothers. These are our . . .” After that time, and he said that at the time . . . After that time, they won the match. The leading team . . . I’m sure they were all ________. I shouldn’t say that; but I mean they were certainly for the white regime there. They took Mandela, put him on their shoulders, took him around, and everybody was not only shouting for the rugby victory, but the whole stadium . . . 110,000 people shouting, “Mandela! Mandela!” This was the symbolic move that said, “We’re all South Africans. These are my boys, and I want my boys to win out there. That’s a beautiful story. That is an exceptional leader. You know, I’m sure that when Mandela says, “I’m gonna go see the rugby match today,” his whole staff said, “You don’t wanna see a rugby match. Those aren’t our people. ________”

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well obviously you want to go to the Mozarts, the Beethovens, the Shakespeares . . . see what you can do to connect with those kind of minds on that, and what brings about this creative process. They may not be very illuminating about the creative process at all. They may not be creative about their creative process, but it just came to them. But that, I think, would be just phenomenal. Even phenomenal would be with Lincoln, Churchill and FDR and talk about . . . principles of leadership, if they ever thought about it. Maybe they didn’t think about it. Maybe they just did it, and they had an instinctive ability to thrive on something at the critical time. It’s so inspirational, so wonderful.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well IP just contains all innovation. So what you need to do is preserve . . . Those who are innovative get the heavenly reward for being innovative. And the founding fathers put that in the Constitution. It’s interesting. Everybody talks about the rights of people. This right, that right. I went to a graduation, and my wife got a doctorate in public health, and the speaker said, “You have a right to good health.” I was saying, “What are they talking about? They’ve lost their minds. That means I’m never going to have a tooth decay? I’m never going to have a stomach ache? I have a right to, you know, not have cancer or something? Who’s going to give me these rights?” The only right that is spelled out in the Constitution is the copyright. And what it says is those who innovate should get the reward for their innovation. For copyright, for patents, and general IP on that. And Lincoln was a big believer in this. In fact, Lincoln took out some patents. And he loved the idea of that. So when you think to yourself, “What could encourage innovation,” a lot of conventional thinkers would say, “Oh! Just for the government to spend a lot more money on R&D.” The farmer says, “Well that’s fine, but the best thing we can do to spread R&D is not to spend any money, but to provide it so that the creators get to keep what they have.”

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well I think the innovation of America is phenomenal. And what we have to do is preserve the intellectual property rights, which people are stealing around the world. And that is in terms of movies. That’s in terms of music. That’s in terms of pharmaceuticals. That’s in terms of a lot of products, because 40% of the American economy is bound up in intellectual property. That’s what we do. And it’s a great line from Henry V that we talked about this morning that fits in that, even though certainly Shakespeare was not an intellectual property attorney. It’s “All things are ready if our minds be so.” What he’s saying is when all’s said and done, the creativity and motivation of the human mind is what really produces things. And you look at that back to Israel. Israel has no resources. And all these countries . . . You know, God in His infinite wisdom took all these Arab countries and gave them oil underneath the ground. In Israel they have nothing. And Israel’s economy is certainly . . . per capita ________ is higher than Portugal’s or Spain’s these days. It contributes enormously innovation, I think because of human capital. That’s what we . . . that’s what the world lives on these days.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: First, I always thought that the spin in the public diplomacy doesn’t count for much. You just need good policies. And you need to treat them like adults and be very direct and say, “We can differ. We don’t have to . . . We can disagree without being disagreeable. And I understand your view, but let me tell you why I have this view.” Treat people with respect like that, and you win a lot of arguments like that.

Recorded on: 7/2/2007 at The Aspen Ideas Festival

Question: What should be the big issues of the 2008 election?

Transcript: I think it’s always integrity. Number two you want to motivate people. President Harry Truman said it best: “I spend all day long convincing people of things to do that they should be doing otherwise . . . they should be doing anyway.” And so that kind of conscience and moral leader on that. And number three, I would say that a president should choose good people. It’s just a thin slice of the job the he can do, or she can do by herself. And you just need top, quality people. That can count for a lot.

Question: Do you have a choice for president?

Transcript: No. But I don’t think that I, if asked in 1980, I would have said Reagan was going to be better than Carter, but he’s not going to make a great president. And I didn’t spot it. I think in 1932, if they had said there’s anybody out there to be a great president, I would have said FDR was going to be better than Hoover; but that was a great president. Walter _______ said FDR had a first rate temperament and a third rate mind. He was wrong. But no one knew the greatness that . . . Churchill was very controversial. Even in 1940, even though he had been around forever and had top jobs, he was very quirky and big mistakes, and _________ and others. And therefore, you know, it wasn’t . . . There were a lot of worries whether he would be a decent prime minister. He turned out to be magnificent. So my simple answer to you is “no”. But, you know . . .My track record . . . or anybody’s track record of knowing how great a leader is going to be . . . There’s no reason to think that Lincoln was going to do a great job. He had done nothing. He had lost a lot of elections before that time. He had given great speeches in his odd kind of way; but the idea that he was going to be the greatest leader in American history, and one of the greatest leaders in history . . . that was so farfetched. This was a guy who didn’t even have one year of schooling and felt guilty about it his whole life. Well I think that how you unleash the creativity in people and get the government out of the way of helping . . . of, you know, unleashing the value of human productivity and engineering and all that. And I think on foreign affairs, certainly improving the image of America, which has never . . . I think never been worse. But also how you confront in a realistic way the idea of terrorism and the Islamic fundamentalism and terror approach. I think it’s terrible.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Question: Where do you see Israel and US values intersecting and diverging?

Transcript: Well they certainly coincide, you know, we’re both democracies. We certainly coincide that there we basically share our values, which most Arab countries don’t. And so we feel a great kinship. I feel no kinship with Israel on expanded Israel and occupation of the West Bank, or getting more land. And Israel in its own self-interest has been, you know, just wrong on this for 40 years. There’s no way you’re gonna keep a Jewish state, democracy, and a greater Israel because the demographics are that . . . You’re gonna have two of the three of them. You’re gonna have a Jewish state and a greater Israel, but it’s not gonna be a democracy. Or you’re gonna have a democracy and a greater Israel, but it’s not gonna be a Jewish state. Or you’re gonna have a Jewish state . . . I don’t know what the third alternative is. But you can’t have all three. So they’ve really been doing a lot of damage on the occupied territories over the time.

Question: What will make things better?

Transcript: You have to wait for, hope for, develop a Palestinian government and say, “The time has come. We’re gonna stop occupation. We’re gonna give you this land. You have to behave and not have suicide bombers come into Israel __________ now. And you want your own state? You got your own state.”

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Question: What is the legacy of the Iraq war?

Transcript: You have to make sure that the intelligence community does a better job. You have to ask them more questions and really probe how much . . . how well they know something is true.

Number two, you have to have a mission goal. And the mission of a . . . someone like Tommy Franks is not just to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but it’s to leave Iraq in a situation where it’s going to be a governing state. So a bigger perspective.

And number three. It is fine in any human endeavor to take in new information and to change the equation, and to keep improving things and not just a be a cheerleader. And I think that there is really no appreciation by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Vice President Chaney, or President George W. Bush to – things are getting worse in Iraq – change what we were doing there. Take this new information and deal with the realities. They were up in the clouds.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Question: What is the legacy of George W. Bush?

Transcript: As a great disappointment

Question: Is there anything favorable?

Transcript: I’m trying to be generous and kind on this. Yes. The immediate aftermath of 9/11, he did a good job. And going into Afghanistan, I think he did a very good job. He waited enough ‘til there was an infrastructure there and the U.S. military approach. And he really kept tabs on it. And he explained it well to the American people, got the international community involved. We now have NATO now involved in Afghanistan. So I think he did a very good job on something like that. And then with Iraq, he did . . . I thought he was very brave going into Iraq. And I do think that Clinton would have done the same thing in that situation. But of course, you know, Clinton doesn’t say that now. But I do believe that after 9/11, almost any president would have done that. But I think that he will be seen as – even though he had an MBA – Masters of Business Administration from Harvard – as the least capable business administrator in the presidency. Lincoln had never ran anything. He had a two-man law firm, okay, with Herndon. Never ran an office, never did anything. He proved to be an executive that was exceptional as an executive. Here we have a president who has a Harvard MBA, and he can’t keep people accountable. He can’t appoint good people. He can’t hold them to accountability. He can’t fire them if they totally mess up. And to me, it’s inexcusable.

Question: In what way is George W. Bush like Henry V?

Transcript: Well Henry V’s father, Henry IV, was ruling the land while the kid was drinking too much, cavorting in the bars and everything like that. And so the analogy with George Herbert Walker Bush, or George W. Bush was drinking too much, cavorting in bars, horsing around like crazy, fit very well. Both young Prince Al and George W. Bush became president in a very disputed kind of way. Here we had the Florida chads. And then the two of them got into war that is still highly controversial and is being debated all these years later. So the analogy fits very well.

We were invited to a small dinner at the White House years ago for Shakespeare’s birthday. And it was a great event. I was called one day and just answered the phone. “Hi. I’m Social Secretary of the White House. The President and Mrs. Bush would like to have you at a small dinner in 10 days’ time. Can you make it?” And I said, “Well let me check the calendar.” And the Social Secretary said, “No one’s ever said that to me before.” And so I said, “Well you’re in luck. We can do it.” So we went there, and then I talked to the . . . I was talking to Tom Wolf, who was a great, great writer. And ______ president came up to us and told Tom Wolf he was just reading his book. And so we chatted about that. And then I mentioned Shakespeare, and I said to the president that there is a lot of analogies between him and Henry V. And he was very nice about it, but I got the idea that he had no idea what I was ever talking about. And I was not anxious to do the analogy because it’s not terribly flattering.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Which is quite clear. That we liberated the country; we turn it over to a small group of Iraqis, or one figurehead Iraqi like Karzai in Afghanistan; and say in six months’ time the U.N. will have an election . . . U.N. run election in here to choose the leadership. But meanwhile there is a transition towards that leadership change. And that will be Iraqi run. It won’t be __________ run. It won’t be American run. It will be Iraqi run. And that will be a transition to something like that. Meanwhile we will preserve the law and order. We will stop the looting. We will stop the, you know . . . have marshal law ‘til the looters are out of there and then allow an Iraqi government to take over.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: The main . . . the main thing was (a) you learned that there were no weapons of mass destruction. That changed the equation. You should be clear enough about it and honest to say one of the premises which we had going into there turned out not to be true. Like I say, we have to go on the basis of what you . . . the information we have at the time. So I have no apologies for what I thought at the time. But now I think something else, because the evidence was it wasn’t right on that. And number two is, I really did believe that the U.S. government was going to implement this occupation of Iraq far better than they did. It has been a miserable job of that, and it’s very, very discouraging for me.

They did as badly in Iraq as they did with Hurricane Katrina.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Two things. Number one is that there was a worldwide network of people out to harm us, and that was through Al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein had a great hatred of the United States because of the first Gulf War; but even before that would do anything to hurt the United States because it had defeated him in 1991. So ________. And secondly, that he had an active program of weapons of mass destruction so that he could really do us harm. Not just his neighbors, two of whom were invaded – Iran and Kuwait – but he could do us harm by giving the weapons of mass destruction. And historically, we had known that Osama Bin Laden wanted to do us harm. In the Clinton administration, we had the capabilities of taking him out, but we didn’t do that because we said we were unsure. And we were just, you know . . . the usual thing of government of delaying everything. And I think that after 9/11, the President of the United States wasn’t going to just bet on chance that it would turn out alright. When we learned that we should not have let Osama Bin Laden just continue on his ways, and that wasn’t gonna happen again with Saddam Hussein. And that analysis I’m very proud of. I think it’s absolutely sound. It turned out to be wrong. It turned out to be wrong because there was less of a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 or the Al Qaeda. But mostly it turned out to be wrong because, unlike everything that intelligence agencies – not just in the United States, but Jordan, France and other countries that opposed the war – told us that he did not have weapons of mass destruction. And I take it from his lieutenants and all that they were very surprised that he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, and presumed that he did. So the premises of what we went into were wrong; but we did not know that at the time, and we had no basis of knowing at the time.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well the number one issue is how do you combat an Islamic fundamentalism? And not just fundamentalism, but a totalitarian approach so that we all have to be believers, and Muslim beliefs in Allah. And otherwise we’re infidels. Otherwise, we should be slain. Otherwise we have no way to get to heaven. Otherwise we’re just cannon fodder for their beliefs. And that is a terrible threat. And it’s a terrible threat because there are people that are willing to die for that view, and willing to use weapons of mass destructions to get that view across. And that is . . . I think that’s awful.

In the past in history, when you had monsters in history – God knows we had the Hitlers, the Maos, the Stalins – they had to take over a state to really wreak their havoc. Nowadays with weapons of mass destruction, you don’t need to take over a state. To take over a state is very hard. So it keeps a lot of these psychopaths out of getting any power. But now the psychopaths like that can get weapons of mass destruction. Destruction in that sense has been privatized. And that is very frightful.

You have to defeat them.

So you make sure that . . . in two ways. Number one is a kind of military or forceful way that those who are convinced of this are defeated. They’re not reasoned with. They’re not negotiated with, but they’re just defeated. And number two is the new crop out there that show the error of the way of forcing these beliefs on other people. And the value of, you know, life. And that life is wonderful. They have to flower and prosper by themselves, and not in the basis of suicide bombing or anything like that.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well you certainly have the dispersal of information. You have the retrieval of information. You have from our teaching Shakespeare, it’s a godsend. Because Shakespeare was never meant to be read. This idea of a teacher handing a book – Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar to students – I can’t think of a worse way to treat Shakespeare. I can’t think of a way to turn off students more. It’s hard to read Shakespeare, but now we have DVDs. So you see it . . . that’s what Shakespeare said. He didn’t write books. He wrote parts for plays. He never imagined anyone would read this stuff. It’s like, you know, you coming and asking me, you know, “I really want a great, great symphony.” And I say, “Oh my gosh. I love Beethoven’s Seventh ______. Here’s the music. Go read it.” And you’d say, “Hold on. I’m supposed to go read this stuff? I mean, why not listed to it?” Oh no. Just read it and that’ll be fine. So it’s the . . . Technology gives you a way into a lot of the arts that you didn’t have before, and it’s wonderful.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well I think that, you know, there is a phase in human life that I hope is getting over with, where leaders wanted to do the social engineering. Where the idea of Communism . . . not the original idea of Communism , but the idea of Lenonism and Stallinism was the state should control what you are like. The state was more important than the people and should form what the people are. And that has been a devastating whole approach. It was the basis of Nazism. It’s the basis of Communism. It’s the basis of Islamic Fundamentalism. And it’s the opposite basis as our founding founder . . . and not just our fathers, but going back to Aristotle. And human beings have these attributes, and we should allow the flowering of the human being. And the state is there to serve us. We’re not there to serve the state. And that’s a very big deal. And it’s a very big fundamental difference . . . where their first words in the Constitution – “We the People of the United States . . .” Now these other philosophies, it’s “We the state”, or, “The state does.” And then the people . . . they form the people. They make the people. But that’s a very debilitating philosophy. So that’s generally what’s been the most important political fight in the last century.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: I’m Jewish, and was raised Jewish. And I don’t consider myself, you know, a temple-goer very often because I find it very boring, to tell you the truth. But then when you are in nature – when you’re hiking in the great outdoors in Colorado, which we do a lot – you just feel that, “Oh my gosh. This is so magnificent.” You feel a different dimension. And with me, it’s more when you think about back to basics. You think about how wonderful Ron Reagan was as a leader. You think about how mystical it was, and how wonderful it was that we had a Churchill come along at the time we did; and FDR come along when he did. I read about six books on Lincoln over the last year. I have two full shelves on Lincoln. I think, “My gosh! Where did this come from?” And then comes . . . To me the ultimate is, of course, Shakespeare. How could somebody, you know, who had a seventh grade education give us the greatest works that I think the human mind has ever come up with? And there just cannot be human mind that produced this. There has to be something else.

Just to give you one fact, in 1599, Shakespeare wrote . . . or probably finished, but wrote the bulk of Hamlet, Henry V, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It. Now come on! That’s not a human product, those four things. Any one of the four – had they done nothing else – he would be very well known in history.

Margaret Mitchell wrote one book in her life, “Gone With the Wind”. It was a hell of a book. It is a hell of a book. Shakespeare would have written eight of those four plays out of his 37 in a whole lifetime. And I would have said, “My gosh! He’s a genius! He’s fantastic.” But to crank out those four in one . . . in one year , it comes from somewhere else. It comes from somewhere else.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: I think that it’s more of a Greek philosophy that you have a ________. You have a lot in life. And Aristotle taught us that you take your _______ and you kind of realize where it is, and you try to fill it up as much as you can. And Aristotle also taught a very good lesson, that people like naturally . . . there’s something inherent about human beings about wanting to perfect whatever you do. And he tries to understand why this is, but he doesn’t get at it. And he says, “It’s clear. People like to perfect what they do.”

Now the second is far more . . . even more insightful. And that is people like to perfect complicated subjects more than easy subjects. So in a very simple analogy, no one becomes a fanatic on checkers. I’ve never seen somebody say, “Oh my gosh. I love checkers. I just think of checkers all the time.” It’s a simple game. But chess, you find lots of fanatics in chess. Their whole life revolves around chess. Why? Because chess is complicated. And so there you . . . to perfect it, it takes a lot of effort. So I think that there is a great attraction to taking something hard like Shakespeare, or like understanding the arts, and try to perfect that rather than take something simple and perfecting that. That’s why musicians are so stretched because, you know, it’s very hard to be a very good musician. Anybody in the arts has stressed a lot . . . stretched a lot because it’s complicated. And Aristotle would tell you that’s what makes it so much fun. And it makes it very frustrating because there’s not much margin for error.

Recorded on: 7/2/07

Transcript: Well I’m asked that all the time. And it’s generally the play I’m about to go see. But in terms of intellect, no doubt it’s Hamlet. Hamlet is a mystery. And every year or so, I read two or three books about Hamlet. Between 1890 and 1920, there were 2,700 articles and books written only about Hamlet, okay? And then after World War II, there was an explosion of Hamlet scholarship and _______ because a disciple of Freud actually, Earnest Jones, wrote a book about how Hamlet really suffered from the edifice conflict. So there’s all kinds of new stuff on Hamlet. So to figure out what happens in Hamlet, how it works, is unending possibilities, okay? So every time I see Hamlet . . . I just saw Hamlet two weeks ago for probably the 25th time on the stage, and I’ve taught it for whole semesters in graduate school. Every time I see it, there’s a new question that comes up, and a new relationship I didn’t see before. So in terms of intellect, do you want a high step workout for what’s going on here, what happens in Hamlet? And on one level it’s very simple. That’s why 14 year old kids can see Glenn Close and . . . what’s that Australian actor doing Hamlet in a movie? And so . . .

Mel Gibson. That’s right. And they can understand very easily what . . . On one level, the plot of Hamlet is a simple lot. And . . . but still you can see it, and teach it, and feel it, and watch it . . . You know, I’ve been obsessed with Hamlet now for 30 years, and really there’s mysteries in that. There’s things that you never saw before. There’s new stuff to learn from. So I think for the next 30 years, my journey of Hamlet will continue, I bet. So in terms of intellect, there is nothing like Hamlet. It’s the biggest workout in the world.

In terms of emotion, there’s nothing like King Lear. I mean the scenes in King Lear just rip you apart. And it’s . . . I have seen four live King Lear versions this year. Next month in Utah we’re gonna see the fifth. And then I’m gonna go to Brooklyn in September and see Ian Maclaren, who is sensational doing King Lear. And I saw Kevin Cline earlier this year. And Denver School of Performing Center, and was on the two-day panel of King Lear. And so in terms of emotion, there’s no phenomenon like King Lear.

Recorded on: 7/2/07